EBSNA Hub Approach

We offer a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to supporting schools in understanding, addressing and preventing Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance (EBSNA). We provide schools with:

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1. Expert Knowledge & Training – Helping schools understand the causes and presentations of EBSNA.

2. Strategic Implementation – Equipping schools with a curated toolkit of national strategies aligned with the WARMTH framework.

3. Holistic Support – Holding a team approach around the child, family, and school to rebuild relationships and understanding.

4. Flexible & Resilient School Responses – Supporting schools to navigate accountability and policy demands while maintaining an inclusive, student-centered focus.

5. Sustained Engagement & Reintegration – Easing the journey back into school for young people while helping schools maintain attendance and engagement for all students.

 

We can offer a programme of support around individual cases, deliver staff training and/or work with the school to implement whole school development.

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Our "Tenacious Schools" model reinforces a commitment to balancing policy demands with student well-being, ultimately reducing the prevalence of EBSNA and fostering thriving school communities.

 

Our approach to individual cases puts the child/ young person’s needs and future aspirations central to provision.

 

• It ensures a non-blame approach, collaborating with families and schools towards the best interests of the young person. This requires trust, positive regard and flexibility by all parties.

• The EBSNA education team collaborates as part of a multidisciplinary team to support each child, family and school through advice and face to face provision for all parties.​

• Often, in ESBNA cases, a sense of being misunderstood has arisen which can lead to breakdown in communication and relationships. Facilitating understanding between all and building these relationships back are fundamental to ensuring a child/young person can return to school.

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The beginnings of a new positive approach advocated by the Northwest EBSNA Interest Group follows 4 principles of design:

1. Children and young people are internally driven to do well. Changing from the idea of “adults need to shape young people into who they need to be” to “young people are internally driven to do well, and we need to focus on changing the social and physical environment, to enable young people to use their internal drives to meet their full potential”

2. The implied ‘standard pathway’ that works for the many is unproven. Evidence suggests that if some young people are struggling with the “standard pathway”, this doesn’t mean it is just those with identified needs who require an adapted pathway. The number of young people it isn’t working for is increasing, with over 21% of young people currently persistently absent from school (Department for Education, 2023

3. The right support, in the right place, at the right time: It is important to recognise that if a young person is struggling to attend school, the onus to change should not be on them.

4. Rethinking the purpose of education: ‘Education is the sum of everything a person learns that supports them towards living a satisfying and meaningful life’

‘Barriers to education’, April 2024 Progress Report

 

This new approach asks schools to reach, engage and build success for all young people by using the WARMTH Framework, details of which are found in the prevention section.The Tenacious Schools framework, with many others also found in the prevention section, offers tools to enact this change . And so while we have this toolkit to support us, the national landscape is changing and offers an opportunity to rethink and redesign the educational landscape to better engage all our students.