Emotionally Based School Avoidance

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (or EBSA) can be very challenging for young people and their families. There are no easy solutions and it can take many years of the right support to enable young people to engage with a school setting.

Reasons for EBSA

There are a range of reasons why young people can feel unable to attend school. In most cases this presents as a feeling of anxiety when it comes to event thinking of attending a school, or something associated with going to school.

These anxious are fearful thoughts can be overwhelming. Not feeling able to attend school is not the same as not wanting to go to school. The anxiety is a very significant barrier that the young person is experiencing.

All young people have the right to a good education. This might be at a traditional school, it could be at an alternative approach independent school or it might be something different.

Support for young people with EBSA

The school has a dedicated EBSA programme led by highly trained specialist staff.

The programme has a tiered approach to ensure that students receive an appropriate amount of support depending on where they are in their school journey.

Students are paired with a dedicated Learning Coach. Their Learning Coach will be with them every step of the way, from leaving the house to eventually (but only when the time is right) attending school. All of our Learning Coaches are trained and qualified through the National Autistic Society (NAS), have BILD accredited de-escalation and support training and work closely with SaLT and OT team members. They devise highly individualised engagement programmes based around the student's interests through a strong dialgoue with parents who ultimately know their children best.

Learning Coaches can accompany therapists to visit students at home and they can provide 1-1 learning as well as specialist ICT resources to able to remotely engage with an age appropriate classroom.

Every student's pathway and journey is supported and reviewed by a multi-disciplinary team on a fortnightly basis.

Learning Coaches support young people to have ever-inreasing engagement in learning and ever growing indepedence on a carefully structured and curated journey to re-engage with school and learning.