Mental Health and Well Being

Social, Emotional, Mental Health and Well-Being

What is Social, Emotional, Mental Health and Well-Being?
‘Children and young people may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties which manifest themselves in many ways. These may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. Other children and young people may have disorders such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder or attachment disorder.’

Code of Practice

What do we do to support children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs?
At Lutley, we take mental health and well-being seriously. We have a ‘Well-Being’ team of practitioners that work with the children to promote their social, emotional and mental Health. Within this team there is a member of the Senior Leadership Team (Head of Inclusion), our Family Liaison Officer and a two Teaching Assistants who are all experienced in supporting children with a range of needs. Two of the practitioners are Mental Health First-Aiders.

Support that children receive follows a three-tiered graduated response.

Wave 1: Quality First Teaching
As part of quality first teaching for all children, we recognise the importance of teaching our young people to achieve a healthy mind and body. Curriculum subjects which support the children with this are Science, Physical Education (P.E), Personal, Social Health Education and Citizenship Curriculum (PSHE&C), Food Technology, R.E, teaching through class and school assemblies, Rights Respecting Schools and Forest School.

Wave 2: Short term Individual or Small Group support
It may be that we notice that a child is acting in a way that is not usual for them or it may be that a child is experiencing a short-term difficulty which they need support with. Parents may also alert us to the fact that their child is going through a difficult time.

Examples of this could be that a child:

• Is finding it difficult to make friends
• Is finding it difficult to work effectively with others or is making poor choices linked to our behaviour charter
• Has moved from a different school/setting and is finding it hard to settle into our school
• Has experienced a family bereavement/ loss of a pet
• It could also be that a class is finding it hard to ‘gel’ together

At this point, we would provide something that is additional to, or different from quality first teaching for a short time. At this point, we would not necessarily define a child as having a special educational need. They may need some additional support through an intervention for a short time. School staff will speak to parents about this before a short intervention begins (See Policy for Interventions).

Support for a child may be:

• setting up a circle of friends for the child
• organising playground buddies to support the child at lunchtimes and breaktimes
• access to our lunch club
• supporting the child to make good choices through short term interventions such as working through actions and pinpointing when the child’s behaviour should have changed and what they will do next time (back-chaining)
• specific work on acceptance and tolerance of faith, creed and race
• ensuring that there is a key adult for the child to check-in with by way of a meet and greet each morning and at various other times during the week
• a small group intervention to develop social skills or support making friends
• whole class massage, following the ‘Massage in Schools Programme’

In some instances, a Boxall Profile will be completed to support staff to meet the needs of individual children. You can find out more about the Boxall Profile, you can read here https://new.boxallprofile.org/

Monitoring Progress at Wave 2
We monitor the children’s progress on individual or small group interventions in a range of ways at this point. Ways of monitoring may be:

• Discussion with parents along with class teacher and the child
• observing how the child is coping or observing friendships over a short period of time
• measuring on entry and exit data from an intervention

If children make good progress over the period of intervention, then the intervention will end and support for the child will return to Wave 1 – Quality First Teaching. Parents will always be kept informed regarding these decisions.

Wave 3 Individualised Support
Sometimes, children need more support over a longer period. It is probable that a child would be identified as having special educational needs at this point as likelihood would be that the child’s academic progress would be impacted by their social, emotional, mental health needs.
This would be discussed with parents.

Possible 1-1 strategies could be as follows:

• access to our lunch club
• staff would complete a Boxall Profile and strategies from this would be implemented in class and during 1-1 intervention time
• it is possible that a child may have an individualised behaviour plan (IBP) to monitor behaviour and work on personal targets (see Behaviour Policy)
• involvement of external agencies such as, School Nurse, Educational Psychologist (E.P) and/ or Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHs). School staff would work hard to implement class strategies or interventions suggested by these professionals

Monitoring Progress at Wave 3
We monitor the impact of what has been put in place in a variety of ways as necessary. These may include:

• Using the Boxall profile to measure progress
• ongoing discussions with teachers and parents
• external agency reports and guidance will indicate the impact of interventions and application of strategies put in place in class
• measuring the number of incidences of poor behaviour choices to see if these have been reduced

Support for Families
In addition, we can offer family intervention through Early Help. Families can seek support due to a variety of issues including:

• poor physical and mental health
• domestic violence
• substance misuse
• lack of basic and life skills
• child’s behavioural problems
• difficulties sleeping

Our Family Liaison Officer will work with both parents and children in a variety of ways to support them through identified issues using outside support as appropriate.