What is Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA)?
EBSA is a term used to describe a group of children and young people who have severe difficulty in attending school due to emotional factors, often resulting in prolonged absences from school.
What causes Emotionally Based School Avoidance in children?
There may be just one underlying cause, but of course there are more likely to be several, with EBSA often resulting from a complex interplay between home, school and within child factors.
Some examples could be to do with:
- Social anxiety - fear of ridicule, isolation, social rejection, loneliness.
- Anxiety around learning - fear of failure, ridicule, letting others down, a bleak future.
- Health anxiety - fear of not being well, difficulty coping with physiological effects of being in school (e.g. sensory sensitivities), fear of loss or change.
The Psychology & Therapeutic Service would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) guidance and resources on these pages.
We are continually updating these pages and resources to broaden accessibility and ensure the information best meets the needs of children and young people and those who support them.