Emotionally Informed Tutoring, Coaching, Counselling and Support for Children in Essex
Helping anxious, overwhelmed and neurodiverse children rebuild confidence, emotional wellbeing and reignite their love for learning.
- Supporting children with anxiety, autism, ADHD, PDA, SEMH and dyslexia
- Trusted by families, schools and professionals across Essex
- Qualified teachers, emotion coaches and counsellors
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, our passion is to nurture positive emotional health. We believe academic achievement and emotional wellbeing go hand in hand—and it doesn’t always have to be a struggle.
Giving children and young people the tools to understand, regulate and manage their emotions is key—and this is where we can help. After all, how can we expect children, or even adults, to excel academically if they’re struggling emotionally?
Everything we offer is built around four key strands:
Emotional Support
Compassionate, tailored Emotion Coaching and Counselling to help children understand their feelings and behaviours, empowering them to make positive changes. After all, emotionally healthy children become emotionally healthy adults.
Tutoring
Combining Academic Tutoring and Emotion Coaching to meet each child’s unique learning needs, helping them catch up, keep up and fall in love with learning all over again.
Parent and Carer Support and Consultancy
Providing parents and carers with practical tools and insights to confidently support their child’s emotional and educational growth at home—always with kindness and encouragement.
School Wellbeing Training and Consultancy
Partnering with schools, education professionals and organisations to deliver tailored training and consultancy, sharing best practices that foster emotionally healthy, thriving environments.
Who we Work With
To support children and young people, we work closely with:
- Parents and carers
- Schools
- Local Authorities
- Educational organisations
Who we support
We support children and young people who:
- feel anxious about school
- are struggling emotionally
- have lost confidence in learning
- have SEND needs such as autism, ADHD, PDA or dyslexia
- are emotionally overwhelmed
- feel misunderstood or unsupported
- are school avoidant
- need a more nurturing and holistic approach to education
Learning barriers are broken down, potential is unlocked and hope is restored
Why Families and schools choose Emotionally Healthy Minds
Many of the children we support:
- feel anxious or overwhelmed
- struggle in mainstream school environments
- have lost confidence in themselves
- feel misunderstood
- are masking emotional distress
- have experienced school-based stress or trauma
- are falling behind academically or losing their love of learning
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, we understand that children cannot thrive academically when they are struggling emotionally. That’s why our approach combines emotional support with education—helping children feel safe, understood and able to learn again.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can tutoring help anxious children?
When a child is anxious, their brain works hard just to feel safe, leaving little capacity for learning.
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, we take time to understand the child behind the behaviour. We build relationships intentionally, reduce pressure and adapt sessions to meet each child where they are emotionally as well as academically. This might look like learning through interests, movement breaks, games, creative activities, or simply giving a child time to feel comfortable again.
When a child feels emotionally safe and believed in, their nervous system settles and learning finally becomes possible again.
What Support Do You Offer for Neurodivergent Children with Autism and ADHD?
We support many children and young people with autism and ADHD, including those who may feel misunderstood, overwhelmed in school environments, emotionally exhausted, or unable to access traditional learning.
Our approach is flexible, child led, and emotionally informed. We understand that every child is different, so we adapt sessions around their needs, interests, sensory profile and communication style. Some children need movement and breaks, some need low demand approaches, some need routine and predictability, and others need space to regulate before learning can begin.
Many of the children we support have experienced anxiety, masking, burnout, school trauma, or low confidence, and our aim is always to reduce pressure rather than add to it.
We adapt sessions to the child, not the other way around. Above all, we meet your child with patience, empathy and genuine respect for how their brain works
Do you support children struggling with school attendance or EBSA?
Yes, we support many children and young people experiencing emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA), anxiety around school, burnout, or difficulties attending mainstream education.
For some children, school has become a place associated with stress, sensory overwhelm, or feeling unsafe. Our role is not to force children back into school before they are ready, but to gently rebuild trust, confidence, and enjoyment in learning again.
We provide both tutoring and wellbeing support for children who are out of school, on reduced timetables, awaiting specialist placements, home educated, as part of an EOTAS package or finding school environments difficult to manage.
What is emotionally informed tutoring?
Emotionally informed tutoring recognises that children cannot learn well when they feel anxious, overwhelmed, dysregulated or emotionally shut down. When a child’s nervous system is in survival mode, it is much harder for them to concentrate, remember information, take risks, make mistakes or believe they are capable.
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, we don’t focus only on academic outcomes. We take time to understand the child behind the behaviour, what helps them feel safe, what makes learning feel difficult and what they need in order to engage.
Our team build safe, trusting relationships and adapt sessions to reduce pressure, support emotional regulation and rebuild confidence alongside learning. This might include gentle encouragement, movement breaks, emotion coaching, flexible tasks, reassurance, or simply slowing things down so the child feels able to try.
It’s tutoring, but with empathy, brain science, emotional intelligence and confidence-building at the heart of everything we do.
What emotion coaching and counselling support do you offer?
Our coaching and counselling sessions help children and young people better understand their emotions, build confidence and feel supported through the challenges they may be facing.
Many of the children we support feel anxious, overwhelmed, emotionally dysregulated or stuck. Some struggle with low self esteem, school anxiety, friendships, behaviour, motivation or managing big emotions. Others may be neurodivergent or have experienced difficult school experiences that have affected how they feel about themselves and learning.
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, we know children are far more likely to thrive academically when they feel emotionally safe and regulated. Our coaching and counselling support is gentle, relational and tailored to the individual child. We focus on building safe, trusting relationships where children feel heard without pressure or judgement.
Sessions are interactive, flexible and child centred. Depending on the child’s age and needs, sessions may include conversations, games, creative activities, therapeutic approaches, emotional regulation strategies and practical coping tools. Some children feel most comfortable talking, while others open up more naturally through painting, drawing, clay work, colouring, Play Doh, movement or play based activities.
We support children to recognise emotions, understand themselves more deeply, process difficult feelings and develop healthier ways of coping, while rebuilding confidence and emotional wellbeing.
Do you work with schools and the Local Authority?
We regularly work alongside schools, SENCOs, Local Authorities and other professionals to support children with both their learning and emotional wellbeing.
We understand the pressures schools are under, so our aim is always to work collaboratively and provide consistent, child-centred support. This may include tutoring, counselling, emotion coaching, or tailored provision for children who are struggling within mainstream settings.
We can provide progress updates, emotional insights and support plans to help everyone work together around the child. Many schools and local authorities come to us when a child needs a more personalised, relational and emotionally aware approach to learning and wellbeing.
What makes Emotionally Healthy Minds different from traditional tutoring?
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, we understand that children cannot learn effectively when they feel anxious, overwhelmed, emotionally dysregulated, or unsafe. Traditional tutoring often focuses purely on academic progress, but our approach recognises that emotional wellbeing and learning are deeply connected.
We do not believe children are “lazy”, “difficult”, or “not trying.” We look beneath behaviour to understand what a child may be communicating through avoidance, shutdown, frustration, or disengagement.
Our sessions are relationship based, emotionally informed, and tailored to each individual child. We focus on building trust first, creating a safe environment where children feel accepted, understood, and free from pressure or shame. Once children feel emotionally safe, confidence and learning often begin to grow naturally.
We support many children with anxiety, autism, ADHD, emotionally based school avoidance, low confidence, school trauma, sensory needs, and gaps in education. Sessions are adapted flexibly around the child’s emotional and learning needs, rather than expecting the child to fit into a rigid approach.
Alongside tutoring, we also offer wellbeing and emotion coaching, helping children develop emotional awareness, regulation skills, resilience, and self-belief.
For many families, the difference is that we see the whole child, not just the academic outcome.
I’m struggling to support my child at home. Can you help me?
Our one-to-one parent consultations support families navigating neurodivergence, challenging behaviour, school avoidance and emotional overwhelm. We help parents better understand their child’s needs, reduce conflict at home and feel more confident responding to big emotions.
If you’re navigating a diagnosis, struggling with the EHCP process, or worried your child’s needs are not being properly supported within education, we offer guidance around SEN support, understanding your child’s rights, and advocating effectively within the system and support with EHCP applications and paperwork.
What types of support do you offer schools?
We provide tailored training and workshops for school staff, students, parents and carers, all centred around emotional wellbeing, mental health, and emotionally informed practice. Our training supports schools to better understand and respond to anxiety, emotional regulation, resilience, self-esteem and emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA).
We offer whole school INSET training, leadership and staff training, student workshops, parent and carer workshops, follow up training, and consultancy support. Sessions are practical, relational, and grounded in Emotion Coaching and current research around children’s emotional wellbeing.
Our student workshops are interactive and age appropriate, helping pupils develop emotional literacy, confidence, resilience, and self-regulation skills. We also provide transition workshops for Year 6 pupils preparing for secondary school.
The sun joined us this week for our Home Ed Mondays!
Games and bubbles in the garden, and board games and dinosaurs inside!
Great to see different children of all ages playing together and families sharing their experiences of home education.
Come and join us next week - Monday 12:30pm - 2:30pm.
£6 per child or £9 per family.
To book, email admin@emotionallyhealthyminds.com.
#HomeEducation #HomeEd #SENDSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #EmotionallyHealthyMinds
So, this morning, Keir Starmer announced plans to ban under-16s from social media by spring 2027.
I`d genuinely love to know your thoughts...
James and I are speaking at a conference in November about the impact of technology on children, so it`s a topic I`ve been thinking about a lot recently. Do you agree with it? How do you think your children would respond? Would you support it?
I should probably start by saying that I think phones are amazing. The changes they`ve brought to our lives are huge. I use mine every day for work, connecting with friends and about a hundred other things.
But what I struggle with is the constant stimulation and pressure they create.
One thing I prioritise each day is starting my day with a cup of coffee in my armchair, looking out of the window in silence. Nothing fancy. Just, no scrolling. No podcasts. Just a few minutes to let my thoughts settle, understand how I`m feeling and get my head in the right space before the day begins.
It sounds simple, but I find it so, so helpful.
What worries me is that childhood rarely seems to have those moments anymore. Any spare few minutes and out comes a phone.
Many of the children and young people we support are growing up in a world of constant notifications, endless scrolling and instant access to entertainment. Alongside the many benefits technology brings, we`re also seeing increasing challenges with attention, anxiety, emotional regulation, resilience and face-to-face communication.
This isn`t about blaming young people. They`re growing up in a world that looks very different from the one many of us experienced. I remember long summers as a child being bored, making things up, reading ‘Famous Five’ books and finding ways to entertain myself. Boredom wasn`t something to avoid. It was often where the best ideas came from - I have posted about this before.
Technology is here to stay, and it brings many positives.
But I do wonder whether our children need a bit more silence. A bit more space. And perhaps, every now and then, the chance to be bored.
What do you think?
#TechnologyAndChildren #Parenting #EmotionalWellbeing #MentalHealth #Education #emotionallyhealthyminds
We`re delighted to share this article featuring Emotionally Healthy Minds.
A huge thank you to @ourtownonlinemagazine for their ongoing support of local organisations and for helping raise awareness of the importance of children`s emotional wellbeing. We really appreciate the opportunity to share more about the work we do with children, families and schools across our community.
We hope you enjoy the read. Love Sarah x
https://ourtownswf.co.uk/showcase/emotionally-healthy-minds/
#HomeEducation #HomeEd #SENDSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #emotionallyhealthyminds
A little reminder that Home Ed Monday is back again this Monday from 12:30pm–2:30pm at Emotionally Healthy Minds.
After a fantastic first couple of sessions we’re looking forward to getting bigger and better!
Whether you’ve already joined us or are thinking of coming along for the first time, we’d love to see you there.
£6 per child or £9 per family.
A relaxed, friendly space for home educating families to meet, make connections and be part of a growing community.
To book, email admin@emotionallyhealthyminds.com.
#HomeEducation #HomeEd #SENDSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #EmotionallyHealthyMinds
With a little help from AI, this is me cuddling me.
I saw this trend on another page and it got me thinking... I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of children throughout my career, but if I could sit down with child me, what would I say to her?
One of the activities we sometimes do with students at Emotionally Healthy Minds is ask them to write a letter from their future self to their younger self. What would they say to them?
So what would I tell 7 year old Sarah?
I`d tell her not to let fear of mistakes hold her back.
I`d tell her not to shrink herself to make other people comfortable.
I`d tell her to stand up for what is right, even when it`s hard.
I`d tell her to believe in herself when others don`t.
I`d tell the little girl growing up on a council estate that there is a whole world out there waiting for her. Dream big. Work hard. Chase the things that matter most.
I`d tell her to pay attention to the passions she`s been given because they will shape her future more than she can possibly imagine.
But perhaps the biggest thing I`d tell her is that I wouldn`t change a thing.
Not the mistakes. Not the failures. Not the setbacks. Not the difficult seasons.
Because every one of them helped shape the person I am today.
There is such a growing culture of perfectionism amongst our children. We see it so often at Emotionally Healthy Minds.
Children are becoming increasingly afraid of getting things wrong or not being good enough. As adults, we need to keep reminding them that they do not have to be perfect. They simply need to keep showing up, keep trying and trust that they can learn and grow along the way.
#ChildrensMentalHealth #EmotionalWellbeing #GrowthMindset #SENDSupport #EmotionallyHealthyMinds
Lauren recently carried out an informal exit interview with a student who was finishing their sessions with Emotionally Healthy Minds.
When asked what she had enjoyed most, she talked about the games, the relaxed and informal atmosphere and being able to chat. She said she enjoyed having a say in her learning and being able to co-plan sessions together rather than feeling like learning was something being done to her.
Most importantly, she said she now feels much more confident with writing and has a stronger understanding of how to improve.
Her parent`s feedback meant so much to us:
"You are the first person in a long while to gain her trust with learning outside of the home. You have helped her become confident to work with others and it means so much to us as a family."
At Emotionally Healthy Minds, building trust always comes first…
We are so proud of her and wish her every success in her next chapter.
#EmotionallyHealthyMinds #AlternativeEducation #SENDSupport #HomeEducation #EmotionalWellbeing #TraumaInformedEducation #Neurodiversity #TutoringWithHeart #ConfidenceBuilding #StudentSuccess
Our next Home Ed Farm Group block starts next week and we still have a few spaces available!
This term, children have been enjoying a mix of animal care, nature-based learning, crafts and plenty of opportunities to connect, explore and learn outdoors.
Recently, the children learned all about different types of bees, tasted honey, designed and built their own solitary bee hotels and even made bee revival potion. We talked about the importance of pollinators and had some wonderful child-led discussions, with children sharing their own knowledge and ideas.
Alongside this, they also spent time grooming the ponies and building confidence around the animals.
• Monday 16th June• Monday 30th June• Monday 14th July
£90 for the full block of 3 sessions
10.00am – 12.00pm
To book a place, please email admin@emotionallyhealthyminds.com.
We`d love to welcome some new families along.
#EmotionallyHealthyMinds #HomeEducation #OutdoorLearning #ChildWellbeing #NatureBasedLearning
Thanks to everyone who came to our first ever Home Ed Monday at Emotionally Healthy Minds - bee-themed crafts, planting sunflower seeds, chalk drawing and treasure hunts.
James and Jess ran the session (I just popped in to chat with some of our lovely new families!) and it was awesome.
If you’re part of the home ed community why not come and join us next Monday 12:30pm-2:30pm. £6 for a child or £9 for a family.
A great chance to come and connect with other home ed families. We’re really excited to see this little community grow.
If you haven’t booked your child on yet, email admin@emotionallyhealthyminds.com
#HomeEducation #HomeEd #SENDSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #EmotionallyHealthyMinds
It was the last session last week with one of my students.
We finished by decorating a t-shirt with memories, affirmations, phrases and all the random little things that became part of our sessions over time. The endless hot chocolates, and her always beating me at Guess Who!
This was never just tuition. Like a lot of the work we do, the academic side only really works once a child feels safe, understood and comfortable enough to engage.
We’re so proud of our students and the progress they make, but we definitely miss them when they move on.
#SENDSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #Neurodiversity #EmotionallyHealthyMinds #tuition
