Inclusion Plans for Previously Looked After Children

Inclusion Plans for Previously Looked After Children

Information and resources about Inclusion Plans for PLAC.

What is an Inclusion Plan?

The Inclusion Plan is not a statutory document, it is recommended as good practice to create a partnership agreement between the child or young person, home, school and professionals to ensure effective provision. The Inclusion Plan will support with transitions to ensure all staff are aware of pre-adoptive experiences, any significant developmental trauma, and it allows exploration of what is working well and any further actions that can support the young person.

Inclusion Plan template: 

This guidance document will help you complete the Inclusion Plan:

Schools are not required to send a copy of the Inclusion Plan to the Virtual School as the Virtual School does not casework children who are Previously Looked After. The Virtual School offers advice and guidance to carers, parents and professionals. You should only circulate the plan to those agreed.

Inclusion Plan resources

Brainstem Calmers

A psychiatrist, Dr Bruce Perry, has developed something called the 'Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics', which is a framework that helps us to know how to help children who have suffered early trauma and loss.

Children's brains organise from bottom to top, with the lower parts of the brain (brainstem aka "survival brain") developing earliest, and the cortical areas (thinking brain) much later. Traumatised children's brain becomes stuck in the brainstem, and they therefore swing between their survival modes of fight/flight/freeze/collapse.

One of the most helpful ways to move children from these super-high anxiety states, to their calmer ‘thinking brain’, is patterned, repetitive rhythmic activity.

Creating a therapeutic web of relationships around the child together with regular brainstem calming activities can, over time, help a child’s brain and body to learn that they are safe.

PAC.UK: The Agency for Adoption and Permanency Support

A guide for school staff:

Useful links

Find out more information here:

Was this page useful?