Early Years: Emotional Wellbeing

Please note: Bookings for this course will be limited to 2 places per school/organisation

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the family as the fundamental unit of society. It stresses the role of parents as the primary care-givers with responsibility for the up-bringing of their children and obliges governments to support parents in fulfilling their essential role.

Why is it important to understand Emotional Well-being in younger children? It is a common misperception that infants and toddlers are too young to remember or be impacted by domestic violence, but the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study tells us that what happens early in life matters.

Research in neuroscience (brain and nervous system) tells us that infants and toddlers are most vulnerable, because trauma that occurs during this stage impacts a child’s well-being. Studies show that far from watching passively, children experience the abuse with all of their senses entire system, including those systems that help infants build capacity for self regulation. A quarter (25%) of children in high-risk domestic abuse households are under 3 years old. On average, high-risk abuse has been going on for 2.6 years, meaning these children are living with abuse for most of their life 2. Research has shown that infants as younger as one year old can experience trauma symptoms as a result of witnessing domestic violence (Bogat, G.A., 2005). Children’s age and developmental stage is a vital factor often not taken into account by mainstream services, particularly with children under three.

For teachers and support staff working with children in Early Years, Reception or Year 1, this course is aimed at developing understanding of factors for healthy emotional development in younger children and strategies for enhancing this.

Delegates will:

• Develop an understanding of what healthy emotional development looks like in younger children

• Develop an understanding of factors that can help and hinder healthy emotional development in younger children

• Develop an understanding that adult emotional availability is pivotal to younger children’s emotional health

• Develop an understanding of disrupted care and likely effect on younger children: may become anxious; may complain of tummy-aches or start to wet their bed; may include eating problems, sleep disturbances, lack of normal responsiveness to others, difficulty going to sleep, have temper tantrums and start to behave as if they are much younger than they are. They may also find it difficult to separate when they start nursery or school.

• Have practical guidance on how early years settings, child minders and schools can create nurturing environments that support emotional well-being (e.g. nurturing relationships, kindness, fun, safe spaces, key adults, Educational Psychology Service)

• Increase their knowledge of effective techniques for enhancing emotional well-being e.g. EPS EY SEMH project; The Solihull Approach; Emotion Coaching – using CONNECT model for younger children; ELSA

• Highlight how working in partnership with families strengthens emotional well-being

Northamptonshire Virtual School has funded the TAMHS programmes to be FREE for education settings from grant funding received from the DFE. The Virtual Schools aim is to enable education settings to build their workforces skills to better support children in care, children with a social worker and other vulnerable children and young people.

Please note: We know that sometimes, unexpected events can occur, and this may mean that delegates are not able to attend training they signed up to. If this is the case, please do cancel your place as soon as possible. Where delegates sign up to a course but do not cancel within 5 working days of the course commencing, and do not attend the training, the person’s organisation (school or other setting) will be charged a flat fee of £50. (This fee will be waived if we judge that given reasons for cancellation within the 5 days, such as illness, are legitimate).