Emotional literacy support assistants - or ELSAs - are teaching assistants trained to provide emotional and social skills support to children.
ELSAs support the emotional needs of their pupils through developing and delivering individualised support programmes to meet the emotional needs of children. It recognises that children learn better and are happier in school if their emotional needs are also addressed. Teachers will refer children to the pastoral team who will then access and deliver the correct support and intervention.
Miss Copeland is our ELSA. She is trained to support children with social skills, emotions, bereavement, social stories and therapeutic stories, anger management, self-esteem, counselling skills such as solution focus and friendship.
What do Emotional Literacy Support Assistants do in schools?
- help children recognise, understand and manage emotions to increase success
- plan and deliver individual (and small group) support programmes
- receive training and supervision from educational psychologists.