Supporting Mental Health

Mrs Davison and Mrs Drodge

We are the Pupil and Family Support Team at Oak Lodge. Our role is to support pupils and families in developing and sustaining social, emotional, and mental health needs, promoting health and wellbeing, and facilitating access to school and learning. We provide pastoral support for any issues that families may face in supporting their children, either at home or at school, and can signpost to other services if required.

We are always happy to speak with parents/carers, and you can contact us via the school reception. If you wish to discuss personal matters or need support completing forms (e.g., DLA/PIP), we can arrange a meeting with one of us at your convenience. We recognize that everyone experiences challenges in life, and there are times when additional support can be beneficial.

We host termly coffee mornings where parents/carers can attend for informal chats and advice.

 

PASTORAL SUPPORT/ELSA

We are both trained ELSAs and Mental Health First Aiders, able to support children on a weekly basis for short or extended periods. This support can address issues such as anxiety, self-esteem, anger management, and empathy. Most sessions are conducted one-on-one, although there may be group sessions at times, particularly for developing friendship skills.

Sessions take place in private settings and aim to be fun and creative. While we as ELSAs cannot 'fix' problems, we provide emotional support to help children learn skills and strategies to manage challenges independently. We take pride in establishing friendly, warm relationships with children, allowing them the time needed to feel safe sharing their thoughts and feelings.

We also operate a lunch club for children who find playground interactions challenging. Children are welcome to drop in as needed, enjoying a quieter environment where they receive support and encouragement to develop their social, communication, and interaction skills.

Supporting Pupils with Autism

ATTENTION AUTISM

Attention Autism is an approach developed by Gina Davies, a specialist speech and language therapist.  It builds communication, interaction, attention and learning skills whilst building strong relationships, through hands on, practical and fun activities.

 

Pupils with ASD often have difficulties with their attention skills. People need to have developed attention and listening skills in order to understand and use language. Attention Autism strategies can help us start at the attention level pupils are at and help them to build upon it.

 

TEACCH

TEACCH values

Teaching – sharing autism knowledge and increasing the skill level of professionals and practitioners.

Expanding – increasing own knowledge to provide high-quality services to people on the autism spectrum and their families.

Appreciating – appreciating the strengths and uniqueness of autistic culture.

Collaborating and Cooperating with colleagues, other professionals, people on the autism spectrum and their families.

Holistic – adopting a holistic approach, looking at the person, their family and community.

 

TEACCH priorities

Some of the TEACCH Autism Programme priorities are:

  • focusing on the person, their skills, interests and needs

  • understanding the ‘culture of autism’ and identifying differences based on individualised assessments

  • using visual structures to organise the environment and tasks when teaching skills

  • being broad-based, ie support people at work, teach skills but also ensure that people are supported during leisure and/or social activities

  • being flexible and teaching flexibility.

 

Communicate: In Print

In Print is a symbol-supported desktop publishing programme. It is used for creating books, worksheets, newsletters and posters; and used as a basic symbol-supported word processor. It is used in school to support language development, communication, literacy and learning.