• Celebrating achievements in a meaningful manner that the child or young person is comfortable with.
• Make conscious efforts to catch the child or young person doing well.
• Explicitly teach the child or young person routines, coping strategies and independence skills, e.g., how to ask for help, edit their work, use visual aids to help them attempt tasks.
• Make tasks short and achievable with movement breaks as part of a child or young person’s differentiated day.
• Specific interventions which aim at developing children and young people’s social skills, friendships, etc. E.g., Circle of Friends. Training available via Cambridgeshire traded services [Size: 493 KB, File: PDF].

• Use a Teaching Assistant to facilitate small group work so that they can model, coach, and reinforce social skills. This could be informally (spontaneous) or more formally (through social skills interventions).
• Use resources from the SEAL Community website  SEAL curriculum or Emotional Learning Support Assistants or RSE to teach children or young people specific skills.
• Children or young people could be encouraged or funded to join extra-curricular clubs and activities to increase children’s sense of belonging.

• Adults should foster self-worth and compassion for children or young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs.
• Provide effective feedback and support whilst also encouraging children and young people to recognise their achievements (e.g., by modelling the child or young person’s internal voice (‘give yourself a pat on the back, ‘you must feel proud of that,’ etc).
• Validate the child or young person’s feelings using phrases such as, ‘that must have made you very upset’ without needing to offer an opinion

Staff utilising specific interventions or approaches should be given time and support to understand them fully. Where possible, staff should be monitoring and evaluate the impact of all interventions offered. Specific interventions commonly used are:

• Cambridgeshire therapeutic thinking – strategies might include Early Prognosis, Predict and Prevent, Roots and Fruits, Anxiety Mapping, and Individual Risk Management.
• Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (PACE) an approach and strategy which was developed by Dan Hughes. What is meant by PACE?
• Use strategies from Beacon House Resources (information courtesy of Beacon House Therapeutic Services and Trauma) or other training to support Teacher’s understanding of topics like developmental trauma so that they can adapt their practice (e.g., Window of Tolerance [Size: 2,012 KB, File: PDF].

• Appropriate differentiation and support to prepare the child or young person for changes.
• Individual support plans or strategies to help the child or young person to use appropriate coping strategies when they are stressed.

• Label the child or young person’s behaviour, emotion or thinking error, not the child or young person.
• Praise prosocial behaviours.
• Provide an agreed calm-down or safe space area and teach the child or young person how to use it.
• Use an individual signal system to communicate when a child or young person needs to modify their behaviour.
• Use positive language by naming the behaviour you are looking for rather than what you do not want them to do.

Modify lunchtimes. Try a quieter location for eating, a lunchtime club or a ‘20/20/20 lunch break’. 20 mins eating – 20 mins playing on the whole playground or smaller area with friends – 20 mins doing tasks or responsibility (e.g., filling up bird feeders, stapling newsletters, etc). Consider how the concluding section could be a transitional activity into the afternoon structured time.