About the Emotionally Friendly Settings accreditation
By now, you will have been through at least one cycle of audit and action planning, and the whole setting approach to well-being will be embedded in your setting.
We want to recognise the commitment to emotional and mental health in your setting and so we developed the EFS accreditation to celebrate your setting’s continuing development and improvement.
The accreditation is available at three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold. At each level , your setting will be challenged to evidence how you provide for emotional and mental well-being of your staff and the children and young people in your setting.
The accreditation is based on the four modules in EFS, but also incorporates the eight principles from the Public Health England (2015) publication ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and well-being’ as follows
| EFS module | ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and well-being’ (2015) principles |
|---|---|
| Staff well-being | Staff development: to support their own well-being and that of students |
| Whole Setting and practice | Leadership and management: that supports and champions efforts to promote emotional health and well-being |
| Ethos and Environment: that promotes respect and values diversity | |
| Curriculum, teaching and learning: to promote resilience and support social and emotional learning | |
| Working with Parents and carers | |
| Assessing Children and Young People’s needs | Enabling student voice to make decisions |
| Identifying need and monitoring impact of interventions | |
| Supporting individual children and young people | Targeted support and appropriate referral |
Within each of these areas, there are a number of criteria you are required to evidence. To help you, we’ve given you examples of the types of evidence you could provide to meet each of the criteria. For example:
| Award aims | Criterion reference | What this looks like at Bronze level? | Example evidences |
|---|---|---|---|
| There is a clear shared vision across the setting community of the importance of promoting positive emotional health and wellbeing | EE3 | EFS whole setting training has taken and place and all staff have solid understanding of resilience, the role it plays and how it can be developed within an education setting. | Setting have and display their Whole Setting Training EFS certificate Evidence of well attended Whole setting training- evaluation forms, staff CPD logs, example of case study or pen portrait where you have identified the risk and protective factors for that child |
Each criterion develops in theme across each of the three award levels. For example:
| Award aim | Criterion reference | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| There is a clear shared vision across the setting community of the importance of promoting positive emotional health and wellbeing | EE3 | EFS whole setting training has taken and place and all staff have solid understanding of resilience, the role it plays and how it can be developed within an education setting. | All staff apply EFS principles in their problem solving with staff and pupils e.g. mediation, focus on resilience factors, nurture. New staff are updated and trained on the EFS approach. | EFS principles are applied by all staff across the curriculum and in all interactions with pupils |
We currently accredit settings three times a year. You can find full details of the requirements and criteria for the accreditation and how to register in the member’s area.
What schools have said about the accreditation:
Out of all the awards we have, this has had the biggest impact on our school
The accreditation has made emotionally friendly school status become sustainable…something we are continuing to do…it has helped emotional health remain a focus for the school.
A flexible, whole setting approach to improving children and young people's mental health and emotional well-being
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If you've got any questions about Emotionally Friendly Settings please get in touch.