Golden Moments

Continuing on from my last post about my job in Children’s Services…..

Local government services are continually evolving and expanding according to demand although, sadly, in some instances, a lack of funding leads to services being severely reduced or even disbanded.

The Education Support Team is one service which has gone through some significant changes. The first big change was the way in which the service supported the children and young people. Instead of providing 1:1 support with a very small percentage of children, caseworkers are now allocated a full caseload so that every individual child has a caseworker overseeing their education. The way the cases are allocated is that every caseworker is assigned to specific schools in East Sussex and consequently any East Sussex looked after children (LAC) in those schools are automatically the responsibility of that caseworker. This could be a child who already attends the school at the time of being taken into care or if a child is moved there from another school. So some children will not have had a change in their education and will already have been identified as a child in need and case conferences and strategy meetings will have taken place prior to any decisions to remove them from their families.

The other notable change is that the service was renamed and is now called The Virtual School for Children in Care (VSCIC) in line with new legislation which required every local authority in England to appoint a Virtual School Head. In addition to this, maintained schools and academies are required to have a designated teacher for looked after children. They must be a qualified teacher who is working as a teacher at the school or a head teacher/acting head teacher of the school.

The Virtual School has a statutory duty to work together with children and young people, schools, social workers, carers and other professionals to ensure that looked after children and young people do as well as possible at school by monitoring their progress, championing their educational needs and providing or commissioning additional support.

The name of the service can be quite confusing and we are often mistaken for being an online service. The best way to describe the service is that all of the children we support are on roll at a ‘regular’ school and, if you like, we act as an ‘umbrella’ school for all of them. As stated previously there is a head teacher and there is also a governing body made up of a head teacher, foster carer and/or adoptive parent, a designated teacher of an independent school, a county councillor and other appropriate professionals. The chairperson of the governing body is the Head of Looked After Children’s Services.

Pupil Premium Plus is additional educational funding provided by the Department of Education and is held and managed by virtual schools for children who are in care, plus those children previously looked after. The East Sussex Virtual School pools the money and allocates it on a needs basis. This does mean that some children are supported by the funding and others may never need to access any. As well as support being directly for individuals, the funding may be used for training in schools, specific projects and regular schemes. One example is that all primary school aged children who are looked after by East Sussex receive a parcel of books several times a year to promote literacy. Many of the children have never owned a book, let alone a bundle of smart brand new ones, and they arrive in the post in a parcel personally addressed to them. This scheme has been running for several years and has been very well received. The books are not distributed by age but rather by the child’s reading ability. This information is provided by the school or carers to ensure the choices are appropriate and do not result in disappointment.

You may be wondering about the nature of the service’s support. Well there are a number of elements to the role. One of the most crucial factors is having good relationships with the schools, social workers, carers and a range of professionals. Having specific school allocations allows caseworkers to build up relationships with key members of school staff. We ensure that the schools are doing all they can to support the needs of the young people, at the same time offering them advice and guidance when young people become hard to manage in school. While maintaining this working collaboration there are times when it is necessary to challenge decisions, such as exclusions, if we believe there is a better alternative to resolve an issue. Personally I feel that exclusions are never an effective way of managing a situation especially as some of the children do not want to be in school and may deliberately look for ways to avoid attending. It’s probably best I don’t go too deep into my views on that subject….!

In some ways I guess you could say we are like a consultancy. We have ‘champions’ in other services such as the East Sussex Behaviour and Attendance Service (ESBAS), Communication Learning and Autism Support Service (CLASS), Educational Psychology (EP) service, School Admissions, Occupational Therapists (OT), Speech and Language Therapy (SALT), Children’s Mental Health Service (CAMHS), the Adoption team, Youth Employability Service (YES) alternative providers and tutor agencies to mention a few!

As all of these children will have experienced some level of trauma, whether that’s in the form of abuse, neglect or loss, they will undoubtedly struggle emotionally and this is likely, if not certainly, to impact on their learning. They may have gaps in their education where they either had poor attendance or were unable to focus at school during a period of extreme difficulty in their home lives. Many of the children spend a considerable amount, if not all, of their education playing ‘catch up’. Even though they have become ‘safe’ from the dangers they have been exposed to they continue to live in a world of fear and uncertainty.

Of course any sustained absence from school is likely to impact on a child’s academic performance, regardless of their cognitive ability. So in addition to these gaps and disruption in their learning, the vast majority will have experienced some level of developmental trauma due to their early experiences. The theory of attachment suggests that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. Without this significant bond the brain misses vital parts of its development. The human cerebral cortex adds 70 percent of its mass after birth and grows to 90% of its adult size in the first three years of life. If this growth is disrupted, it will hinder the child’s ability to regulate, relate and reason (known as the three R’s). Statistical analysis of the brains of Romanians who were institutionalised as children during the communist regime showed that they were around 8.6% smaller than other adoptees and those changes in brain volume that were related to deprivation were also associated with lower IQ and more ADHD symptoms implying that changes in brain structure could play a mediating role between the experience of deprivation and levels of cognitive performance and mental health. Therefore, as well as building up a knowledge of education systems and tracking academic progress and performance, much of our focus is on the child’s ability to access their learning.

One concept that it is essential for staff in school to always bear in mind is that behaviour is a form of communication. In most cases, behaviour is a sign a child may not have the skills to tell you what they need. Sometimes, children may not even know what they need. This is when schools should think about what the child may be trying to communicate. What do they need, and what could the teachers do to help?

Because they may be excellent at ‘masking’ their difficulties (these children are very good at finding survival strategies for many situations) some children may get to secondary school before being screened for potential communication difficulties. They may have good expressive language but poor receptive language, giving them the ability to talk articulately and therefore giving the impression they are not struggling to understand. I have worked with young people who have managed to get to year 8/9 or sometimes even key stage 4 before it is discovered that their communication is so poor that professionals are utterly astounded at how they have got that far without being detected. One of my year 8 girls was screened using a standardised assessment which is used universally to screen language comprehension. It is called ‘Language Link’ and is available in infant, junior and secondary versions.

The content reflects the daily demands faced by young people to understand language both in the classroom and in conversation with peers. The assessment covers:

• following classroom instructions

• understanding complex sentences

• concept vocabulary

• processing information

• social understanding

My particular student, age 13, scored an overall percentile of 2, which translates to ‘2 children in 100’ (or 2%) of the same age having that level of comprehension. As you can imagine, this was incredibly significant to, not only her learning, but also to her ability to socially interact with her peers.

A few years ago, having completed an accredited level 4 qualification in ‘Working with Children with Complex Speech, Language and Communication Needs’ I led on a project on behalf of the Virtual School monitoring the way in which our schools identified and acknowledged the links between behaviour and communication difficulties. I requested that the school carry out a speech and language assessment as soon as they became aware that a child in their school had become looked after. In all instances I stressed the importance of this being an essential element to the whole baseline assessment process. At the same time I asked caseworkers in our team to request this screening of their young people. This was regardless of progress and perceived ability and sometimes a teacher would say “oh no, they don’t need that. They don’t have any difficulties” and I would politely ask them to do it anyway so that the study would reflect a realistic overview. In some cases, there were gaps identified and some profiles were very spiky, i.e. areas of good outcomes alongside much weaker areas. This then provided a reliable tool to consider the appropriate interventions to strengthen those areas or to refer to an external service such as the NHS Speech and Language Therapy service. If the scores are all within the average range there is no need for further involvement but if there are recommendations within the report a review should be carried out after a period of intervention.

If I am ever in a meeting or a discussion about a young person and there is a suggestion that they might be dyslexic I will always ask first if a speech and language assessment has been carried out as, if there are unidentified difficulties, this is likely to affect the results of a Dyslexia Screening Test (DST). Having speech and language difficulties does not necessarily mean that a young person is dyslexic.

Of course, many of our young people have no difficulties with communication but it is helpful to confirm this as there can often be an assumption that the reasons for poor behaviour are due to social, emotional and mental health (SEMH), based on the fact that they are a looked after child. If this conclusion is incorrect, then the ensuing support may also not resolve the issues. However, as I mentioned previously, emotional trauma can, and often does, have a significant impact on the young person’s ability to learn.

Thankfully schools nowadays are much more ‘attachment and trauma aware’ and undergo much more training on how to support this. They run various nurture groups and classes and specific programmes such as ‘Zones of Regulation’ (a social emotional learning framework and pathway to regulation). They may also use a school-led embedded ethos called ‘Therapeutic Thinking’, a philosophy which focuses on how all children and young people are supported, particularly in terms of their emotional wellbeing and mental health. The approach also helps to develop an understanding of how to respond to those who may be communicating through inappropriate behaviours. They might carry out a Boxall Profile, an assessment tool for social, emotional and behavioural difficulties or a Thrive assessment, a neuroscience and psychology-based approach to helping children and young people thrive. Lots of these tools can help schools to put together a ‘pupil passport’ or ‘student snapshot’ which is a very concise document that can be shared with all school staff to help them to have a better understanding of the young person and may include strategies, dos and don’ts and any other information that can be used to avoid incidents due to the young person’s fears and anxiety about being in school. These are just a couple of examples of ways in which schools can support young people with SEMH difficulties.

Sometimes a young person is not managing school at all and becomes at risk of permanent exclusion. Caseworkers will be part of a network doing all they can to prevent that from happening. I won’t go into all the details but we may advise alternative provision and agree to fund this, such as forest schools and art therapy. Alternatively we may encourage schools to refer to the behaviour and attendance service for assessment and intervention which we can also fund using pupil premium plus. In some instances it may be necessary to agree a reduced timetable.

We are occasionally invited to attend network therapy meetings with LACMHS (Looked After Children’s Mental Health Service) when a child has reached a crisis point and we need to consult with psychologists and other professionals to ensure we are all meeting the young person’s needs as best we can. These meetings are very interesting and informative but they can also be emotionally draining when the background/history of a young person is discussed in detail to help everyone to understand the significance of their earlier experiences.

By law every looked after child should have a Personal Education Plan’ (PEP) meeting three times in an academic year. Attending these meetings and ensuring the completed paperwork is satisfactory is our main focus. If the young person is below age related expectations (ARE) or is not making progress according to their individual targets we look at the potential reasons for this. A large percentage of the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is used to provide additional 1:1 tuition which can be arranged through the Virtual School. The impact of the tuition is measured and has resulted in improved progress for many. Often it’s not just the extra teaching but an increase in confidence which makes the difference.

If a young person is really struggling and it is not possible to sustain the level of funding to meet the needs, we would request that the school starts the process of applying for an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP). Some of you may know this as a statement of educational need, as it was previously called. This is a gathering of evidence to support the decision that a child cannot manage without additional help and, if successful, additional funding is granted to the school for that specific young person. If, even with the extra funding, it is agreed that the young person still cannot cope in a mainstream environment then an emergency review can be held to consider a special school/provision. It does not however guarantee a place for that child due to numbers being kept low.

Last year I applied for and successfully secured a position as an Education Support Worker (ESO) within the team. A chunk of that role is the same as a caseworker and I still hold a substantial caseload. I also supervise a caseworker and she asks me for advice and guidance when she needs it. However, the role is also a strategic one. I am one of five ESOs and we each have specific areas of responsibility. I am the Communications and Media lead, representing the team on any online issues, websites, projects and information sharing. It’s a nice balance of maintaining the core work of the team and branching out to wider areas of interest. All five of us also have regular commitments such as auditing of paperwork, sitting on the funding panel and extended duties which is mainly supporting children who are on the edge of care.

I have given you just a flavour of the purpose of the Virtual School as there are so many other ways in which we support these children with their individual needs. I appreciate this is very factual so I thought it would be interesting to share some anecdotal examples of my time with the Virtual School.

In every caseload we all have a small number of high profile and very challenging children. I had a boy at secondary school who had experienced severe trauma at home. He was the middle child of three siblings who were all placed in separate foster homes. His cognition was rather enigmatic but he had seemingly managed to get the whole way through primary school with his poor cognisance going unnoticed. His profile was very spiky as some assessments still put him in the average ranges. If you had a conversation with him though you could clearly see that there was something preventing him from having a grasp of reality. He had no friends to speak of and spent more time out of class than in. We funded a ‘Thrive’ practitioner to work with him but it was obvious it was going to be a slow process. LACMHS network consultations were held and the information shared by the social worker was incredibly distressing. I’m usually pretty good at keeping my emotions in check but I struggled in those meetings and could often feel the threat of tears. The situation was unimaginable. This boy seemed to have never known love. Unfortunately one day he had a colossal meltdown in school. Luckily both myself and his social worker happened to be in school for a meeting about another child so we were able to get involved. We went to the class where he was and he looked like a caged animal. This boy’s regular expression was one of ‘a rabbit in headlights’ but this time he was in a completely different zone to everyone else. There were members of staff at every exit of the classroom to prevent his ‘escape’, upturned furniture and ripped-up work spread around the room. He looked absolutely terrified and it was really disturbing for everyone to see. The social worker had an excellent relationship with him albeit dialogue between them could be quite limited. However, he was in such a state of hyper-arousal that she couldn’t get him to recognise who she was at first. She then proceeded to calmly and politely ask everyone else to leave the room and eventually he ‘came back down’ and collapsed in a curled up ball. Staff were concerned about how they were going to get him out of school and talked about calling the police. The social worker was indignant that it would be a bad idea. This child had witnessed many incidents involving the police and was ultimately removed from his parents’ care by police officers. The social worker spoke to the police and persuaded them to arrive without wearing uniforms. She was also adamant that he would not be able to reflect on what had happened and should not be questioned by anyone. Eventually the boy went willingly with two non-uniformed officers to their marked car. By then he was able to trust them to take him back to his foster placement. Despite my best efforts to persuade him otherwise the head teacher insisted on permanently excluding the student. I argued that he would never have to return to the school site and we would make alternative arrangements for his education but, sadly,he had made up his mind. An appeal to the academy trust also failed. I’m not going to dwell on the misgivings of this situation as it isn’t reflective of my respect for that school as a whole. It was the beginning of a situation that went on for well over a year. Fortunately he was able to attend a small provision targeted at young people with SEMH and the teacher of the provision was able, with the help of myself and others in the network, to apply for and secure an EHCP after which time we called a review to name a special school. He missed a whole year group of mainstream education and I’m very happy to say was ultimately given a place in a local special school where he also boarded, only spending every other weekend at his foster placement. I’ll never forget his first PEP meeting at the school with feedback of how settled he was. He had loads of friends, was taking part in activities and was one of the brightest students in his class! Finally I could see a future for this poor boy who had been let down by his parents and subsequently the school system. For the second time of working with him I could barely speak as I had a huge lump in my throat. All he needed was to be understood.

“Students who are loved at home come to school to learn, and students who aren’t, come to school to be loved”

On the planning paperwork there are sections to gather the pupil voice. These questions have changed over time and younger children often needed them to be rephrased. For example, one question was “what are your aspirations for the future?” For younger children we would say “what would you like to do when you grow up?” One of my little girls who had a diagnosis of autism replied “I want to be a shark or a crocodile so I can be like my brother and swim underwater!” Another time the same little girl was asked “What would you like to do after school?”. It had been snowing that day and she replied “I want to go sledging!” Well, we did ask…!

The Virtual School measures success in very different ways and often not in the conventional sense. Qualifications are of course important but some children take a longer path to academic achievement. Our measure of success comes in smaller steps. For example, where a child has been a school refuser and after a long period of non-attendance manages to step over the threshold of the school and attend just one lesson, that is something to celebrate. Similarly if a child has struggled throughout their time in school but manages to sit one exam, that is a success. Better still if that child achieves a grade 1 in just one of their GCSE exams, it is indeed an accomplishment. There are 9 grades for a reason. Success is being able to sit on the mat at carpet time, accepting support from an adult, joining in a PE lesson, remembering equipment, not shouting out in class….

We have a very special custom in our team. Team meetings are held every two weeks and a regular item in the agenda is ‘Golden Moments’. Every member of the team has an opportunity to share their golden moments. These can be work-related or personal, sometimes both. This is where we often acknowledge those small steps and occasionally a HUGE step that deserves to be heard! It’s a wonderful exercise that is guaranteed to make everyone smile and reminds us that we are making a difference, however big or small.

We should always bear in mind the struggles these children have to deal with on a daily basis. Constant fear, who to trust, will they be hungry later, where will they be staying tonight, are they going to be moving again, is their mummy ok, when will they see their brother or sister again, are they safe from harm now, is it their fault they were taken away….? It’s hard to imagine living with those thoughts and fears everyday.

These children are not “choosing” those behaviours as some may suggest. They are just trying to survive…..

“Beneath every behaviour is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focus on the behaviour, we begin to deal with the cause not the symptom.”