Empowering Change: Evidence Based Support
Sunny Kids Shine in Education, in the Community and in the comfort of your own home. Operating at all levels, from delivering hands-on support to children and families, equipping professionals with essential skills, and partnering with the County Council to drive systemic change. Below are just some of our transformative case studies.
Systematic Support to Improve Access to Education
Through a Multi-Disciplinary approach, we improved education for a young person with multiple complex needs in Buckinghamshire. By working collaboratively, we maximised individual outcomes, helping them reach their full potential while also reducing costs and creating positive, systematic change.
Why was support needed?
Support was required to stabilise a young person in Year 10 with multiple complex needs who was experiencing significant emotional distress, heightened anxiety, and significant barriers to accessing education. The family were in crisis and had lost trust in professionals and the wider system following repeated challenges in securing appropriate support and provision.
Without early intervention and coordinated support, there was a significant risk of:
- Long-term school disengagement.
- Mental health deterioration.
- Family breakdown.
- Increased reliance on high-cost specialist services.
- Escalation into more restrictive and expensive educational or care placements.
The aim of the intervention was to ensure the young person could access education, emotional support, and therapeutic intervention in a way that recognised their individual strengths and needs, while reducing pressure on the family and improving collaboration between services.
The wider objective was not only to improve outcomes for one young person, but also to demonstrate how a trauma-informed, multi-disciplinary approach can reduce costs, prevent crisis escalation, and create more sustainable systems of support for children and families across Buckinghamshire.
Reducing Fixed Term Exclusions
Sunny Kids Shine worked in partnership with a school in Hertfordshire and a family to support a student experiencing significant emotional dysregulation, separation anxiety, and repeated fixed-period exclusions.
Why Support Was Needed
At the point of referral, the student was experiencing significant difficulties with emotional regulation, which were impacting both their educational engagement and safety within the school environment. As a result, the student’s distress frequently escalated into behaviours that placed themselves and others at risk, including staff, pupils, and parents.
Consequently, repeated fixed-period exclusions had occurred, relationships between home and school had become increasingly strained, and confidence across all parties had significantly reduced. Furthermore, the ongoing challenges highlighted the urgent need for a collaborative and consistent support approach.
Prior to Intervention:
- The student had been reduced to attending school for only one hour per day.
- Access to learning had largely been replaced with unstructured free play.
- Dangerous incidents continued to occur during this limited provision.
- The student was unable to remain in school without a parent present.
Without targeted intervention, there was a significant risk of:
- Permanent exclusion.
- Further emotional deterioration.
- Increased family distress.
- Long-term disengagement from education.
The support aimed to stabilise the situation quickly while creating sustainable systems and strategies that could support long-term inclusion and success within mainstream education.
Reducing BIG Feelings In The Early Years
With the new guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to help early years settings make the most of the increase to the Early Years Pupil Premium. The manager contacted us, wanting to be proactive and use “fresh eyes” to enhance the support for children’s emotional development and well-being within the setting.
Practitioners had highlighted challenges in:
- Recognising and responding to children’s emotions.
- Supporting children to safely express feelings,
- Managing emotionally heightened moments and confidently modelling emotional regulation themselves.
There was also a need to strengthen staff understanding of how behaviour communicates unmet emotional needs, particularly during times of distress, transition, frustration, or separation.
The setting wanted to ensure that:
- Children felt emotionally safe, understood, and supported.
- Staff responses were calm, consistent, and nurturing.
- The nursery’s emotional climate fostered trust, a sense of belonging, and positive relationships.
The support aimed not only to improve practitioner confidence, but also to create sustainable whole-setting change through reflective practice and a shared understanding of emotional development in the early years.
Reducing Parental Anxiety and Overwhelm
Sunny Kids Shine partnered with Home-Start to deliver a six-week online course designed to support parents of children aged 0–5 who were experiencing heightened anxiety, worries, overwhelm, and emotional stress.
Through this partnership, the programme, Managing Anxiety and Working Through Worries and Fears, was delivered via weekly one-hour Zoom sessions to small groups of 5–10 parents. In addition, new groups were offered every half-term over a two-year period, ensuring ongoing, accessible support for families in the community.
Alongside the parent sessions, additional staff training and monthly drop-in support meetings were provided for Home-Start staff and volunteers. As a result, this strengthened confidence and understanding around anxiety, emotional well-being, and effective family support strategies.
Ultimately, the programme aimed to improve parental wellbeing, reduce feelings of overwhelm and isolation, and equip families with practical tools for emotional regulation that could positively impact both parent and child wellbeing.
Throughout the six-week course, parents were supported to better understand anxiety, identify emotional triggers, and develop practical strategies to manage worries and fears more effectively.
Sessions explored:
- Understanding anxiety and overwhelm.
- Recognising physical and emotional responses to stress.
- Emotional regulation strategies.
- Self-care and nervous system regulation.
- Confidence-building.
- Reducing avoidance and fear-based behaviours.
- Creating healthier emotional patterns within family life.
Parents were supported to reflect on their experiences while learning practical techniques they could implement in everyday life.
The small-group format helped reduce feelings of isolation and enabled parents to build supportive peer connections, normalising many of the emotional challenges they were experiencing.
The course encouraged parents to recognise the importance of their own emotional wellbeing, helping them understand that supporting their own emotional wellbeing positively impacts their children’s emotional development and family relationships.