SEMH Provision in School

Building SEMH Provision in School: Understanding the Change Processes

Anthea Gulliford, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Birmingham

Responding to difficult behaviour, and to the SEMH needs of children and young people is a significant challenge for all involved in education. Promoting approaches that help to address the SEMH needs of young people is key to enabling teachers to teach. This session considers evidence from an evaluation of a Nottingham-based city-wide programme aiming to enhance universal provision in schools for the SEMH needs of pupils. Growing out of concerns around increasing SEMH needs and growing exclusion rates in the city, SENCos, a Senior EP and Behaviour Support lead, came together, and the  Routes to Inclusion(R2i) initiative was born. This talk reports on an evaluation of the ongoing R2i programme, illuminating how SEMH provision evolved in schools through the project.

Learning from the study is twofold: firstly, what aspects of SEMH practice changed for individual staff and at whole-school level; and secondly, whatingredients in the R2i programme and in schools themselves facilitated the evolution of whole-school approaches. These come together, as a ‘Theory ofChange’ for SEMH provision.

Biography

Anthea Gulliford began her working life as a teacher in Hackney, before training as an educational psychologist. Having worked in a variety of roles, she is now Programme Director for professional educational psychology at the School of Education, University of Birmingham. She has a long-standing interest in supporting school staff in responding to the social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs of children and young people. In addition, her work has focused on organisational change, specifically, how schools can be supported to evolve, towards new approaches andmindsets.

This event is free and open to the public, staff and students.

This is an online event. Registration is essential to receive the link to ZOOM. 

Please note, this seminar is being recorded.