Safe Place Counselling with Vanessa Phillips

03/04/2026

Anyway today I am returning to this image…

I always come back to this image.
Because it says, in one breath, what I have spent years trying to explain.

92.1%.

That number isn’t abstract to me. It has a name.It has a face.
It has a bedroom floor sat on at 8:45am, trying to regulate a nervous system that’s already in fight-or-flight before the day has even begun.

I am a SEND parent.
My daughter didn’t refuse school.
She didn’t choose to struggle.
She wasn’t lazy, defiant, spoiled, or badly parented.

She was overwhelmed.
She is autistic.
She was doing her absolute best in a system that was never built for her.

This image matters because it cuts through the noise.
It explains instantly why so many children are out of school or barely clinging on.
It reminds us that attendance isn’t a motivation issue. It’s a needs issue.

When nearly all children with attendance difficulties are neurodivergent, the problem is not the children.
It is the environment. It is the expectations.
It is the refusal to adapt.

I’ve watched my daughter unravel under pressure that people insisted was “normal”.
I’ve watched professionals focus on numbers and percentages while missing the child in front of them.
I’ve watched attendance letters land on doormats while mental health quietly burned.

This statistic matters because it should end the blame game.
Because you cannot punish a nervous system into safety, You cannot threaten a child into regulation.
And you cannot improve attendance without understanding why a child can’t attend in the first place.

Attendance will never improve until needs are understood, met, and respected.
Not performatively.
Not on paper.
But in real, tangible ways, quieter spaces, flexibility, trust, compassion that’s just for starters!

I return to this image because it validates what parents like me have always known.
We aren’t exaggerating.
We aren’t making excuses.
We aren’t failing our children.

Our children are telling us something and this statistic proves they’ve been saying it all along.

If you want children back in school,
start by making school safe for them to be in.
Understanding isn’t optional.
It’s the starting point, pushing all children into mainstream isn’t the answer either !

Michaela
Thanks to Support for this image.

13/03/2026

02/03/2026

Monday mornings are when school avoidance feels the loudest.

😥The dread.
😭The tears.
💔The refusal that is not refusal at all.

And for many families, this is also the point where the system starts to slow down.
➡️ You are told to wait.
➡️ You are told there is a backlog.
➡️ You are told there is no Educational Psychologist available yet.

Here is something vital to know.

If the Local Authority is not allocating an EP during an EHC Needs Assessment, you do not just have to sit with school avoidance getting worse. There is a legal route available and it starts with a Pre Action Protocol Letter.

Understanding this can stop months of drift while your child struggles to attend.

💛 Save this post so you can come back to it later, or comment below and we’ll make sure to reply so it stays in your notifications.

Here are three vital ways we can help you this week:

1️⃣ School Avoidance Awareness Week 2025 resources
Tens of webinars, courses and tools to help you understand why this is happening and what you can do next:
👉 www.sunshine-support.org/academy

2️⃣ Week of SEND starts 16th March - everything you need to navigate the system!
10 webinars for parents and 10 for teachers, all in one place
👉 Sign up via the Academy

3️⃣ Legal empowerment webinar
Pre Action Protocol and Judicial Review with Jess Douglas - this will be a corker! Next level legal advice and stuff you can do yourself!
📅 5th March at 8pm
BOOK HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1851915151069
👉 Also available on the Academy afterwards

You do not have to navigate this alone.

21/02/2026

Feeling pretty pleased with this ☺️

14/01/2026

So many SEND parents are living with trauma - even if they don’t call it that.

It’s the trauma of not being believed.
Of fighting for years to be heard.
Of watching your child in pain and being told to “calm down.”
It’s the chronic anxiety that comes every time your phone rings, the dread of another meeting, another rejection, another “no.”

This kind of trauma doesn’t always come from one big event - it’s the slow, relentless burn of a broken system. And it changes us. It exhausts us. It chips away at who we used to be.

If this feels painfully familiar, please know you are not weak, and you are not alone.

Our Parental Mental Health and Wellbeing webinar with Bridge the Gap is your first step in recovery.

A safe, honest space to start understanding your nervous system, your emotions, and how to rebuild yourself in small, manageable ways - one day at a time.

🗓️ 20th January | 8pm | Online
🎟️ Book your place: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1896648830709

You’ve carried the world on your shoulders for so long.
Let us help you set it down - just for a while. 💛

17/11/2025

A highly recommended directory for those looking for a counsellor in Cornwall

08/11/2025

Working hard perfecting co-regulation skills 🐾

21/09/2025

06/09/2025

Exactly

31/08/2025

This!

Dear Bridget Phillipson,

As a Clinical Psychologist and parent, I'm deeply concerned by your recent comments about school attendance. You've fallen into a classic correlation-versus-causation error.

Children who miss the first week aren't absent because they "started badly" - they're likely facing underlying challenges that make school psychologically unsafe. When 1.6 million pupils are persistently absent, that's not a compliance problem - it's a design failure.

The real question isn't "How do we get children into classrooms?" but "Why are so many children unable to attend school?"

In my clinical practice, I regularly see:
• Children with neurodivergent profiles struggling with the school environment
• Pupils experiencing school-based anxiety so severe it manifests as physical symptoms
• Families forced into "elective" home education because schools can't meet their child's needs
• Children whose attendance difficulties stem from trauma responses

Fining struggling families adds pressure without addressing root causes.

Instead of focusing on compliance, let's ask:
- What makes school feel unsafe for so many children?
- How can we adapt environments to meet diverse needs?
- What support do families actually need?

Every child deserves education that supports both learning AND wellbeing. That sounds really hard for our education system, but it's exactly what our children deserve.

Dr. Natasha Holden
Clinical Psychologist & PDA Mum

21/08/2025

So damn proud of all my yr11 clients for proving that difficulties with school attendance does not make you a failure. The pressures of these messages however, mess with your mental health.