Social, Emotional and Mental Health
Social, emotional and mental health needs are a type of special educational needs in which children/young people have difficulties in managing their emotions and behaviour. They often show inappropriate responses and feelings to situations.
WHAT IS OUR UNIVERSAL OFFER FOR SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH?
Through quality first teaching, we teach children:
- That there is a normal range of emotions (e.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, nervousness) and scale of emotions that all humans experience in relation to different experiences and situations.
- How to recognise and talk about their emotions, including having a varied vocabulary of words to use when talking about their own and others’ feelings.
- How to judge whether what they are feeling and how they are behaving is appropriate and proportionate.
WHAT IS OUR TARGETED OFFER FOR SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH?
Where necessary we use the Thive profile and in-built assessment to help us identify a child's barrier to learning.
We use the following strategies and interventions:
- Friendship groups
- Drawing and talking therapy
- Comic strip conversations
- Zones of regulation (5-point scale)
- Time to talk
- Social communication fix programme
- Wise behaviour programme (St Joes)
- Social stories
- Thrive
- Friendship formula
WHAT IS OUR SPECIALIST OFFER FOR SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH?
There are times when we feel a child / family may need specialist support. At such times we may make a referral to one of the following agencies. This is always in discussion with the parent(s) / carer(s) first. We will continue to support at a targeted level in school.
- Referrals to the Specialist Education Service
- Referrals to school nurse
- Referrals to Educational Welfare Officer
- Referrals to the CYPS
- Referrals to emotional wellbeing hub or GP
Some useful resources and links:
