Author: Eoin Keane

Parents Plus Information

Parents Plus programmes support parents/carers of children aged 2-6. The 8-week practical programme draws on parents’ strengths. There is lots of great opportunities to share tips and learn new strategies. You can find information about this year’s Early Level Parents Plus programmes here.

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Those affected by war and conflict or seeking refuge

Scottish Government (2022). Ukraine Psychological Wellbeing Advice Pack – Guidance for Services. 

Beacon House (2022). Information for families seeking refuge from war or conflict in their home country. (Available in English, Russian Ukrainian)

Children who have parents in the Armed Forces – Forces Children’s Education website;  Forces Children’s Education (November 2021). Supporting Armed forces families in Scotland: Teacher Toolkit.

Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS) (2022). Supporting child refugees and their families.

Transgender

Supporting transgender young people in Scottish schools guidance (Scottish Government, August 2021)

LGBT Youth Scotland

Mermaids website

 

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Selective Mutism

The Educational Psychology Services of Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen City Council produced guidance with health partners that we recommend for school based practitioners who work with children who have or may have selective mutism.

Self Regulation

Sensory Barriers to Learning

Severe and Complex Learning Needs

CALL Scotland (Communication, Access, Literacy & Learning) based at the University of Edinburgh have a range of materials to help children and young people across Scotland to overcome disability and barriers to learning including assisting with:

Communication Matters has access to resources, research and a support forum for practitioners who support learners with significant communication needs, including those who use alternative and augmentative communication approaches.

Sexualised Behaviour – Guidance

Social Skills

Solution Oriented Approaches

Speech and Language Therapy Service

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Occupational Therapy Service

Offending

Supporting learners who offend or are at risk of offending

Disclosure: What educational practitioners should know

Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice website including updates on age of criminal responsibility 

Online safety

Education Scotland (2022). Cyber First Aid Box (Digilearn). The site will ask a series of questions to help families determine the best response to a harmful online incident, including how to approach the subject with children & young people, possible solutions, and the first steps to recovering from it.

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Care experienced children and young people

The Independent Care Review (2020) made a number of recommendations, generated The Promise is a commitment to change and re-organise how Scotland thinks, plans and prioritises for children and their families (based on foundations at the heart of this change). ‘Children must be listened to and meaningfully and appropriately involved in decision-making about their care, with all those involved properly listening and responding to what children want and need. There must be a compassionate, caring decision- making culture focused on children and those they trust’                      Useful infographics

The Children’s Hearing: What practitioners should know – This resource provides educational practitioners with information about the Children’s Hearing System and resources to help them more effectively support children and families going through this experience.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) (2022) have updated information materials about the role of the Reporter

Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care & Protection (CELCIS) Education Forum  

Children’s and Young People’s Voices

Falkirk Council Inclusion and Wellbeing Service have produced a booklet to assist conversations with children about the wellbeing indicators and gather their views.

Highland Council (2020) have produced Tools for Gathering the Views of Children and Young People.

Children in Scotland (2022) is working with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government to build knowledge and influence practice development around support for young people with additional support needs in an education setting. Engagement pack available and information about contributing to the project.

Scottish Government (2020) collated access to children and young people’s views, ideas and experiences that have been gathered on a range of topics. If you are planning to engage with children and young people, check for previous engagement on that topic and look at this previous engagement to assist you in considering the different methods that could be used.

NSPCC Learning (2015). Solution-focused practice toolkit. The toolkit provides inspiration for worksheets and activities to use, adapt or devise for the children and young people you work with. The worksheets and activities are designed to be used with children and young people aged 5-19 years old. Ideally for practitioners who already have some training in solution-focused practice.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)

Forth Valley Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service includes CAMHS contact details, information about coming to CAMHS, sources of advice for parents & carers and information about Healios Assessment Services.

ThisMayHelp (NHS) website has a short video and advice called ‘How to prepare for your child’s first CAMHS appointment’

Child Protection

Falkirk Council and Forth Valley child protection policies, procedures & guidelines

Education Scotland have provided Domestic abuse information for educators.

Domestic abuse learning resource for professionals –  awareness-raising resource serves as an introduction to domestic abuse and coercive control. The tool provides an overview of the main considerations when responding to domestic abuse, however it does not replace specialist domestic abuse training.

See also sections below: Nurture, Trauma and Adversity & Risk Assessment and Management

Children’s Rights

Education Scotland (2023). Recognising and realising children’s rights: A professional learning resource to promote self-evaluation and improvement planning.

Scottish Government/Parents Club & UNICEF. Your Guide to Children’s Rights and the united nations convention on the rights of the child: A booklet for parents, carers and family members.

Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Services

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Falkirk Community Mental Health and Wellbeing  (glowscotland.org.uk)

Critical incidents in school communities

UK Trauma Council and Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families have provided various resources for events that are potentially traumatic and affects a large part or whole of an educational community. The five key principles that can help recovery are safe, calm, connected, in control, hopeful. There are resources for supporting children and adults. The resources are informed by research and best practice to provide a compassionate response to assist children and adults to cope.

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Families

Cost of Living – Scottish Government (2022) launched a one-stop website which provides information on a range of cost-of-living topics. This includes information on benefits and income, debt, health and wellbeing, advice for businesses, and has dedicated sections for children and families, and older or disabled people. Cost of living crisis – Cost of Living Support Scotland Young Scot also have a webpage with information on new offers, tips on saving money, benefits and links to support.  Coping With the Cost Crisis | Young Scot

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

The main advise is to be confident in the schools assessment of teaching and learning with additional support needs; use the positive behaviour and relationship based practices of the school and consider specific targeted intervention based on assessment. This is a series of helpful guides from the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome-UK.

Forth Valley Neurodevelopmental Difficulties (NDD) Assessment Pathway

Guidance for Local Authority Staff across Forth Valley (2023) Assessment Requests Guidance and information on Supporting referrals to the Forth Valley NDD pathway and Do’s and Don’ts to making an NDD referral (posters).

Forth Valley Practitioner Pages

The Practitioner Pages are an online resource bank for multi-agency staff who work with children, young people, adults and families across Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Stirling. On the pages you will find information on Corporate Parenting, Community Planning, Child Protection, Adult Support and Protection, Gender Based Violence, Substance Use Support, MAPPA, GIRFEC and Learning & Development.

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Reading at home

Shared reading is a great way to develop children’s language and communication and to boost their reading skills. The Education Endowment Foundation have 7 top tips to support reading at home. This is also available in the following languages: Bengali, Lithuanian, Polish, Punjabi and Urdu. You can access the translations here.

Relationships and Behaviour

Behaviour in children is a product of their social and emotional development. Social development depends on the growth in our relationships with others. Emotional development happens in the context of positive social relationships with trusted and consistent adults. The evidence in school and early years education is that positive behaviour is best promoted through:

  1. A whole school approach using relationship based practice
  2. A partnership approach with parents
  3. All staff being clear and consistent in the use of these positive approaches and what to do when behaviour is less positive

Falkirk EPS has developed some key resources for school leaders and staff. The following guide is a key document to allow school practitioners to share, discuss and collaborate on the agreed approaches. This has been newly developed in 2025 as part of a three year strategic plan for Falkirk.

 

Promoting Relationships and Behaviour in Falkirk Schools (Jan 2025)

 

Additional resources that have been developed are provided below. Please also consider what training and development work would be helpful and have a look at CPD manager, our online training offers and our practitioners blog within the A-Z.

Resources to accompany the Understanding Behaviour in Context training

Understanding behaviour PDF handout

Social and Emotional Development in Childhood

Guide to development through toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence covering the domains of: emotional awareness, recognition & regulation; social skills; relationships, self-identity and self-esteem.  Click on image to access and accompanying document.

Theory of Mind

Theory of mind is the ability to differentiate and attribute thoughts, desires, beliefs, emotions intents and knowledge to the self and others. When children develop Theory of Mind, they can understand that others may think differently to themselves. They are also able to begin to discriminate between what is real and what is not real as they begin to understand deception and lying. There is a widely agreed sequence of the development of Theory of Mind in which children develop skills towards understanding others as having different mental states and that they are their own agents, separate to others. Click on image to access.

Additional Resources

Resources for supporting the social, emotional and behavioural development of primary-aged children (click for access)

Relationships and Behaviour – Education Scotland

Education Scotland has produced a range of materials which are designed to provide research, guidance, support, professional learning, exemplification and advice to practitioners in education for improving relationships and behaviour within their context – Improving relationships and behaviour.

Resilience

The Journey: Adventures in Resilience a resource from Education Scotland written for 13-16year olds to be used by practitioners or parents/carers.

Resilience Alphabet (primary) (secondary resource pending)

Risk Assessment and Management

Falkirk Council and Forth Valley child protection policies, procedures & guidelines

The National Risk Framework to Support the Assessment of Children and Young People (Scottish Government, 2012) is a ‘toolkit’ for child protection to support practitioners in identifying and acting on child protection risks in children and young people.

Forth Valley Managing and Preventing Harmful Sexual Behaviour guidelines and resources

Falkirk Council Care and Risk Management (CARM) procedure recognises the link between young people’s offending/risk taking behaviour and unmet need. It applies to young people between 12-18 years within Falkirk Council who present a serious risk of harm to others as a result of sexual and/or violent behaviour.

The Framework for Risk Assessment, Management and Evaluation (FRAME) (2014) is for local authorities and partners working with children and young people who offend (managing high risk and transitions).

Falkirk Council risk assessment pro-formas

Scottish Government (2020). Harmful sexual behaviour by children and young people: Expert Group Report.

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Parenting

Multiple online, self-directed modules for parents for children/young people of all ages and specific modules for children/young people with additional support needs.              Free access using the code TARTAN

Parents Plus

This flipbook provides information regarding the Parents Plus ASN programme. Please download a copy of the PDF to access the embedded website links.

Early Level ASN Parent Plus information poster.

Early Level Parent Plus information poster.

Paired Learning Approach

Paired approaches to learning involve setting up pairs of peers. usually an older child and a younger child.

There is very positive evidence that this works effectively. Follow the university of Dundee links to see the effect sizes.

Peer Tutoring –  resources for teachers on Paired Reading and Thinking Skills from the University of Dundee.

Positive, Sustained Post-School Transitions

Skills Development Scotland website

Scottish Transitions Forum: Principles of Good Transitions for young people with Additional Support Needs

Autism Toolbox transitions section

Promoting positive post-school transitions for deaf young people in Scotland

My World of Work including School Leavers Toolkit

ThisMayHelp is a collection of very short videos and clear advice for parents/carers who have are looking for help for a wide range of concerns about young people, including understanding teenagers, teenagers safety, school avoidance, gaming and online activity, building resilience, self-care tips and much more.

Preterm Babies

Supporting children born preterm in school – link to a project partnership by University of Leicester, University of Nottingham, Loughborough University, University College London, and Ulster University.  The website contains five online modules for education staff and can be completed in approximately one hour.  The modules are:

  1. What is preterm birth?
  2. Educational outcomes following preterm birth
  3. Cognitive and motor development following preterm birth
  4. Behavioural, social and emotional outcomes following preterm birth
  5. How can educational professionals support preterm children

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/helm/dev/prism/index.html