Supporting school inclusion for children known to social care: a case study and pilot data from the Enable Inclusion Team

Purpose This paper aims to examine the Enable Inclusion Team (EIT), a community psychology service providing preventative, evidence-based support to children, families and schools where young people are at risk of permanent exclusion from mainstream education. This study explores the impact of EIT’s work for families with active social care involvement. Design/methodology/approach The authors present pilot data from 12 young people who received intensive EIT support while engaged with social care services, supplemented by a detailed case study. EIT is grounded in contextual behavioural science – primarily using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and the DNA-V model, both of which are person-centred and values-driven approaches aimed at increasing psychological flexibility. Findings Pilot findings from a small sample suggest that the EIT’s collaborative, multi-systemic approach is associated with reduced risk of permanent exclusion and lowered social care involvement. Such reductions typically reflect a lowered risk to the child’s health, well-being or development. Research limitations/implications The sample size is currently small, and findings are based on a combination of case study and service-level data, which limits generalisability. The absence of a control group means that causal inferences must be drawn cautiously. Furthermore, while reductions in social care involvement are encouraging, longer-term follow-up is needed to establish whether these gains are sustained over time. Future research should therefore conduct formal research with a larger number of young people and include inferential analysis. Practical implications Subject to replication at scale, the EIT model may support long-term prospects for young people and reduce reliance on costly social care and specialist education provision; pilot data are exploratory and require larger, controlled evaluation. Social implications The work of EIT suggests that embedding evidence-based psychological interventions within schools and families may reduce exclusion risks and ease pressures on statutory services. By supporting both immediate educational inclusion and longer-term well-being, such models hold promise for addressing the systemic challenges facing children’s social care. Originality/value This paper is the first to describe a psychological service grounded in contextual behavioural science that supports the well-being, educational inclusion and family functioning of young people with social care involvement.