4 Key Strategies For Supporting Emotionally Based School Avoidance

Introduction

School teachers understand the importance of a positive and supportive learning environment. However, there are times when students experience challenges that lead to emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA), commonly known as school refusal or persistent absenteeism. This phenomenon can be complex and multifaceted, impacting a child's social, emotional, and academic development. In this article, we will explore ten key strategies to engage and support students who are experiencing EBSA, fostering a sense of belonging and well-being within the school community.

Understanding Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA)

EBSA refers to a child or young person experiencing persistent emotional or psychological distress when at school, often then leading to an understandable and natural coping strategy to avoid / refuse attending school. It is essential to differentiate EBSA from simple truancy, as EBSA is rooted in anxiety or other emotional challenges that impact a child's ability to cope with the school environment. Similarly, there is a move away from the term ‘School Refusal’ since this indicates that there is simple choice to not attend school. By recognising these underlying emotional factors, we can develop a comprehensive approach to address and support these students. In doing so, we’re primarily helping them to feel safe and secure in school, with any increases in attendance simply being enabled by improved wellbeing in school.

Strategy 1: Offer Individualised Support

Each CYP is their own person, with their own experiences, fears, anxieties… and strengths and resilience factors. Understanding them personally means we can provide individualised support tailored to the unique needs of each student experiencing EBSA. Empowering the CYP to make decisions throughout is key. Without this, they are likely to continue to feel that everything is done ‘to them’, rather than ‘for them’, and not feel in control (see Sarah’s comment below).

How to Start:

• Talk. Simply, open, non-judgemental, curious conversations. Often this is the starting point to build trust and for them to feel understood. Without this, it’s hard to get much further.
• Use resources like the School / College Wellbeing Cards by Dr Jerricah Holder which helps to explore a range of different areas and open up conversations as to what’s important for the CYP.
• Use an assessment tool like the EBSA Horizons Risk and Resilience Questionnaire to gain perspectives from the CYP, Teachers and Parents. This gives a broad overview of areas of strength and need.
• Use scaling. Scaling different situations from 1-10 can really help to compare and understand what about different places and situations leads to higher levels of anxiety.
• Collaboratively develop measurable goals with the student, focusing on managing emotions, building resilience, and engaging in education.
• Regularly review and adjust interventions based on the student's progress and changing needs.

Quote:

"What made the difference? Mrs Parsons. Yeah, she really helped me to understand why I was anxious, and we came up with what she called the ‘menu’ of strategies for me to choose from. I felt in control, and had the choice of what I wanted to help me."

- Sarah, 14

Strategy 2: Develop a Collaborative Approach

Establishing a collaborative approach between school staff, parents, other professionals and the student themselves provides a support network around the CYP. This enables insights from different perspectives and, as long as the aim is clear that it’s around their wellbeing and not attendance, helps them to feel a network of support surrounding them. This is also important to ensure a consistent approach which is holistic and sustainable.

How to Start:

• Schedule regular meetings together to talk through and understand the challenges being faced. Make sure the CYP feels heard and understood. Start with small step solutions which can be consistently in place to build trust.
• Share relevant information and insights among staff to ensure a unified approach.
• Establish open and honest communication channels with parents to foster collaboration and understanding. See the Checklist for Attendance Tracking and Support  from EBSA Horizons.

Quote:

"For the first time, it was like everyone started to get it, get me. Knowing that there wasn’t the pressure to attend school really helped me to actually start to think about what could change to make school better. It gave me hope, yeah hope, that things could get better."

- Maya, 14

Strategy 3: Build Resilience and Self-esteem

Resilience generally refers to our capacity to manage challenges or stresses in the face of some adversity. This is something we may have ‘within us’, but it’s based on a broad range of different factors around us. If we’re able to build resilience and self-esteem in students experiencing EBSA, we can empower them to have a greater level of emotional capacity to overcome challenges and feel stronger for this.

How to Start:

• Genuinely identify personal strengths to nurture. This isn’t about token gestures, but helping them to find a true strength or something they can become passionate about which helps to provide at least one area of their life they feel good about, and can act as a template for how to achieve success in something. While personal to each CYP, this is powerful at building self-esteem.
• Develop a social network. If you draw out 3 concentric circles, we can often place people in our lives within these depending on how close we are to them (i.e. we may have immediate family and closest of friends in the middle, other friends and relatives in the central, and other people we know in the outer circle). Do this with CYP experiencing EBSA, and we often see the gaps which leave them feeling socially isolated / insecure, especially within school. From here, we can especially explore how we can support in building closer friendships, and to develop a close relationship with at least one key adult in school (two of the biggest resilience factors there are)
• Building and nurturing a growth mindset. This is one in which there is the self-belief in being able to get better at something as a result of practice and effort (rather than externalising control that they are simply either good or not good at something). This involves valuing effort, as well as valuing making and learning from mistakes (academically or socially), and genuinely feeling that setbacks are opportunities for growth and learning. It is not a mindset which is created over night, or an ‘all or nothing’ mindset to achieve, but is something which can have a profound impact on mental health as well as rate of learning the closer we get to it.
• Support them to ‘give back’. Acts of kindness may seem like an altruistic endeavour, but what is gained from doing things from others build a sense of competence, acceptance and feeling wanted. Supporting younger children in different areas, or volunteering to be a part of something can especially be helpful with this in school.

Quote:

"We set Athraa up with mentoring younger students in maths, something she was really good at. We also got her involved in the drama and art clubs, which saw her not only feel good about herself, but also made new friendships. She’s so much more confident in class, and when I see her around school. She genuinely seems to be enjoying school now."

– Mrs Nolan, Pastoral Lead

Strategy 4: Implement a Gradual Return-to-School Plan

If we set the expectations to high too fast, the pressure for the CYP to be in school adds to their anxiety and can present as an additional barrier to overcome. Our aim is to facilitate a gradual and supportive return to school for students experiencing EBSA / school refusal, which eases their transition and is consistently manageable (i.e. not just for one day, but this at a level which is sustainable for the CYP at that time).

How to Start:

• Collaborate with the student, parents, and professionals to develop an individualised reintegration plan.
• Begin with short, structured visits which the student feels comfortable and confident with e.g. looking at their timetable to include their ‘best’ lessons
• Try to accommodate to stay over lunch or break times as much as possible to build their social relationships with peers (a key source of resilience in school).
• Gradually and at the CYP’s own pace, increase the options to attend for more lessons.
• Scale with the CYP out of 10 how high their anxiety would be in different situations. If their anxiety is above a 6/10, this is not likely to be sustainable. Lower than this then, with additional support, the experiences they have often lead to increased confidence over time.
• Provide additional support, such as a buddy or mentor, to accompany the student during the initial stages of their return.

Quote:

"Having the teachers allow me to go back into school for just some lessons made a big difference. I could do that. I couldn’t and wouldn’t have done the whole day, but I could do PE, Art and History. I just felt more alright over time, and wanted to get back into more lessons."

- Liam, 13

Conclusion

Emotionally based school avoidance can lead to persistent absenteeism and significantly impact a child's well-being and educational journey, and negatively influence their lives. While there are a lot of assessments, approaches, and tools available from comprehensive courses like EBSA Horizons, hopefully the above can enable positive change for some of your students. Sometimes just the simplest of conversations and strategies can make a big difference and start to enable positive change in the CYP’s wellbeing.

EBSA Horizons School Staff Training

EBSA Horizons School Training is a comprehensive CPD course for School Staff, which develops understanding and skills (alongside a lot of resources) to support children and young people experiencing difficulties attending school. This course has been updated for 2023 with a new chapter -

Chapter 6:  The Systemic Change Model of EBSA

Find out more about EBSA Horizons School Training here and register your interest to receive 3 FREE resources from this course.

EBSA Horizons Educational Psychologist CPD

EBSA Horizons is a comprehensive CPD course for EPs, which develops understanding and skills (alongside a lot of resources) to support children and young people experiencing difficulties attending school. This course has been recently updated for 2023 with two new chapters -

Chapter 6:  Supporting Autistic CYP Experiencing EBSA

Chapter 7:  Entrenched EBSA

Find out more about EBSA Horizons here and register your interest to receive 3 FREE resources from this course.