SEBDA’s exerts influence through involvement in research bids and collaboration with partners to contribute to, lead and share evidence based practice. For example:

• SEBDA is acknowledged as a member of the DFE Steering Group 2018 that worked on the revised ‘Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools’ guidance. Senior representatives from the SEBDA Executive worked in coalition with like-minded colleagues to ensure that the DFE revised the document and made causal links between a child’s mental health and their subsequent behaviour. The document now states that ‘ it may be unlawful to apply a behaviour policy that treats all pupils the same ..’  Schools need to adapt policies and responses where a student has a Mental Health need (see 1.3 ).
• SEBDA publishes a quarterly research journal, the Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties journal through Taylor Francis and members of the National Council are on the editorial board of this important, peer-reviewed research publication.
• SEBDA organised and supported an Attachment Symposium in July 2019 drawing together practitioners from across a range of professional settings to compare approaches and applications of attachment theory in different settings
• SEBDA members are currently engaged in research projects around Theraplay, Secondary Nurture Group models, Boxall Profile data analysis and bids with the EEF. 
• SEBDA, in conjunction with nurtureuk, has revised the WellBeing Toolkit (Rae 2015) and the 2nd Edition is due for publication in 2020.
• SEBDA member Dr David Colley is co-editor of the training text book Attachment and Emotional Development in the Classroom (2017) with SEBDA alumnus Prof Paul Cooper. Drawing together a range of perspectives on attachment and meeting needs in the classroom, this publication is recommended to SEBDA members nationally and internationally