You’re supporting your child through EBSA. But who’s supporting you?

Feel steadier dealing with school, make difficult decisions with more confidence and trust yourself to work out what your child needs. 

Survive EBSA: Permission to Chart Your Course is my 12-week programme for parents of children experiencing Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA). It's for you if you've already tried what school or the local authority suggested and you're still left wondering what you're supposed to do next. 

School attendance is only one part of the picture. I want you to come through the next 12 weeks with your family back on the same team, and with hope for the future, whatever school ends up looking like. 

£1,200 (spreading the cost over 3 or 6 months costs nothing extra) 

Your partner or co-carer can join you at no extra cost. 

Starts 12th October 2026 · Enrolment closes at midnight on Tuesday 6th October 2026 · Spaces are limited

I'm Dr Carolyne Keenan, a Registered Counselling Psychologist with more than 20 years' experience, including a decade working with teenagers in the care system and on CAMHS wards.


"Sharing experiences and supporting others in similar situations on the live calls was incredibly helpful... I would highly recommend this programme to anyone facing EBSA challenges with their child." 

- Survive EBSA member, February 2026 cohort


You’ve tried really hard to get this right
The difficult mornings often start before anyone has even got out of bed. You're already wondering what today will bring, whether your child will manage school, whether you should encourage them, and whether staying home is helping or making things worse. 

Then there are the emails, phone calls and meetings. You may find yourself trying to understand education law, explaining the situation to family and friends, managing the impact on work and supporting everybody else in the house at the same time. Suddenly you need to be a parent, teacher, therapist and expert on the education system, with no training for half of those jobs! 

And there seems to be guilt whichever way you turn. Push your child to go in and you can see how distressed they are. Let them stay home and another voice starts asking what this means for their education and their future. 

School may have one view, the local authority may have another, and your own instinct may be telling you something else entirely. After long enough, it becomes very difficult to know whose judgement to trust, including your own.
Your child is struggling. Trying harder won’t answer every question.

One of the most important things we'll keep coming back to is the difference between a child who won't attend school and a child who currently can't. When your child's nervous system is overwhelmed, increasing the pressure doesn't automatically make attendance possible. And attendance alone doesn't tell us whether your child, or your family, is doing well. 

So our 12 weeks together go underneath the question of how to get your child through the school gates. We'll look at what your child needs, what you need, what sits within your control and how to make decisions when there's no perfect answer available. That includes school communication, guilt, uncertainty, family relationships and the pressure of trying to predict a future you can't see yet. 

You don't have to know the final answer before you start.


Survive EBSA could be right for you if...

You’ve tried what school or the local authority suggested and it hasn’t worked. 

You feel caught between professional advice and what you know about your own child. 

You spend far too much time replaying decisions and wondering whether you’ve made the wrong one. 

School communication has become a major source of stress. 

And you want psychological support and practical information while keeping the freedom to decide what makes sense for your family.

What you won’t get

You won't get a fixed route back into the classroom, or a universal answer that claims to work for every child. Your family may eventually choose mainstream school, a different setting, home education, a period of recovery first, or something you haven't considered yet. I won't make those decisions for you either. I'll bring the psychology, practical information and support while you work out what makes sense for your family. 

If your only aim is the fastest possible return to the classroom regardless of what your child needs, this won't be the right programme for you.
What could feel different after 12 weeks?

I can't tell you what your child's attendance will look like by Week 12. I can tell you what we'll be working towards. By the end, you may find that:

You trust your own judgement more and spend less time replaying every decision.

School contact feels easier, because you understand your position and feel more confident about what you want to say.

You're clearer on what sits within your control and what belongs to somebody else.

You can recognise guilt without immediately assuming you've done something wrong.

You can see more than one possible future for your child.

You and your child feel much more like you're on the same side of the problem.

We’ll measure that progress properly too.


At the start, you'll answer a short set of questions about your trust in your own judgement, sense of isolation, hope, confidence with school conversations, connection with your child and day-to-day family life. In Week 12 we'll put those answers side by side with new ones, so you can see what has changed, including the changes that are easy to miss when you've been living through them day by day.

Everything you’ll have alongside you
Weekly learning that fits around real life

Your lessons are hosted on ThriveCart and released week by week. 


The programme is designed around roughly one hour of self-led work each week, plus your live Friday call. (Because the last thing you need is a support programme becoming another enormous thing you’re behind on!)


Lessons use a mixture of talking-head video, slides and audio, giving you some flexibility around how you take the information in. 


If working ahead suits you better, you’ll also have the option to unlock everything at once.

 Practical tools for the moments you actually need them

You won’t be expected to remember an hour of psychology when you’re halfway through a difficult school morning!


The programme includes resources you can return to when you need them, including a trigger-noticing tracker, distress-tolerance tools, a push-or-pause decision checklist, guilt and responsibility exercises, school-meeting preparation and family conversation resources. 


They’re there to help you use what you’re learning when real life is actually happening.

Weekly live support

We’ll meet on Zoom every Friday for around 60 to 70 minutes. 

We’ll start with Anchor, then talk through what’s come up for the group and the questions you’ve submitted. 

The teaching gives you the foundations. These calls give us room to apply them to the complicated reality of family life, where things rarely fit neatly into a worksheet. 

Miss a Friday? You can catch up with the replay and continue with the programme without falling behind.
Your partner can join you too

If you have a partner or co-carer you’d like to bring into the programme, they can join you. 

Having access to the same teaching and live conversations can make it easier to work from a shared understanding at home.
A Welcome & Orientation call

Before Week 1 begins, we’ll meet for a dedicated Welcome & Orientation session. 

You’ll know how everything works, understand the confidentiality guidelines and meet the group before the programme properly begins. 

That means you can arrive at Week 1 knowing what to expect, instead of using the first teaching session to work out the logistics.
A private Facebook group

We keep the weekly rhythm simple. 

Monday: I post a prompt for the week. 

Wednesday: You can submit questions for Friday’s call. 

Friday: We meet live. 

There’ll also be a fortnightly small-win prompt. 

When school is still difficult, it’s very easy to overlook changes elsewhere, such as a calmer conversation, a decision you didn’t agonise over or a moment of connection with your child. 

These prompts help you notice those changes too. This is a closed group with clear confidentiality rules. No screenshots and no sharing somebody else’s story outside the group.
Monthly check-ins

You’ll have the option to complete a short written check-in each month to let me know how things are going for you.
A proper closing session

At the end of the programme, we’ll put your Week 1 and Week 12 reflections side by side. 

You’ll be able to see what has changed, including the changes that are easy to miss when you’ve been living through them day by day. 

You’ll also identify the tools you want to keep using, so you leave with something manageable for ordinary family life.
Your 12-week roadmap

There are 3 phases to Survive EBSA: Bearings, Recalibrate and Horizon. You won’t necessarily move through them in a perfect straight line. Real family life rarely works like that. Anchor runs underneath every week.


Anchor

Every live call starts with a few minutes of breathwork or meditation. When you’ve spent weeks or months expecting another difficult morning, worrying about the next school email or trying to absorb everybody else’s distress, your nervous system can spend an enormous amount of time on alert. That makes clear thinking harder. Anchor gives us somewhere to start before we get into the decisions, conversations and practical work. And I’ll keep reminding you of something parents in this position don’t hear enough: You are not getting this wrong.


Bearings: Finding Your Feet Again

Weeks 1 to 4 help you understand what this experience has been doing to you, think more clearly and loosen some of the guilt and pressure you’ve been carrying.
  • Week 1: Understanding YOUR Nervous System
    You’ll understand what happens in your body when you’ve spent a long time waiting for the next difficult morning, phone call or meeting, and start learning ways to help your nervous system settle.

    We’ll also look at an idea that can change how you view your child’s need to stop: burnt-out adults are allowed time away from work to recover. Burnt-out children are often expected to keep going.
  • Week 2: You Are Not Failing Your Child
    You’ll look at the guilt narrative you’ve been carrying and start separating what actually happened from the conclusion that you’ve failed.

    A plan that doesn’t work gives you information about what your child can manage today. It doesn’t give you a verdict on your parenting.
  • Week 3: Living With Uncertainty
    Not knowing what happens next can keep your nervous system switched on even when nothing is actively going wrong.

    You’ll understand why uncertainty is so exhausting and build a practical distress-tolerance toolkit for the days when certainty simply isn’t available.
  • Week 4: How to Stop Carrying Everyone’s Emotions
    You’ll learn about co-regulation, what happens when your child’s distress becomes your distress too, and how to support somebody you love without absorbing everything they’re feeling.
Recalibrate: Rewriting the Rules

Weeks 5 to 8 help you make difficult decisions, question expectations that don’t fit your child and feel more confident dealing with school and family pressures.
  • Week 5: Making Decisions Without Certainty
    Should you gently encourage your child forward today, or do they need you to pause?

    You’ll learn a practical way to make that decision based on the child in front of you, while also accounting for real life. Work still exists. Siblings still need things. Sometimes every available option has a cost.
  • Week 6: Parent Guilt
    You’ll look at what guilt is actually telling you and learn to separate guilt that points towards something you can repair from guilt that comes from being stuck in a situation with no clean answer.
  • Week 7: Know Your Rights & The Psychology of School Meetings
    You’ll build your legal literacy and feel better prepared for the conversations that can create so much anxiety around EBSA.

    You’ll understand more clearly what may apply to your situation, what questions to ask and when it’s worth getting specialist advice.

    We’ll also look at the psychology of difficult school meetings, so you can go into them with a clearer head and more confidence in your own position.
  • Week 8: Supporting Siblings Without Feeling Like You’re Letting Anyone Down
    Other children in the family notice more than we sometimes realise.

    You’ll look at why siblings can react strongly to changes in attention, routines and family stress, and how to talk honestly with them while protecting your other child’s privacy.
Horizon: Finding Your People, Finding Your Way

Weeks 9 to 12 make more room for your relationships, your child as a whole person and the future beyond the immediate school crisis.
  • Week 9: Protecting Your Relationship With Your Co-Carers
    EBSA can put enormous pressure on the adults supporting a child.
    You may care just as much and still respond very differently when things become difficult.

    We’ll look at the emotional load each of you is carrying, how different coping styles can create friction, and how to make more of that invisible work visible.

    And if you don’t have a co-carer living with you, we’ll look at where meaningful support can come from in your own situation.
  • Week 10: Rediscovering Your Child Beyond School
    When school becomes the biggest problem in family life, it can gradually become the subject of almost everything.

    We’ll deliberately make room for the rest of your child again.

    We’ll also challenge the advice that says a child who isn’t attending school shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy being at home.

    Your child still needs interests, connection, curiosity and ordinary moments of enjoyment. Removing those things can add isolation and low mood without making school any easier to manage.
  • Week 11: Hope
    Hope gets very difficult when you can only see one acceptable future.

    This week, we’ll look at the psychology of hope and what helps it survive when the original route you imagined for your child no longer feels certain.

    There can be more than one route towards a good life.

    You don’t have to pretend everything is fine to believe that.
  • Week 12: Building a Sustainable Family Life
    The final week is about carrying the work forward without expecting yourself to practise everything from the programme forever.

    You’ll identify the tools that have mattered most to you, compare where you are with where you started and think about what you want family life to look like from here.

    We’ll close the programme properly together.
Why I created Survive EBSA
Earlier in my career, I believed much more strongly that getting a young person back into school was the goal. Over time, the families I worked with changed my thinking. 

I saw young people being pushed towards school before they were ready, and I saw what happened when their wellbeing came second to attendance. I also saw young people go on to do well through college, apprenticeships and routes that didn't follow the timetable everyone originally expected. 

And I still remember working with a mum who was doing everything she could to get support for her daughter. She was ashamed, exhausted and carrying her own fear with nowhere to put it. At the time, hardly anybody around her was talking about EBSA, and that stayed with me.
 
Now, I care much more about whether your family can stay connected, whether your child feels safe and whether you can trust yourself enough to think critically about the advice you're given. Being a good parent for the system can look very different from being a good parent for your child. 

I'll bring the psychology, my clinical experience and the practical information. You bring something equally important: knowing your child, your family and yourself. 

What clients say about working with me 1:1 

"So knowledgeable, supportive, understanding and practical. Supremely helpful. You have made a big difference, thank you."
1:1 client 

"When the system failed us, Carolyne not only listened to and supported my daughter but also our entire family. She has continued to provide support for my daughter, demonstrating a calm demeanour, active listening, and an intuitive understanding of what my daughter needed at any given moment." 
Parent, 1:1 work with Carolyne 

"Carolyne is warm, perceptive and insightful but also no-nonsense when she needs to be. This approach has worked very well for me, I have always felt seen and understood in our sessions, and safe to be completely honest with her." 
1:1 client
Is this the right programme for you?
You’ll get the most from Survive EBSA if you’re willing to consider more than one possible way forward and make decisions around the needs of your own child. 

If your only aim is the fastest possible return to the classroom regardless of what your child needs, this won’t be the right programme. 

And I won’t make your decisions for you. I’ll give you psychology, practical information and support while you work out what makes sense for your family.

"I found Survive EBSA to be hugely valuable. Sharing experiences and supporting others in similar situations on the live calls was incredibly helpful. Carolyne’s insight and guidance during the programme was also truly outstanding and helped foster an ongoing inclusive, open space for us all to discuss the challenges we are facing and to support each other. I would highly recommend this programme to anyone facing EBSA challenges with their child."

Survive EBSA Member
February 2026 Cohort
A few practical questions
  • What happens if I miss a live call?
    Replays are available, so missing a Friday doesn’t mean missing that week’s conversation.
    You can catch up in your own time and continue with the programme as normal.
  • Do I have to talk or have my camera on during the live calls?
    No.

    You’re welcome to keep your camera off and listen if that’s what you need that day.
    This is a group programme though, and the more engaged and present everybody feels able to be, the more useful the experience tends to be for the whole group.

    There’s no requirement to share more than you’re comfortable with. It’s up to you.
  • Who is the programme for?
    Survive EBSA is mainly designed for parents of secondary-school-aged children.

    Your child doesn’t need to be completely out of school. They might be attending occasionally, on a reduced timetable, struggling with particular days or lessons, or currently unable to attend at all.

    If your child sits just outside that age range but the rest of the programme feels relevant to what your family is experiencing, get in touch at info@drcarolyne.co.uk before enrolling so we can check whether it’s likely to suit you.
  • Does my child need an official diagnosis?
    No.

    Your child doesn’t need an autism, ADHD, anxiety or other diagnosis for you to join and benefit from the Survive EBSA programme.

    EBSA can happen with or without a formal diagnosis, and you don’t need to be pursuing one as part of the programme.
  • Can I join if my child already has support from school, CAMHS or another professional?
    Yes.

    Survive EBSA can sit alongside support your child is already receiving.

    The focus here is largely on you, the parent: understanding what’s happening, managing the impact on you and your family, and feeling more confident in the decisions and conversations that come with EBSA.
  • Is Survive EBSA therapy?
    No. Survive EBSA is a psychologically informed education and support programme.
    I’m a Registered Counselling Psychologist, so the programme draws on psychological theory, my clinical experience and evidence-based approaches.

    You’ll learn about your nervous system, uncertainty, co-regulation, guilt and family relationships, and you’ll have space to discuss how those ideas relate to your own experience.

    It doesn’t replace individual psychological therapy or other mental health treatment where that’s needed.
You know your child better than anybody else does
You may have spent months being given advice about what you should do next. 

Survive EBSA gives you somewhere to understand the psychology, get practical support and think for yourself again. 

At the end of the 12 weeks, some uncertainty may still be there. School may look different from what you expected. 

But whether your child walked through a school gate that morning doesn’t have to decide whether you’ve succeeded as their parent. 

You can trust your judgement more. 

You can feel closer to your child. 

And your family can find a way forward that works for you. 

  • Survive EBSA: Permission to Chart Your Course 
  • 12 weeks | £1,200 with the option to spread the cost over 3 or 6 months | Your partner or co-carer joins at no extra cost
  • Starts 12th October 2026 · Enrolment closes at midnight on Tuesday 6th October 2026
Join Survive EBSA: Permission to Chart Your Course
And get:

  • The full 12-week on-demand curriculum. 
  • A dedicated Welcome & Orientation call. 
  • 12 weekly live Zoom calls with me. 
  • Replays if you can’t attend live. 
  • Anchor breathwork or meditation during every call. 
  • Practical resources and exercises throughout the programme. Access for your partner or co-carer. 
  • Access to the private Facebook community. 
  • Weekly prompts and the opportunity to submit questions. Fortnightly small-win prompts. 
  • Monthly written check-ins. 
  • A structured Week 12 closing session.


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