Nurturing and trauma-informed approaches can have a positive impact on attainment and social and emotional competences and confidence.  At the heart of nurture and being trauma-informed is a focus on wellbeing and relationships and a drive to support the growth and development of children and young people, many of whom come from areas of disadvantage and require additional targeted support to close the equity gap.

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Professional learning

Compassionate and Connected Community (Glow login required) - This PLA provides an introduction to increase awareness and understanding of the impact of trauma and to develop and enhance skills in responding to children/young people who have experienced adversity or trauma.

NES Trauma Training Programme - This link summarises the key trauma training resources from the National Trauma Training Programme that are openly available to support all members of the Scottish workforce working at an informed, skilled, enhanced or specialist level.

Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing: Knowledge and Skills Framework - This framework sets out the levels of knowledge and skills required by staff across agencies to deliver mental health supports and interventions across four levels; Informed, Skilled, Enhanced and Specialist.

Further supports in relation to nurture and trauma informed professional learning can be obtained from your local authority educational psychologists.

Whole school nurture and trauma informed approaches

Applying nurture as a whole school approach - A framework to support self-evaluation - This page provides a framework for self evaluation as a tool to support schools and early learning and childcare (ELC) settings who are applying a whole-school approach to nurture, inclusive of the context of COVID-19.

Nurture, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma informed practice: Making the links between these approaches - This page provides a helpful overview of the links between nurturing approaches, adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed practice

Interesting practice using nurturing and trauma informed approaches (local authority)

Nurturing Approaches - Stirling - A website with resources which support implementing nurturing approaches in educational settings. The resources include lesson plans, professional learning, assemblies, family workshops and data gathering tools.

Let's Learn Together is a resource that builds knowledge and resilience for practitioners supporting care experienced and attachment affected children in educational settings

Nurture in North Ayrshire - ​This practice exemplar shares North Ayrshire’s approach to embedding nurture across all their educational establishments.

Renfrewshire’s Nurturing Relationships Approach (RNRA) - ​This practice exemplar shares Renfrewshire’s Nurturing Relationships Approach (RNRA) to establishing and embedding whole school nurturing approaches across the authority with a particular focus on the implementation of the approach.

Sketchnote - West Dunbartonshire / SDS – A Nurture Group Approach - November 2019 - Skills Development Scotland in West Dunbartonshire have developed a nurture group approach to support young people with mental health issues.

Sketchnote - Glasgow City Council - March 2019 - Glasgow’s vision of being a ‘Nurturing City’

Sketchnote - Renfrewshire Council - Closing the Attainment Gap - February 2019 - This exemplar shows how one primary school uses nurturing approaches to reduce pupil stress during transition times.

Interesting practice using nurturing approaches (school/ setting)

STEM practice at Sunflower Family Nurture Centre, Lochgelly, Fife - This exemplar shows how children experience STEM and how it is woven through the environment for learning, planned experiences, family learning and parenting programmes.

Managing change - St Roch’s Primary and Deaf School in Glasgow - ​This exemplar demonstrates one school’s school approach to improving outcomes for all learners.

Interesting practice exemplars during COVID-19

Langlees Primary School, Falkirk | Our learning and teaching - This exemplar shows how one primary school were able to use their strong nurturing and supportive ethos for families to strengthen their relationships with families throughout the pandemic.

Grange Primary, ensuring no child misses out, before and into the recovery phase | What’s going well?- This exemplar shows how one primary school’s ethos of nurture and achievement and a commitment to high-quality learning and teaching has lead to sustained high levels of attainment during the pandemic.

Sunflower Family Nurture Centre - This exemplar shows how one family learning centre used nurture and an individualised approach to provide families with high levels of support and had low levels of stress throughout lockdown.

Learning and teaching resources

Compassionate and Connected Classroom - This resource aims to raise awareness of the potential impact of adversity and trauma in shaping outcomes for children and young people and provide support that can help mitigate the impact of these experiences

Nurture and trauma-informed approaches: resources to support learning and teaching - This link provides a selection of resources and activities to support the practical implementation of nurturing approaches.

The 'Talking mental health’ animation and accompanying teacher toolkit is aimed at primary school pupils. They were developed in collaboration with children.

The 'We all have mental health’ animation and accompanying teacher toolkit is aimed at secondary school pupils (S1-3). They were developed in collaboration with young people, teachers and mental health experts.