Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) Training

The Emotional Literacy Support Assistant programme was developed by Sheila Burton. It aims to equip school staff with emotional literacy skills.

The programme’s goal is to enable staff to address students' emotional needs by

• applying emotional literacy techniques and;
• utilising the school’s existing resources

Educational Psychologists train ELSAs. They also provide ongoing supervision. This is to ensure they deliver exceptional emotional support to students. The programme is mainly aimed at teaching assistants who wish to assist their students with short-term or long-term emotional challenges.

We will be training a new group of ELSA's in 2025; more details will be released in due course.

What the programme includes

The ELSA programme package includes five full days of training delivered over six days by the Educational Psychologist team. 

This training will be delivered in terms five and six of the academic year. The training will be hosted at a venue in North Somerset.

Training

'(ELSA) I really benefited from being in a room of likeminded people who were able to share their thoughts and experiences. Together with the training these sessions were enjoyable and I learned a lot. I am very much looking forward to supervision sessions where we will be able to share our experiences going forward. Thank you once again for a fantastic training experience. I would definitely recommend it!'

'(ELSA) I loved the opportunity and only wished I could have done this 10 years ago!'

Supervision

‘(ELSA) Supervision is really helpful for me. I feel I get a lot of helpful advice as well as useful resources. It is really helpful to have the latest information and best practice’.

‘(ELSA) Supervision provides time to offload and reflect - ensuring our own mental wellbeing is supported as well as that of the children/YP that we are supporting. Our is then enhanced and enriched with new ideas’