Lincolnshire Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA) pathway

Introduction

Lincolnshire’s Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA) pathway has been developed in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, including parent and carers, mental health colleagues, educational settings, including mainstream schools and alternative provision setting, educational psychology and local authority staff.

The pathway sits within Lincolnshire's social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) Strategy as a key aim to ensure that children and young people in Lincolnshire are supported in their school settings to access high quality inclusive education and enjoy good mental health and resilience.  
 

What is EBSA?

A child or young person who has severe difficulty attending school due to emotional factors

What isn't EBSA?

It is crucial to understand the difference

Why does EBSA happen?

Risk factors, resillience factors, push and pull factors

Autism and EBSA

Children and young people with autism often face additional challenges in school which may make them anxious about school and appear to experience EBSA.

Lincolnshire's EBSA pathway

A graduated response, following an assess, plan, do, review cycle that is focused on facilitating a step-change in how we support children and young people to return to school, alongside support strategies and interventions and adaptations within the school and home environment.

Initial steps

Effective whole school systems and preventative measures towards EBSA, through vigilance around early indicators and identification of early warning signs of EBSA that places the child or young person at the heart of discussions and interventions.

Next steps: assess and plan

Thorough assessment that drills into the analysis and identification of what is causing and maintaining EBSA behaviours and leads into a robust plan as part of the assess, plan, do and review cycle with the child or young person at the centre.

Further steps: do and review

Implementation of a robust support plan with regular reviews as part of an ongoing process of evaluating and refining the effectiveness of interventions and making any necessary adjustments to maximise positive impact for the child or young person.

Mental health involvement

EBSA toolkit

Available tools and support to enable the implementation of robust and meaningful early intervention and effective whole school systems alongside all the tools required to implement the EBSA pathway.

Medical support panel (MSP)