Emotionally Based Barriers to School Attendance (EBBSA) video’s

The EBBSA Team have released training video’s for schools.

Emotionally Based Barriers to School Attendance (EBBSA) is a term we use when trying to get a better understanding of a child or young persons barriers for school attendance.

The intention is to emphasise the barriers that exist for the child or young person and to not assign blame. The term EBBSA has previously, and sometimes still is, referred to as ‘school refusal’ or ‘school avoider’.

We have developed the term EBBSA to reflect a growing understanding that there are often several different things which affect a child or young person’s attendance at school and a variety of things that make school attendance easier or more difficult for them. While some of these are ‘within the child’, others exist in those things around the child, both inside and outside of school.

We believe that, by seeking to understand each of those factors and how they interact with one another, we can better understand those emotionally based barriers to school attendance and find
creative ways to overcome those.