There will always be children and young people in schools facing life challenges that detract from their ability to engage with learning and some will require greater support to increase their emotinal literacy than others. ELSA is an initiative developed and supported by educational psychologists. It recognises that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are also addressed.
An ELSA is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant who works with either small groups of children or individuals to support emotional literacy development. This means understanding and implementing strategies to improve the way that they think, feel and process emotions, usually in relation to themselves.
Areas that our ELSAs can support include:
- Recognising emotions
- Self esteem
- Social skills
- Friendship skills
- Anger management
- Loss and bereavement
Children are usually referred for ELSA support by their class teacher, senior leaders or on occasion the SENCo.
Every week, our Inclusion Team meet to discuss to identify and prioritise children that may benefit from interventions such as this. The programme usually runs for 6-8 weeks (sessions lasting between 30-40 minutes once per week) so we will plan support sessions to facilitate each child in developing new skills and coping strategies which will allow them to manage social and emotional demands more effectively.