Child and Family Support

Mrs Vincent is our Child and Family Support Worker at Uplands Primary. She is available to listen, support and advise on a multitude of practical parenting strategies to help point you in the right direction.

Some of the different ways she can help are:

· Providing pastoral support to pupils to help them with their daily lives around school.

· Working directly with children and/or parents to identify the needs of each child and developing appropriate interventions such as ELSA/TALA

· Supporting parents through workshops, signposting and referrals

· Supporting our service children and their families

· Promoting well-being and mental health within our school community.

· Offer a listening ear and a cup of tea

Along with lots more useful advice.

If you would like to speak to Mrs Vincent, you will find her on the school gate every morning or telephone through the school office or via the school ELSA email elsa@uplandsprimary.net

What Is ELSA?

ELSA stands for Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. It is important that children are able to understand and are able to cope with their feelings so that they can focus on their learning and develop high self-esteem and positive interactions with others. Children are referred to ELSA via their class teacher. Areas covered in an ELSA session might be thinks like:

· Anger management

· Social skills

· Recognising and becoming aware of emotions

· Loss and bereavement

· Self-esteem and friendship issues

ELSA sessions are around 20-30 minutes long and last for about 6-8 weeks depending on the programme set and the child’s needs. It is an adult led intervention and reviewed continually to support the child in the best way possible. It is important to remember that ELSA is not a ‘fix it’ solution-rather an intervention to facilitate the children into developing new skills and coping strategies that allow them to manage social and emotional demands more effectively.

What is TALA?

TALA stands for Therapeutic Active Listening Assistant. It offers an emotionally safe and supportive space in which pupils can explore their feelings and experiences. They are heard by the practitioner on a deep level using active listening. Practitioners listen to a child's views, experiences and feelings without judgement in an atmosphere of respect and empathy based on a secure and trusting working relationship.

How it works is that the child has a regular slot during the week for a targeted period of time (around 30-45 mins). It usually runs for around six weeks but can be longer. Sessions are confidential, offering the child an opportunity to talk about things that concern them.

The sessions are one to one and are very pupil led involving play based activities where required.

Not only does TALA offer a child a safe place to talk it supports them in many other areas:

· Cope better with issues, concerns and situations

· Achieve some level of understanding with regard to thoughts, emotions and behaviours

· Accept their limitations and strengths and to feel ok about them

· Change behaviours which have negative consequences

· Look at things differently

· Maximise the opportunity to reach their full potential

· Empowers pupils to find their own resolutions and build resilience for the future.

TALA and ELSA do have differences. ELSA involves the identification of specific emotional literacy targets towards which the child works, guided by the ELSA through a carefully planned programme of support. Whilst ELSA's deliver skills based programmes, TALA's sessions are more pupil led with the TALA practitioner facilitating a helping conversation using counselling practices.

Simply put, ELSA teaches skills and TALA offers a time to talk.