SEMH (Social, Emotional, and Mental Health)
High-Quality Teaching and Inclusive Provision for meeting SEMH needs:
- Develop a whole-setting approach to supporting CYP with SEMH needs by:
- Creating a positive, inclusive climate with an emphasis on strong relationships, belonging, and valuing diversity
- Actively gathering and valuing CYP and family voice to inform provision
- Ensuring practitioners/ teachers have a strong understanding of SEMH, ADHD, worry, and internalising/externalising needs to support with early identification of needs
- Use a range of universal strategies within the learning environment to support SEMH needs including:
- Behaviour-specific praise
- Instructional choice - allowing CYP to choose tasks, materials, or formats to increase engagement.
- High-engagement teaching
- Implementing routines that reduce cognitive load. More information about supporting CYP's cognitive load can be found in the Cognition and Learning section.
- Ensure there is a consistent, setting-wide approach for supporting CYP with their behaviour (e.g. trauma-informed approaches, to include restorative conversations, and emotion coaching).
- Use a range of High-Quality Teaching strategies within the learning environment to support children's executive functioning (e.g. explicit teaching, metacognition, scaffolding and modelling, task sequencing, memory strategies, peer-mediated learning). More information can be found in Cognition and Learning.
- Collaborate with families to ensure consistency in rules, routines and expectations across home and setting contexts.
- Consider advice and guidance to support provision planning (e.g. Benjamin Foundation, MAP Norfolk Norfolk Steps, EPSS).
- Further advice and guidance is available through Just One Norfolk.
- Seek support from Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) In Schools.
- Signpost CYP aged 10-18 to access Kooth.
- More information for supporting CYP with SEMH needs can be found here:
Relationships
The CYP does not have a sense of belonging compared to typically developing peers. This may present as appearing unhappy or isolated; having differences in social skills including building and maintaining reciprocal relationships; or have a negative impact on their positive engagement with learning and/or attendance.
Emotional Understanding
The CYP has limited understanding of their emotions and/ or how to process them compared to typically developing peers, which can present as dysregulation and distress.
Confidence
The CYP has low confidence and self-belief which impacts their engagement with learning opportunities and/ or their relationships with others.
Worry
The CYP experiences low-mood, worry, stress and / or depression which can present as dysregulation and distress (this could include self-injurious behaviours). This may impact their engagement with learning opportunities and/ or their relationships with others.
Concentration
The CYP has differences in their levels of concentration compared to typically developing peers which may impact their engagement with learning opportunities and/ or their relationships with others. This may present as impulsivity or hyperactivity.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
The CYP has experienced ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) which trigger a trauma response within the learning environment and impact on their engagement with learning opportunities and/ or their relationship with others.
Attachment
The CYP presents with connection-seeking behaviour more than typically developing peers (e.g. seeks connection that appears unrelated to the situation compared to typically developing peers; hovers near adults; interrupts to seek validation; displays clinginess; displays controlling behaviours; and/or worry).
Consequential Understanding
The CYP appears to have difficulty connecting their actions with consequences as well as accepting responsibilities for their actions compared to typically developing peers.
Boundaries
The CYP has differences in understanding rules, routines or boundaries compared to typically developing peers, which may present in externalised or internalised behaviours.
