 Ok, so we are in Lincoln, aren't we? Yes, we are in Lincoln, yes. So if you wouldn't mind starting off by introducing yourself. Ok, so I'm Dr Philoda Pritchard, I'm an educational psychologist and I work for Lincolnshire Psychology Services. Fantastic, and you kindly agreed to share with us some tips for supporting children who are struggling to attend school. Yes. Ok, so tip number one is the importance of increasing young people's sense of belonging with school. So we know that actually school belongingness is a really big factor in children feeling unable to be in school or a kind of a trigger for school refusal. So what it's important to do is really let them feel like they're a member of school community even if they're not attending all the time, that they're really valued and really wanted in school and it can be helpful to do this by kind of speaking to staff around just having that genuine and positive attitude when interacting with the young person, giving them really nice greetings, positive greetings in the morning, maybe thinking about even if they're in school for a short part of the day, could they do an important job in school, could they have a role in school, it's really going to build their self-esteem, but also their sense of being a really important and valued part of the school community. So number two is possibly the most important point and that's to try and build really positive relationships with members of staff and maybe identify a key adult or adults to support that young person. So we know that relationships are really really important in building their confidence to come back into school and then to feel that actually they've got an adult there to be able to support them. So what's really helpful is to identify a key adult or because we know it's really really busy in school, sometimes it's better to have more than one person and this key adult is someone who at first just builds a really genuine relationship with that young person. So maybe it's even coming along to meetings being held at home and just spending some time getting to know them and then being someone in school that they know is a point of contact to them. So someone who is, you know, doesn't have to be available all the time, but they know a time when they're around, they're kind of consistently available, but they are consistently their key adults and some things we know are really important by this key adult because sometimes it's helpful for them to have a shared interest with the young person. So actually something that they can build a genuine connection over and really build that exciting relationship over something that they both like. So that's something that just happens to be a really useful part of developing that relationship with a key adult for the young person. With the shared interest, could that be that it's something that the child is interested in and the adult learns about it? Yeah, it definitely could be so it could be like that and the adult could come wanting to know more about it or other examples I have, so I've worked with a young person before who just loved football. So the key adult ended up being a head of ear who wasn't his head of ear, but it was somebody who also really, really loved football and he began by just coming along to some meetings with attendance officers and sitting outside the bathroom where this young person had locked himself in and just talking about football and eventually he came out of the bathroom and they had that relationship and now he's back in school but he still knows he's got that adult. He can just have that chat with him, feel really comfortable with it in school. And that adds to that sense of belonging again as well. Yeah, so it kind of links to everything, it links to that feeling, secure and like you've got someone to make you feel safe in school but also that you're part of a group and even if it's just a group of two at first, you are part of a group that's linked to school. So next one that's really important is that schools are able to take a flexible approach to supporting these young people. So there's lots of different things that can lead to school refusal and lots of different triggers for it. So it needs to be important that the support for those young people is individualised and really flexible. So schools need to think about the policies they have in place around attendance, around behaviour and that kind of thing and think where they can be flexible with that to support that young person. They need to recognise that actually young people might need to reduce timetables and that's okay and what could be really helpful is working with that young person to develop their reduced timetable as well. Something I find is that if young people are feeling anxious about coming to school as a whole, if they're just given a reduced timetable that's designed by adults who don't know them that well or haven't worked with them, it's still a demand to come to school at a particular time. So it's nice when you're being flexible and think about it. You're working with that young person as well to develop that. But it's really about realising that actually to meet these children's needs, we need to be flexible with our approaches, we need to be consistent and they can't change but actually think about policies and how we change them to support that young person. Okay, number four is all about communication. So it's so important that there's good levels of communication between staff in a school and also between staff and the parents of the young person who are struggling to come into school. So in terms of staff, all staff need to be aware of what's going on for that young person. If they're coming back into school, they need to know that so they're prepared for them to be back in school and they also need to know their approaches to be taken. So the strategies that have been identified if that young person has an exit plan from the classroom, they need to be aware of that to understand that that young person might want to leave or has a particular process for that. And they also need to know because actually it's important that staff don't make a huge deal of a young person coming back into school. If they've not seen them for a few weeks, it's just nice to say hi and that's it rather than making a big deal of it and making them feel more anxious about being in the school environment. And actually communication with homes is also really important. It can be a really, really difficult time for parents and carers if their child's struggling to come into school. We know that absence from school and persistent absence from school can come with a lot of letters that are sent home. Quite threatening letters sometimes talking about fines or talking about things that are going to happen, local authorities becoming involved. And that can be really stressful for a parent of a child who's struggling to come into school. So it's making sure that communication's there between staff and parents and that parents know they are supported by staff and staff do understand that they're trying their best and it's really difficult for that young person. So the last key tip is around working with the people to develop the support plan you're going to give them. So I talked about working with them to look at reduced timetables. But actually it's good to get their views on everything you're going to do to support them so they feel kind of in control in what's happening. But also they can share what will be easier for them and share their views around what is difficult for them in the school day, what's easy for them, what they might find helpful, the kind of support they'd like from adults so whether that's in the classroom or if they're just like someone they know they could check in with. But it's really important for them to be as involved as possible in developing their support plan. I think the main thing is just really focusing on belongingness and relationships and involving the young person as much as possible because for them actually being listened to by members of staff and being part of that plan in supporting them to get back into school will be really helpful for them because they'll feel like they're a really valued member of the community.