Why impact measurement for SEMH intervention matters
In education, it is often said that what gets assessed gets addressed and whilst we know measuring social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties and social and emotional learning (SEL) can be tricky, we believe that evaluating the impact of interventions is vital.
Understanding the mental health and wellbeing needs of children within a school community context is increasingly important to positively impact learning, behaviour and wellbeing. There is growing evidence that children’s SEMH needs have a significant impact on learning engagement, behaviour and attendance, exclusions and ultimately wider outcomes for children and their long-term life path.
To promote inclusion and reduce exclusions, schools should employ a graduated response approach to meeting’s SEMH needs.
Alongside the curriculum targeted interventions and appropriate provision should be in place to maximise children’s capacity to learn, engage in school life and develop the social and emotional skills for learning and beyond.
It’s vital that monitoring and assessment of impact, programme delivery and outcomes for children are ongoing and form part of the review process for children’s experience and skill development.
Screening and measuring children’s wellbeing is key
It can be a challenge to show the level of impact an intervention is having but gathering relevant data, ensuring children’s voices are heard and having the right means to measure children’s social and emotional skills is central to a school’s capacity to ensure engagement in learning, the development of social and emotional skills, overall achievement, and successful outcomes.
As with all undertakings in education, impact matters and presenting this through data and assessment to show progress and change, ensures prioritisation of approach and resources to ensure the best outcomes for children.
The key benefits of monitoring the impact of SEMH interventions are to:
It’s best practice to identify which interventions and approaches are making a difference. Carefully monitoring, assessing and reviewing the intervention data helps to meet the changing needs of children and ensure the best possible provision is delivered.
Valuable insight and informative data is important for:
There are several ways children's wellbeing can be assessed, commonly used is the SDQ (Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire),⁴ the world’s most-used tool for assessing mental health of people from 2 to 18 years old, Boxall Profile,⁵ emotional scales, case studies and self-assessment questionnaires etc.
Behaviour and attendance data can also be helpful in demonstrating how an intervention has affected children’s overall wellbeing. But what is really needed is a holistic view of the areas of need for children with SEMH difficulties.
We developed Hamish & Milo Navigator to truly support a whole school approach to assessing and addressing children’s mental health, monitoring the effectiveness of our SEMH interventions and to really ‘hear’ the child’s voice.
Navigator Impact Dashboard is an innovative, cloud software platform with clear easy configuration and data forms for the monitoring and evaluation of our SEMH interventions providing vital insight to support the best outcomes for children.
Navigator provides live data to demonstrate the impact for children involved in the programmes through pre and post intervention data from Child Wellbeing Profiles, SDQs and Child’s Voice Questionnaires. Staff can track progress, see trends at child, group, school and trust level and drill-down from intervention programme, group, to child level to see micro-impact, recorded observations and email child reports.
A well-designed SEL programme includes not only evidence-based curricula and instruction, but also clear goals, benchmarks, and tools for universal and targeted screening and progress monitoring.⁶
In summary any SEMH interventions and provision to support wellbeing and mental health should be regularly reviewed and monitored to ensure they are having the intended impact and outcomes for children is critical to creating a healthier, happier school community.
Access to Navigator is FREE to all schools whilst providing data as part of the University of Bath Research Project. Find out more or email clare@hamishandmilo.org to get involved!
Sources
- Taylor, R., Oberle, E., Durlak, J. and Weissberg, R. (2017) ‘Promoting Positive Youth Development Through SchoolBased Social and Emotional Learning Interventions: A MetaAnalysis of Follow-Up Effects’, Child Development, 88, pp. 1156–1171. McCormick, M. et al (2019) ‘Long-Term Effects of Social–Emotional Learning on Receipt of Special Education and Grade Retention: Evidence From a Randomized Trial of INSIGHTS’, AERA, 5, 3.
- EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit (2019), ‘Social and Emotional Learning, Technical Appendix – Summary of Effects from Meta-analyses; Wigelsworth, M. et al. (forthcoming) ‘Programmes to Practices: Evidence Review on Social and Emotional Learning’, London: Education Endowment Foundation.
- Greenberg, M. T. (2023). Evidence for social and emotional learning in schools. Learning Policy Institute. https://doi.org/10.54300/928.269
- Goodman, R. (1997). https://sdqinfo.org/
- Nurtureuk https://www.boxallprofile.org/
- Susanne Denham - https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tools-assess-sel-in-schools-susanne-a-denham
- Sir Kevan Collins Early Intervention Foundation https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/primary-sel
