ABSTRACT
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a useful approach for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and class teachers to use when helping pupils with emotional difficulties. It is called Brief Solution Focused Counselling in the USA because using the term therapy to describe ‘within-school’ activities is not permitted there. What we shall describe here is the use of a number of solution-focused techniques and then discuss how these could be applied to a school setting. The techniques are described within the context of a standard solution-focused interview. In real life situations the order of questioning will be determined as much by the flow of conversation between interviewer and interviewee as by the need to follow a certain structure.
