Supporting early years mental health in nursery & pre-schools
Thrive works with early years settings, such as nurseries and pre-schools, to support the mental health and emotional development of babies, toddlers and young children, building strong foundations for life and learning.
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How Does the Thrive Approach support mental health in early years?
Our Approach supports mental health in early years by creating emotionally safe, nurturing environments where young children can feel secure and supported.
We help early years practitioners to understand and respond to each child's social and emotional needs through trauma-informed training and our online tool, Thrive-Online. This support enables children to build positive relationships, develop resilience, and learn essential stress management skills, laying the foundation for their lifelong wellbeing.
Thrive is a consistent approach that we have applied across absolutely everything we do... We describe Thrive as a toolkit that allows us to support our children effectively."
Elizabeth Leer. Deputy Headteacher and SENCO, Rothesay Nursery School
FREE EARLY YEARS RESOURCES
Supporting young
children's development
Inside, you'll discover:
- E-guide about how to create a sense of belonging, with strategies to help young children feel safe, seen and emotionally secure.
- E-guides exploring what to do when little ones lash out or bite, and strategies to help children feel secure while learning new ways to express their needs.
- Webinar covering the evolving landscape of SEND in the early years, with insight into common behaviours and practical activities to support young children.
- Bite-sized videos offering emotions resources for early years, to help you better understand children’s emotional cues and guide them towards safe self-expression.
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Just launched! Early Years Level 3 Educator Apprenticeship
This levy-funded, nationally recognised programme offers everything you’d expect from a Level 3 Early Years Educator qualification – with Thrive’s expertise in child development, behaviour and wellbeing woven in.
Real stories: How Thrive transforms early years settings
After initially being sceptical, the team at Rothesay Nursery School quickly saw how Thrive's neuroscience-based approach provided the tools to support children's emotional development, creating a calm environment and helping every child thrive. At Ofsted Outstanding Cullompton Pre-School, the Thrive Approach is key to supporting children emotionally, helping them settle, manage transitions, and build trust, with benefits seen across the whole setting. Perry Wood Primary and Nursery School used the Thrive Approach to support children’s emotional wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic, building stronger staff-pupil relationships and ensuring a smooth transition back to school life. .jpg)
what our customers say...
Rothesay Nursery School: How neuroscience and Thrive transformed our approach
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what our customers say...
Cullompton Pre-School: Building special relationships through Thrive
what our customers say...
Perry Wood Primary and Nursery: Strengthening relationships during the pandemic with Thrive
Frequently asked questions
The Thrive Approach is a research-based method that supports the emotional and social development of children and young people by helping adults understand and respond to their individual needs.
In early years settings, Thrive focuses on creating a nurturing environment where young children feel safe and secure, allowing them to explore the world with confidence. Through play, connection, and tailored activities, Thrive helps children build the foundations for emotional resilience, positive relationships, and healthy development.
Thrive-Online is a unique tool that helps early years practitioners assess the social and emotional development of children.
By tracking progress and generating personalised action plans, staff can ensure each child receives the specific emotional support they need, whether in one-to-one sessions or group activities.
Becoming a Thrive Licensed Practitioner equips you with the skills and knowledge to support the social and emotional development of young children.
You’ll be able to assess children’s needs using Thrive-Online, create tailored interventions, and embed wellbeing strategies that help children form healthy attachments and emotional resilience.
Our current routes for Early Years Practitioners are our Thrive Wellbeing Specialist Teaching Assistant Apprenticeship and our Thrive Wellbeing Leadership Apprenticeship. These programmes offer a dual qualification which includes Thrive Licensed Practitioner status.
Experiences in the early years lay the foundations for all future learning.
It's during this time that children begin to make sense of themselves, other people and the world around them. For children with SEND, the way we notice, respond and connect during these early years shapes their confidence, wellbeing and long-term relationship with learning.
Supporting SEND in the early years starts with curiosity. It might mean slowing things down, looking beneath behaviour, noticing sensory sensitivities or valuing different communication styles.
With the right early identification and early years SEND support in place, every child feel included, understood, and ready to learn - in their own time, and in their own way.
Thrive plays a crucial role in supporting mental health in early years settings by equipping practitioners with the skills and knowledge they need to create safe, nurturing environments.
This trauma-informed approach ensures that practitioners can effectively support children's social, emotional and mental health difficulties in early years, helping them to feel secure and build strong, positive attachments. By fostering these foundational relationships, Thrive enables children to develop resilience and emotional regulation from an early age, ultimately contributing to their overall mental health.
Through our science-backed training, Thrive empowers practitioners to recognise and respond to the emotional needs of young children, creating an environment where they can explore their feelings and experiences without fear. This proactive support is essential for laying the groundwork for positive mental health in early years, promoting healthy development, and preventing emotional difficulties later in life.