High anxiety & long term non attendance to happy & full time attendance in 3 months
*Alice had previously attended Primary School full time but since starting grade 5 and not attended school regularly. Over the course of her first term in grade 5, her anxiety increased, she was diagnosed with an eating disorder, she experienced panic attacks at home in the morning, and her attendance quickly slipped to non attendance.
- Name: *Alice *pseudo name
- Year Level: Year 5
- Age: 11
- Diagnosis: ASD level 2 / Anxiety / Select Mutism / Eating disorder
- Intervention time: 12 hours
Family Impact:
“Can’t Face School were easy to work with, responsive, supportive and caring which was just what we needed. Having somebody who understood our situation and to troubleshoot with during our Action Planning Meetings was such useful support for us all. Thank you for everything – you made a big difference to our lives and sanity!” – Parent
Initial Presentation and Concerns
At the time of being referred to Can’t Face School, Alice hadn’t attended face to face learning for 10 months. She had had 5 appointments with a Psychologist but increasingly wouldn’t speak, and was struggling to leave her room.
Alice was showing a strong lack of engagement / interest in recommencing school in any physical capacity. She was content to complete work from home. She had become used to working at home, had recently ramped up the school work so increasingly a lack of interest and no motivation to go back to school.
Her parents were concerned that her academic ability would slip as well as her mental health related to being socially withdrawn.
The school had been supportive to a point, but communication had dropped off and there had been no success in rebuilding a relationship to motivate Alice to attend again.
The parents were keen for Alice to eventually attend school full time, feel safe in attending, and re-connect with her friends feeling a sense of belonging again.
Intervention Strategy
Phase 1: Stabilisation and Safety Planning (Weeks 1–3)
Firstly, we needed to find out as best we could as to what was causing Alice her anxiety around attending school. Over 2 x 1 hour virtual sessions, we showed Alice the Student Stress Investigation Cards where she was able to sort them in her own time without even talking. She engaged in the process feeling that she was being listened to and taken seriously.
The main reasons came up from this process were to do with her being overwhelmed with the noise at school and lots of other students she felt were staring at her.
We then worked through the Can’t Face School Work It Out (WIO) program which we used 4 x 1 hour sessions and worked with Alice to build her self esteem and confidence with her learning, reflected on her character strengths, and discussing what would need to be in place at the school for her to visit & attend again.
Phase 2: Staggered Re-entry and Relational Repair (Weeks 4–10)
Through a process of school drive bys, gradual exposure by sitting with the year level coordinator in the wellbeing room, meeting a friend in a nearby park and then in the wellbeing room at school, Alice became more comfortable with being in the school environment again.
Together with Alice and the school, we developed a reengagement plan which laid out what Alice will do, what her parents will do, what the school will do, and had everyone agree on this. This was revisited each week with meetings with the family and checking in with the school.
Phase 3: Rebuilding Engagement and Independence (Weeks 11–16)
Over the course of 6 weeks the plan changed frequently and Alice slowly increased her attendance from not attending at all, to being at school from 9 – 11am, then up to lunchtime, then eventually whole days from week 12 onwards.