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The Primary Schools Project

The primary schools project (PSP) works together with school staff to address the needs of the most vulnerable children and their families. We provide essential support to vulnerable children, aged between five and eleven, who are at risk of being excluded from school. Experienced child psychotherapists from the project team work in schools to provide a range of support for those children with significant behavioural and/or emotional difficulties.

A brief history of the service

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Our aims

• To provide therapeutic interventions in schools to vulnerable children, aged between five and eleven, who present with behavioural and/or emotional difficulties and are at risk of being excluded from school
• To support those children's parents and families, who often present with mental health issues
• To work with school staff to foster their understanding of children's emotional needs.

 

Examples of some of the problems we can help with:

• behaviour in class and at playtime
• making and maintaining friends
• achieving academically
• bereavements
• traumas
• abuse
• refugee families with a history of trauma
• presenting with a formal diagnosis, i.e. autism 

The Primary School Project has been evaluated and been shown to make a significant difference to the emotional well-being of individual children and to the ethos of whole schools.

 

Examples of some of the services we offer:

• Support to parents and carers of vulnerable children
• Circle time activities for the whole class, to address some of the issues that may lead to emotional and behavioural difficulties
• Consultations and training to staff, individually and in groups
• Individual therapeutic help for the most vulnerable children, where indicated
• a strong working alliance between parents, teachers, therapists and schools

 

“The contribution that the child psychotherapists offer the children of our school is valued very highly. The ability to make children more aware of themselves is something that is born through trust and a willingness to succeed. This is what the Anna Freud Centre offers our school. It is a project that offers great riches and understanding”. 

 

Our approach

The PSP innovatively combines child psychotherapy with the concept of ‘mentalization’. This makes it a unique outreach service, able to provide individual, family, group and whole class interventions, as well as training to school staff.   

An experienced Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and voluntary trained Assistant Therapists are in each school for a whole day per week. We:

• deliver tailored interventions for children and school staff. For instance, we have developed therapeutic interventions for whole classes and drop-in services to reach a higher number of vulnerable children.
• work closely with parents and school staff, from teachers to teaching assistants and learning mentors to establish a robust home-school collaboration around each case.
• Undertake liaison work with external agencies like Social Services and monitoring of risk to children.

The PSP work in each school is regularly reviewed with the school management to keep monitoring the effectiveness of our project in each school. This is done alongside routine outcome evaluation of the PSP clinical work.

 

Who we help

• The PSP is run through partnerships with schools, and does not accept referrals for individual children or families.
• The service helps vulnerable children and their parents, addressing their emotional and mental health needs within a school setting.
• We can help children in a preventative way as well as working with more complex levels of need, preventing school exclusion.

• We help school staff by supporting their work and providing training on child emotional development and difficulties.

 

PSP team

The Project currently works with two primary schools in London. The PSP team is made up of experienced Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists specialised in outreach work in schools, and trained volunteer therapists and Assistant Psychologists.

  

How to contact us

If you would like more information about our project, or your school would be interested in developing a partnership with the PSP, then please contact our administrator Natalie Merrett on 020 7443 2230 or by email natalie.merrett@annafreud.org