As we continue to develop the Hackney Education Alternative Learning Service (HEALS), we are responding to questions that we receive directly or at our public engagement sessions.
Vision, strategy and core operations
Is the new three-year plan for all children in Hackney or just those with special needs?
Hackney 3-Year Education Strategic Plan (2026-2029) is an ambitious vision to improve the life chances and well being of every child and young person in Hackney across all communities.
The Strategic Plan sets 5 key priorities:
- Priority 1 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Inclusion: moving towards early intervention and better support
- Priority 2 Alternative Learning Provision: a model to give children the right support at the right time
- Priority 3 Strength and sustainability: ensuring our schools remain financially stable
- Priority 4 Sustainable school improvement: maintaining high standards whilst prioritising child wellbeing
- Priority 5 Equity for children and families: actively dismantling barriers for our Black Caribbean, Turkish, Kurdish, and Charedi communities
Hackney Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Inclusion 3 Year Strategy sits alongside the Education Strategic Plan to offer specific support to children with SEND.
What is HEALS and how do I access the service?
Hackney Education Alternative Learning Service (HEALS) is a borough-wide approach developed by Hackney Council to reduce exclusions, strengthen inclusion, and ensure that every child receives quality, inclusive education.
The approach forms part of a three-year transformation plan (2026–2029) designed to reduce permanent exclusions by working with schools, children, parents, carers and communities to strengthen inclusion in schools, ensure children receive timely and appropriate support, and coordinate suitable education for children who cannot attend mainstream school due to illness, exclusion or any other reason.
HEALS introduces a 3-tiered system of support that provides earlier intervention, targeted inclusion advice and support, and specialist alternative learning pathways.
Tier 1 is in-school preventative and outreach support for children in mainstream schools.
- Prevention and outreach will be delivered by a virtual team of professionals working together and with schools to offer in-school support to children who are facing barriers to learning. This virtual team may comprise education psychologists, SEND specialists, school nurses, SEND coordinator, wellbeing and mental health practitioners, and HEALS outreach and engagement officer.
Tier 2 is short-term offsite interventions designed to address specific behaviours and barriers.
- Short-term offsite Intervention involves a network of local authority and health professionals working together through a formal process to coordinate support to children and their families. This support is initiated in collaboration with parents when schools have exhausted their own efforts to address and support emerging needs and behaviours, and there has not been sufficient change for the child.
Tier 3 is longer-term specialist provision, pathways and transitional support.
- Transitional and longer-term specialist provision and intervention for children with complex needs to either remain in mainstream school, or where remaining, or a return to mainstream school is not immediately appropriate. Specialist intervention is delivered in partnership with New Regents College. New Regents College is the local authority's specialist provision for children unable to attend mainstream school due to exclusion or other reasons.
How to access support.
- Your child’s school remains your first and most important partner. If you have concerns, speak to the Headteacher, Special Education Needs and Disability Coordinator, or Class Teacher. The school will be able to request support from HEALS targeted support after they have worked with their virtual team of professionals allocated to the school to offer in-school support to children who are facing barriers to learning. This virtual team may comprise education psychologists, SEND specialists, school nurses, SEND coordinators, wellbeing and mental health practitioners, and HEALS outreach and engagement officers.
Alternatively you could make a request for targeted early help by completing the request for support form.
Will HEALS replace existing services (SEND, behaviour support, early help)?
HEALS is not a replacement for existing services for children with additional needs. HEALS is a change in approach to supporting school age children who cannot attend school due to illness, exclusion or any other reason by working more effectively together. Removing the "silos" that often makes the system difficult for families to navigate. This ensures that a collaborative effort is made to address barriers to education, and your child's overall wellbeing is seen as a priority alongside their educational journey.
What specific changes are being made to daily culture and staff training?
The HEALS core team based within Hackney Education will be trained to undertake all aspects of early intervention for children, which will ensure that your child and your family are able to get to know your allocated worker. They will work consistently with a small number of schools, to develop strong relationships with children, families, staff and the community that surrounds those schools. This is inline with the Families First agenda and aims to centre our Hackney families in all that we do, and offer a neighbourhood-based approach.
The HEALS partnership will be made up of our key partners (Child & Mental Health Service (CAMHS), schools, Early Help, Social Care), all of whom share a commitment to serving our community and recognise that children have a right to be in their community schools and to feel that they belong there.
We will work together as one single team to get to know you and your child, identify the barriers and challenges you are experiencing, and ensure we work with you to design a plan that is owned by you, and is coordinated by your allocated worker to reduce, or remove these barriers. The plan will be held within HEALS so that we can draw in additional support from relevant agencies as your and your child’s needs change. The idea of this approach is that we revolve around the family and the child, and through this professional consistency we are more likely to better support you in a way that meets your needs and is positively impactful.
HEALS work will be delivered from a trauma-informed approach to understand your lived experience; anti-racist in its practice to recognise bias, and address discrimination; and systemic to ensure sustainable impact and positive change. Systemic practice recognises that families and their wider networks are individual, and that we must work in a way that focuses on family. We as practitioners are also individuals and bring our own sets of experiences, values and beliefs to our work, and this may impact families.
The HEALS core team will all undergo a full induction process, with training that is designed to be inline with the values of the new service.
HEALS will provide a full training programme to all Hackney schools which will include consistent topics (such as safeguarding, peer on peer abuse and creating safe spaces) as well as responding to local issues as they arise - for instance, adultification and race-based trauma).
Will HEALS focus on intervention or prevention (for example, calmer environments)?
HEALS is a 3- tiered approach to prevention and intervention for children experiencing barriers to education.
Prevention efforts will be delivered by a virtual team of professionals working together to offer in-school support to children who are facing barriers to learning. This virtual team may comprise education psychologists, SEND specialists, school nurses, SEND coordinators, wellbeing and mental health practitioners, and HEALS outreach and engagement officers.
In-school support is what we refer to as Tier 1 support.
Intervention involves a network of local authority professionals working together and with schools to coordinate support to children and their families. This support is initiated when schools have exhausted their own efforts to address and support emerging needs and behaviours, and there has not been sufficient change for the child.
This coordinated support may include short term off-site interventions at alternative provision designed to address specific barriers.
Time limited intervention placements outside of mainstream school is what we refer to as Tier 2 support.
Specialist intervention will consider long-term specialist provision, intervention and transition assistance for children with complex needs to either remain in mainstream school, or where a return to mainstream school is not immediately appropriate.
This specialist intervention is delivered in partnership with New Regents School, and is what we refer to as Tier 3 support.
Does Hackney plan to create a learning centre for 1:1 and small group sessions?
We are considering a learning centre which is something we are scoping out and, if it is realistic, achievable and will benefit our children, we will follow the usual processes to have it considered as an option.
Inclusive practice and support for SEND/neurodivergence
These questions address how the model supports children with specific needs, including anxiety, emotional distress, and neurodivergence.
How are mainstream schools going to be made more inclusive for neurodivergent children?
Growing inclusive practice that better supports our children and young people with SEND in mainstream schools is a key priority for Hackney Integrated SEND Service, as set out in the recently published 2026-29 SEND Strategy. We want our children and young people with SEND to access targeted and specialist support in their local school that enables them to make progress and feel like they belong, and recognise that schools need adequate funding, training and specialist support in order to be able to fulfill this.
Hackney SEND have piloted new ways of delivering services to schools through the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) project. This has been a partnership project with Hackney Parent Carer Forum (PCF), Specialist Teachers, Educational Psychologists and Therapists. In each of the 12 PINS primary schools, the collective team of ‘experts-on-hand’ have collaborated with Senior Leads in the school to audit the whole school SEND practice and have then delivered training and produced guidance to enable improvements to reasonable adjustments and adaptive classroom practice.
Building on this pilot, Hackney SEND services are developing the use of an audit tool with primary and secondary Headteachers to further pilot before launching later this year. We plan to further strengthen the ‘experts-at-hand’ model so that it is effective in all primary and secondary settings.
This will involve a clear interconnection with HEALS practitioners to ensure that additional specialist support is reaching the children with SEND who are at risk of falling out of the mainstream school system.
How will HEALS support students experiencing significant anxiety (EBSNA)?
Note: Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance (EBSNA) is a term used to describe the difficulty children and young people experience in attending school due to emotional reasons, such as stress, anxiety and/ or feeling overwhelmed. This can result in prolonged periods of absence from school.
Early support and prevention: A dedicated, trained Outreach and Engagement Officer is assigned to each school to proactively identify early signs of anxiety and barriers to education, using data and regular meetings with key school staff. They will recommend in-school inclusive practices to prevent children from becoming too overwhelmed to attend school, and look to break down the barriers before they become entrenched.
Holistic intervention: The officer works with the school, family, and team of professionals (including health and social care) to explore all support options. The goal is to view the child's situation holistically and make sure that everyone is in support of the steps needed.
Specialist provision: If there have been clear attempts made and there is still not an improvement in the child’s attendance, the school can request support in collaboration with parents to an inclusion panel where a network of local authority and health professionals work together through a formal process to coordinate support to children and their families. This panel can agree on a tailored education and support package offering small groups or 1:1 learning in order to take into consideration the child's health needs, but also build confidence and enjoyment in their learning, and ultimately support a return to full-time education.
This support is being developed and may include family support and a lead clinician to guide and advise both professionals and families on safe and effective steps to support children back into school.
Once the child is ready to return to school, the outreach and engagement officer will plan a reintegration programme and support the child, family and school to make sure the child has a successful return to full time education. They will then continue to check in and monitor the child in their school environment.
How will HEALS identify children who need extra support?
HEALS will ensure that all schools are directly supported by a consistent outreach and engagement officer; that officer will get to know their schools, their children and families, and the surrounding community. We will review data with our schools on a fortnightly basis, to ensure early identification of any patterns that suggest some children are not receiving the support they need to achieve well. In addition to this, we will talk to relevant school staff and professionals regularly about children who might have unmet needs but who may not be easily identified using data.
In partnership with families, children and teachers we will look to understand the child and family’s experience to identify and remove barriers, ensuring every child receives the right support at the right time.
What types of support will HEALS offer within the school?
The HEALS Tier 1 In-school offer is designed to keep your child in their familiar environment through preventative, school-based intervention to remove barriers to education at the earliest possible stage.
It will be centred around your child’s school, and might also include support in the community around engagement with positive activities. Tier 1 is designed to be flexible and immediate - children who are receiving statutory or more targeted support may also benefit from some tier 1 intervention, however its core purpose is to prevent unmet needs escalating and compounding into more complex barriers by responding quickly and effectively to early signs that support is required.
Some examples of the types of support that can be provided are:
- Support to identify and make reasonable adjustments to ensure all children are able to access their education. For instance, a ‘soft’ start to the day whereby a child avoids the busy changeover period at the beginning of the school day for a limited time, to help them to re-engage with a school setting
- Support from a partner service that is well-placed to work with your child (such as Young Hackney or a voluntary and community organisation) and will work closely with the school and family to ensure that their intervention helps to improve their ability to access education
- Wellbeing and Mental Health in Schools Project (WAMHS) - this includes an allocated CAMHS worker in school to deliver advice and guidance to the school around supporting children managing mental health challenges
- Bespoke attendance support, designing plans to support your child to attend well by ensuring a range of supportive measures are in place to overcome barriers
- In-school support on a one to one basis to manage specific barriers, such as “zones of regulation” to support with managing big feelings, and “circle of friends” to develop stronger peer relationships
- In-school support with peer groups, classes or year groups to tackle concerns such as gender-based violence and developing pro social behaviours.
How will HEALS support children whose emotional distress shows up as "behaviour difficulties"?
HEALS is a trauma-informed service - we understand that all children communicate differently and that often children use outward behaviour presentations to communicate distress and unmet needs. We will “see” every child and look to understand the motivation and experience behind what they are doing, so that we can get to know them better and get to the root cause of their distress quickly, and look to respond to it with the right support.
All children with unmet needs must be supported through therapeutic relationships and an increased sense of acceptance and belonging, and that is particularly important for children whose presentation may place them at risk of suspension or exclusion.
How do you intend to assure parents that their SEND children will be well-supported?
We understand that trust is built through action.
HEALS is committed to a trauma-informed approach to understand your lived experience; anti-racist in its practice to recognise bias, and address discrimination; and systemic to ensure sustainable impact and positive change. Systemic practice recognises that families and their wider networks are individual, and that we must work in a way that focuses on relationships and the wider context as a way of making sense of individual experiences. We as practitioners are also individuals and bring our own sets of experiences, values and beliefs to our work, and recognise the importance of working collaboratively and effectively with families and their networks.
Equity, accountability and monitoring
This theme covers the "checks and balances" of the system, including data tracking, legal agreements with academies, and anti-racist practices.
How will you ensure Black children are not sent to these provisions as a "punishment" and that policies are administered fairly?
We understand the context of this; we acknowledge the lived experience of our Hackney residents that are racialised daily as part of their interactions with institutions - including the Council.
Discussions about individual children (both internally and externally) will consider the impact that racial trauma may have had on that child, alongside racial bias that we as professionals may be holding that may impact our response. We are committed to disassembling racism and oppressive practices, and HEALS staff are on an ongoing journey through training and day to day processes, to be part of this.
At a broader level, we will produce data at school and child level that is considered according to the race and vulnerabilities of the children it reports on, and we will use this to inform strategic responses to work towards a fair and equitable education community.
What specific, publicly reportable metrics, beyond exclusion rates, will be used to track outcomes?
While reducing permanent exclusions is a primary goal, we will track several broader "leading indicators" to be further developed to measure success:
- Persistent and severe absence rates: we will look to see overall trends as well as school, phase and cohort level
- Suspension rates: we will look to see overall trends as well as school, phase and cohort level
- Mainstream retention: Measuring how many pupils remain in their home school following a Tier 1 or Tier 2 intervention
- System trust: annual partnership feedback surveys to measure school leaders' and parents' confidence in the new system.
All data will be reviewed according to:
- ethnicity/race information
- poverty indicators
- gender
- SEND
We will also consider any other locally relevant data as our community landscape changes.
What formal agreements (SLAs) have been signed by Secondary Academies to prioritise HEALS over exclusions?
We are working in partnership with our schools and settings, to provide support that they identify as necessary, as we are doing with our Hackney children and families.
Schools are not required to sign formal agreements with HEALS as part of our partnership with them, however they are instrumental in the development of the HEALS offer and it is shaped to ensure it delivers what schools (and children and families) tell us is missing from our current inclusion offer in Hackney.
Family engagement and partnership
What will “working in partnership with parents” look like in practice when parents raise concerns that are wellbeing-based rather than academic?
We acknowledge that parents and children are the experts when we are looking to understand how a child is feeling and experiencing school. HEALS is committed to hearing and taking into account the voice of the child and their family at all points of support, from early identification to more sustained and intensive support.
We will be guided by what you feel is best for your child, and use this to inform support plans and adjustments that will allow your child to access the curriculum effectively, and to thrive in their setting.
We will be working in a shared partnership with you, your child and your child’s home school.
The usual feedback channels to your child’s school will continue to be available to you, and HEALS will not supersede these.