1. Czone
  2. Health and wellbeing
  3. Mental health and emotional wellbeing (MHEW)
  4. Emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA) toolkit
  5. EBSA toolkit

EBSA toolkit

10. Action planning and intervention

Plan

Effective planning should include:

  • Views from the Child and Family: Consider what the child and their family think and need.

  • Input from School Staff: Use information from adults who work with the child.

  • Multiagency Approach: Make sure to include other services in the planning if applicable.

Creating a plan based on different viewpoints helps everyone understand the problem and set shared goals. These goals can guide the action and support plans. This should be flexible and follow the child as they move between different settings.

For more details on creating action plans, use the links provided to find helpful information.

Do

To tackle EBSA effectively:

  • Use Assessment Info: Base your strategies on what you learned from talking with the child, their family, and school staff.

  • Build on Strengths and Fix Problems: Create plans that use the child’s strengths and help with their challenges.

This makes the support more focused and effective.

Review

Resolving EBSA can take time. It needs a partnership approach. Celebrate success no matter how small! Reviewing approaches at all levels regularly will help to revise and develop support. You may have made changes to whole school setting  approaches so a check in with your audit might be advisable at this stage.  

Looking with the children and young people at their anxiety levels assessed through scaling or another assessment method could be a rewarding way of measuring progress or simply a pointer to adapt a plan or intervention. Differences in responses on individual items on an assessment measure before and after intervention may indicate positive change.  

There should be regular set dates for reviewing how any action or wellbeing support plan is progressing. It is essential that the young people and parents/carers are actively involved in all parts of the process, including the review. 

The review should identify and celebrate any progress made, and review whether further information has come to light to further inform next steps. These reviews may include; 

  • The voice of the child/young person – what they enjoyed / valued, what was difficult and needs changing 
  • Some of the ‘assess’ activities with the young person would be helpful to review to see what progress has been made
  • A review of data since plans were first implemented 
  • Consolidating and maintaining the current support plan 
  • Setting new outcomes, actions, and roles 
  • Identifying that further consultation with other agencies needs to occur which may, if necessary, lead to onward referral to other services 
  • Signposting to other sources of support

Resources


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