School Avoidance
Some children and young people experience difficulties attending school for reasons including anxiety, unmet educational needs or bullying.
Many children and young people find it difficult and frustrating when they find it either hard or impossible to go to school or college. You are not alone.
By making some small changes you can feel a bit better and more able to cope with things which may seem difficult at the moment.
It can be hard to start a conversation about how you are feeling as you may be worried about the reaction you will get. You may find that your parent, carer or teacher already know you are finding things difficult and so that may be an easier conversation to have than you thought. You may think it easier to hide your feelings away and ignore them but that won’t help in the long run as nothing will change.
Things to try
- Talk about your feelings and thoughts to someone you trust
- Try to remember activities you have done in the past that have helped you when you felt overwhelmed or anxious such as walking, reading, listening to music. Make a list of these to refer back to.
- Read the section on this website about anxiety
- Take care of your sleeping routine and diet
Self referral
Our resources section provides some self-help websites, some of them accept direct self-referrals from you, but if you would like a mental health nurse to review your self-referral and provide some further guidance, please click on Do Self Referral. We hope to contact you within 28 days. If you haven’t heard from us after this, call your GP.
Do Self Referral
Self help resources
Resources can be accessed below.
View self help resources
