‘Nurturing Schools with Waite Psychology’ is a strand of our service and the umbrella under which we deliver our work to support the social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs of children and young people, as well as the emotional wellbeing of everyone within school settings.
The SEMH needs of children and young people are becoming increasingly complex and schools are having to respond to challenges that require both specialist knowledge and relational, nurturing approaches. These approaches help pupils feel safe, connected and emotionally regulated which, in turn, enables them to engage meaningfully with their learning.
In response to this growing need, our service has long prioritised SEMH support and formalised this work through our ‘Nurturing Schools’ project. Several members of our team are Attachment Aware and Trauma Informed Specialists and have specialist therapeutic or therapist-level training, alongside their extensive experience as Educational Psychologists or Specialist Teachers.
Through the ‘Nurturing Schools’ project, we aim is to build staff confidence and skills, deepen understanding and knowledge, and embed nurturing, relational practice across whole settings.
Strategic Support
We can support schools at the strategic level to devise a Relational and Regulation Policy and embed whole school approaches and practices. This can include:
- Completing a whole school policy review, identifying strengths and a phased action plan, working towards increasing relational practices across a whole setting.
- Providing ongoing consultancy support on policy development or phased action plans.
- Delivering whole school training on key areas such as The Development and Neuroscience of Emotional Regulation, Emotion Coaching, The 4Rs and the PACE Approach.
Delivering coaching sessions for small groups of staff on:
- How to write a Regulation Plan for a child or young person.
- How to implement psychoeducational sessions for children or young people on different aspects of wellbeing, relationships and emotional regulation.
- How to implement our regulation steps: ‘Calm, Talk, Listen, Fix It and Finish’.
- How to implement practical tools and interventions such as sociograms, growth mindset workshops or the ‘Circle of Friends’
Support for groups or for individual children and young people
Our support at this level enables us to work closely with groups or individual children and young people, addressing specific needs whilst strengthening relationships, building staff skills and promoting emotional wellbeing. This can include:
- Supporting at the whole class or group level to improve classroom relationships and promote belonging, including through approaches such as Working on What Works (WoWW).
- Supporting in crisis situations through facilitating problem‑solving consultations using the ‘Circles of Adults’ model to co-create action plans with staff, alongside Regulation Plans for those at immediate risk of school exclusion.
- Supporting children and young people with Emotional Barriers to School Attendance (EBSA), alongside their families and schools, through the development of collaborative action plans informed by individual formulations of the barriers to attendance, enabling everyone to work together towards re‑engagement in learning.
- Supporting schools to deliver our ‘Roots to Wings’
