In Renfrewshire, EBSA is an overarching term used to describe children and young people who have a profile of additional support needs which includes a difficulty in attending school.
This difficulty is often due to wide ranging factors which can include anxiety, issues related to Autism and neurodevelopmental profiles of need and other mental health presentations. There may be other factors linked to the family such as parent/carer ill-health.
For some children and young people, their emotional distress may be more obvious, for example, in their presentation at school or by significant levels of non-attendance. For others, their presentation may be less obvious. For example, their attendance may be more sporadic, there may be specific lessons they can/cannot attend, or they may only be able to attend school when provided with a high level of support.
Renfrewshire have spent a significant amount of time identifying the trends in schools that are related to the trajectory of non-attendance and are using these statistics to inform schools as to their individual establishment trends.
REPS will offer both a universal offer to schools in relation to training as well as supporting a more targeted approach for individual young people.
You can find more information about the implementation of the approach to supporting EBSA in Renfrewshire’s establishments, including a variety of resources here.
For information about REPS contribution to national developments in relation to EBSA, please click here.
Click here for a recording of our EBSA Launch session
