Livingstone Road Preschool, Infant & Junior Schools

At our Federation we engage in a range of interventions to support the varying emotional needs we are supporting. These include:

Hamish and Milo

The Hamish and Milo Wellbeing Intervention resource has been created to support Mental Health Leads and Pastoral staff in school to provide targeted interventions for children through a range of emotional themes:

• Actions, words and me
• Celebrating me
• Resilient me
• Calm me
• Finding me
• New beginnings and me
• Memories and me
• Amazing me
• My friends and me
• Exploding me

We have a trained Yoga teacher visit into our Federation weekly, to work with groups of children on supporting them with regulating emotions. This include teaching breathing exercise and stretching. Time is spent talking through the physical impacts of emotions and how to manage these.

ELSAs are emotional literacy support assistants. They are somebody who has had special training from Educational Psychologists to support the emotional development of children in school. ELSAs have regular professional supervision from Education Psychologists to help them in their work.

ELSAs support the social, emotional and behavioural development of pupils. For example, difficulty with friendships, anxiety, shyness, bullying, anger, low confidence. ELSAs work with class teachers to identify targets for pupils and design support session. They work with individuals or small groups of pupils. Sessions usually happen weekly and last for 30-60 minutes. Sessions usually run for between 6-12 weeks.

Sand tray therapy is a therapeutic technique that uses a tray of sand along with small tools, toys, or figurines to help children express themselves without words. It can be an effective way to help children cope with trauma and anxiety, as well as express their feelings in therapy without needing words.

Play Therapy helps children develop confidence and self-efficacy; this is accomplished through mastery of fears, skill acquisition, and learning new tasks. Children release emotions through action, use creative thinking to solve problems, learn about themselves, and gain clarity regarding their lives, feelings, and abilities.

We have a dedicated HLTA within the pastoral team who has completed training to support children with bereavement and loss. Mrs Paterson will work with children who are bereaved of someone special, such as a parent, sibling, friend or a member of their extended family. This is done sensitively and with constant communication with their family. We can also refer to charitable organisations such as Mosaic and Winston’s Wish, to support the child and family during their difficult time.

The pastoral team have dedicated time to work with children either 1:1 or as a group. They will work on a variety of emotional needs. They also have time to do ‘check ins’ with key children who have been raised as going through challenging times within their home environment or during the school day.