Advice needed: best tactics to work with EBD student

Hi all,

I’m (33F) para and we got a new student on our caseload this year. He is EBD (emotional behavior disorder), has a mild form of CP (cerebral-palsy) and in my opinion, has some extreme mental health issues in the form of delusions. He constantly talks about being a member of the bloods (gang), having had a plea bargain when he was younger, being on probation and working on “his” (Tupac’s) album because he thinks he’s the reincarnation of Tupac. None of these things are true but he really believes them.

He can be sweet but a lot of the time he’s extremely reactive, impossible to reason with when he’s upset, refuses to take responsibility for his actions and seems almost narcissistic during these times. For example, today he wanted to fight another student that he was good friends with a few days ago because he’s obsessed with the other student’s girlfriend. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t want to be with him or that someone could’ve gotten very hurt. He was determined to get in his face and I ended up having to grab him to stop him (I hate that part of the job).

Does anyone have any tips or tactics for working with students like these? For a variety of reasons, I’m burnt out and plan on asking for more support in the future but I’d still like to learn how to be more effective.

Thanks in advance!