Strengthening the Universal Plus Level supports for pupil resilience and wellbeing in mainstream schools is a key priority within education in the Scottish Borders, in response to nationally increasing need. As part of this, the Educational Psychology Service is pleased to be able to offer training and coaching in the Emotional Literacy Support Assistant training programme for 2 Pupil Support Assistants\/Additional Needs Assistants in each SBC High School, and 3 in our largest High Schools, from August 2026.<\/p>\n
What is the ELSA programme?<\/strong><\/p>\n ELSA is an evidence-based initiative developed and supported by Educational Psychologists, who apply their professional knowledge of children\u2019s social and emotional development to areas of need experienced by students. Educational Psychologists deliver training to ELSAs in evidence-based interventions and provide on-going professional supervision to help maintain high quality in the work undertaken by ELSAs, thereby helping to ensure safe practice for ELSAs and pupils.<\/p>\n Candidates put forward for this training must be agreed and supported by the school.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n What is an ELSA?<\/strong><\/p>\n An ELSA is a trained PSA who plans, monitors and delivers short-term, evidence-based interventions that are bespoke and focused on individual pupil needs relating to social, emotional and mental health. \u00a0It is an early-intervention approach where ELSAs can help with areas such as self-esteem, emotional literacy, managing strong feelings, social skills, relationships, and loss.\u00a0 A full time ELSA PSA typically spends about 5 hours a week doing ELSA work.<\/p>\n What training and support will they get?<\/strong><\/p>\n ELSAs should already have appropriate \u2018soft skills\u2019 in relation to being approachable, able to build relationships with children and young people, and being creative in planning sessions to meet individual needs.<\/p>\n The training will consist of 6 in person full days across the academic year. ELSAs will need to attend every session from 9:30am \u2013 3:30pm.\u00a0 LOCATION TBC: (central e.g. HQ)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Following the 6 days of training, ELSAs will receive 6 x 2 hr supervision sessions each year. This will be one session per half term. ELSAs will also need to participate in an SBC evaluation of the programme.<\/p>\n Training content is likely to include the following areas:<\/p>\n A line manager (e.g., senior manager) should be designated to support ELSAs in the setting, ensuring a manageable workload and helping other staff to understand the parameters of the role, including realistic expectations regarding outcomes for children and young people.\u00a0 They will also support the referral process to the ELSAs and practicalities of arranging appointments.\u00a0 We would expect ELSAs to be given ring fenced time to start practising learnt skills with a young person from training Day 4 onwards.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *PSA Line Manager only required to attend the afternoon of Day 3<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please return by 1st June 2026 to Michelle Bradley (Michelle.Bradley@scotborders.gov.uk)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Strengthening the Universal Plus Level supports for pupil resilience and wellbeing in mainstream schools is a key priority within education in the Scottish Borders, in response to nationally increasing need. As part of this, the Educational Psychology Service is pleased to be able to offer training and coaching in the Emotional Literacy Support Assistant training …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3220"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3223,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions\/3223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/professionallearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\n School Name:<\/td>\n PSA Name:<\/td>\n Email:<\/td>\n Confirmation can attend all days*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n PSA Line Manager<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n PSA 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n PSA 2<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n PSA 3 (Peebles High School and Galashiels Academy only)<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n