Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Denise Eacher
• Department for Children, Schools and Families
• Project Manager
• Boarding provision for vulnerable children
  pathfinder
• NATIONAL COMMISSIONING CONTRACTING TRAINING
  CONFERENCE 13TH / 14TH SEPT 2007

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• A boarding school placement can be
• Better value?
• A better bet?
• We have launched a pathfinder to find out

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• The pathfinder
• An agreement between DCSF, 10 LAs, 3 educational
  charities, BSA/SBSA and 50 boarding schools
• Launched in November 2006.
• To test effectiveness of boarding option and
  explore what further support is needed
• Pathfinder will be evaluated
• Aims to identify those vulnerable children on
  edge of care who could benefit and promote better
  access and availability.

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Why?
• Majority of children and young people in care and
  the professionals working with them feel that
  they should be given the option to consider
  boarding school
• The hidden system it already happens for
  children whose families know how to get help from
  boarding schools and education trusts
• While some authorities use boarding or other
  residential schools for some of their vulnerable
  children, very few consider this option routinely
• Many more children could benefit

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Background
• This is not a new idea.
• Not an either/or. To meet the needs of an
  individual child we need a range of options.
• An estimated 300 vulnerable young people
  currently placed in boarding schools, funded by
  charitable education trusts or bursaries
• But rarely by LAs. Recent BSA survey showed many
  made no use of boarding at all. Yet, there is
  evidence that such referrals can be hugely
  successful.
• One of a range of early or preventative
  interventions in the context of providing family
  support under s17 of the Children Act 1989,
  particularly helpful as part of a package of
  support for kinship care.

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children
Every Child Matters promised opportunities for
all and narrowing of the gap

• Systemic change to
• - Build services around the child, young
  person and family
• - Support parents and carers
• - Promote prevention and early intervention
• and to integrate
• - Universal and targeted services
• - Services 0-19
• - Cross government policy for children and
  young people

• Be Healthy
• Stay Safe
• Enjoy and Achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Achieve economic well-being

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Education needs
• A childs profile and past should not dictate
  their progress and prospects
• We are changing the way we think about and
  deliver education for vulnerable children
• All children have individual learning needs
• Need for an achievement culture
• Importance of access to cultural and enrichment
  opportunities
• 12 of looked after children got 5 A-C in 2006,
  up from 7 in 2000 but national average rising
  faster so gap is widening

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Boarding schools can provide
• A stable, safe environment that provides strong
  support for social and emotional development
• Education support that can allow them to realise
  their potential and enhance their future life
  chances.
• Excellent access to support outside the classroom
  and a wide range of sporting and other activities
  which we know are crucial to positive outcomes
• And they can help to make young people want to
  engage in education, employment or training
  beyond 16

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Points to note
• One of a range of options and same considerations
  as other types of placement eg back-up plan if it
  doesnt work out
• Must be right for the child, and child and family
  must want the place
• Important to maintain contact with
  family/significant adult and make arrangements
  for holidays
• Boarding school should not be a fall back
  position
• This is a needs-long commitment
• Importance of informed decision
• Regular monitoring and access to social worker
• This is about keeping families together as well
  as enhancing opportunities

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Childrens Views of boarding Reports from Dr
  Roger Morgan OBE, Childrens Rights Director

Being a Boarder Survey of pupil and parental
experience of boarding school life Boarding
School Placement Focus group discussions with
pupils placed for Boarding Need by local
authorities or charities Full reports available
on childrens website www.rights4me.org Dr Roger
Morgan OBE Childrens Rights Director for England
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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Being a boarder
• The public caricature of boarding is of a
  negative environment of high physical bullying,
  poor care and extreme homesickness.
• These do not come through as major issues for
  todays boarders or their parents and boarders
  themselves register fewer concerns about
  separation from family and homesickness than
  their parents

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Reasons for a boarding placement
• Placement stability
• Education support (peers, prep, out of school)
• Move from local area
• Shared care with relatives
• Specific offers of specific school

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Boarding schools are seen as offering a positive
  social life, with plenty of friends and
  activities, often across cultures, and with
  strong benefits of learning skills and
  independence.
• On the more negative side, there are issues of
  separation from home and family, the continuing
  need to counter bullying and homesickness, and
  the desire for privacy in communal living

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Best about boarding
• Friends
• Community
• Opportunities and activities
• Doing homework / prep at school
• Learning independence
• Teachers around outside class time
• Choice of people to go to with problems

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Worst about boarding
• Missing your family/homesickness
• Weekends at school if most go home
• Restricted freedoms
• Hectic programmes
• Not always easy just to be alone/loss of privacy
• Food
• Missing community when you leave

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Was boarding as expected
• Hardest time first few weeks as any placement
• School bigger than expected
• More hectic life
• More routines
• More adult involvement
• Differences between boarding houses
• More activities than expected
• Less privacy than before

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Personal problems
• Able to find a friend to talk to
• Able to choose staff who are there to talk to
• Young gap staff can be helpful
• Choice of people to approach with problems
• Can keep getting asked if OK
• Learning to get on with others
• Hectic living can help to cope with problems
• Some schools have a special counsellor
• Risk of lack of confidentiality sometimes
• Bullying no worse than day schools but in same
  house

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Relationships with family and friends
• Being away can improve family relationships while
  some find it harder to live away from families
• School / home contrast if weekly boarding
• Easy to keep in touch (but need to find time!)
• Those with boarding need can be quizzed at first
  but soon accepted for themselves like anyone else
• Social worker needs to make quick decisions
• Must get holiday and exeat arrangements sorted

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• How well do boarding schools look after children?
• Boarders Rating Very well or quite well 74
• (37 very well)
• Less than well enough 4
• Parents Rating Very well or quite well 88
• (62 very well)
• None rated less than well enough

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Boarding doesnt suit everyone
• It can be a very positive experience for those it
  does suit
• It is vital to get the right school and
  sometimes the right house in the school for the
  individual child

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• I think boarding is wicked and I want to maybe
  think about doing full time but I will discuss it
  though to see whats right for me
• as you progress through boarding school it
  becomes a want not a need
• I thought itd be impersonal like boot camp, but
  when I got there, there was a sense of community

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Costs
• Range from 5,000 in a state boarding school to
  21,000 in an independent school, depending on
  whats offered, so shop around
• You will be able from next year to use the
  schools budget for vulnerable children in
  independent schools
• Education trusts are committed to providing
  grants where their criteria are met and to
  negotiating bursaries and other support
• Need to compare with the costs of other options,
  especially if the position becomes more complex

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Information available from DCSF this term
• Leaflet for authority staff on why this is an
  important option
• Leaflet to help you inform young people and their
  families
• Guidance and protocols to help you integrate this
  option with your existing procedures
• Directory of pathfinder boarding schools and what
  they can offer

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Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children

• Contacts for more information
• Denise Eacher denise.eacher_at_dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
• Mike Allin mallin_at_westminster.gov.uk
• Julie Burns, Joint Educational Trust
  admin_at_jetcharity.org
• Gerri McAndrew, Frank Buttle Trust
  gerrimca_at_buttletrust.org
• Hilary Moriarty, Boarding Schools Association
  director_at_boarding.org.uk
• Sue Rigby, Royal Wanstead Childrens Foundation
  director_at_royalwanstead.org.uk