23/24 Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) Awareness

Emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA) is an umbrella term used to describe a group of children and young people who have severe difficulties in attending school due to emotional factors, often resulting in prolonged absences from school.  The impact of EBSA can be far reaching for the young person and can influence short and long-term negative outcomes.  There is no single cause of EBSA and there are likely to be a range of contributary factors.  Also, the Covid-19 pandemic led to unprecedented and unique circumstances, the emotional impact of which may have intensified or created additional contributory factors for EBSA.

Schools have a pivotal role to play in identifying and intervening to support children and young people with EBSA.  This EBSA awareness course was initially designed for school staff, together with a practically based EBSA workshop.  EBSA is also of interest to professionals from a range of agencies and teams who work with children and young people in.  Shropshire Educational Psychology Service is running this EBSA Awareness for colleagues to help progress the idea of a Shropshire approach to EBSA.

The content of this event matches the awareness raising sessions provided for school staff in 2022