Integrating education welfare services into support systems for children and young people

A proposal for the modernisation of the education welfare service. Integrating education welfare services into support systems for children and young people.

1. An integrated approach

The Government is clear that there needs to be an integration of support services to children, young people and their families that provide a coherent and multi layered response.

In recent years there has been a growth in support services to children and young people that are focused on education, e.g. learning mentors, Connexions personal assistants, reintegration officers and behaviour support workers.

Whilst we welcome these much needed resources they have evolved in an ad hoc fashion, resulting in overlaps in some areas and gaps in others.

A recent project to develop National Occupational Standards for the Connexions personal advisor, education welfare officer and learning mentor has revealed a considerable overlap in tasks and skills and has led to a set of standards comprising a common core of units. This will support greater transferability and career progression between these roles.

2. The need for radical review

We need to review the role of the education welfare service (EWS) in the context of these developments. We need to challenge assumptions about its role and purpose. We must challenge our self-perceptions, in particular identifying our continuing role as a profession and the transitory organisational nature of a 'service'.

We must ensure we do this from a focus of the needs of young people, rather than the perceived needs of the service and its staff.

The EWS has been in existence in one form or another for more than 130 years. Ensuring school attendance has always been at the heart of its activities, but it has long been recognised that school attendance and the educational welfare of children and young people are complex issues that require complex responses.

Whilst there may be dialogue about the strengths and shortcomings of compulsory education and its enforcement, EWOs are committed to the protective and promotional opportunity that education provides for young people and to the key contribution that it can make in the fight against social exclusion.

The EWS has a history or providing family support services. This is not because family support was the reason for its inception but simply because without support some children were unlikely to attend school regularly, or benefit from education once they arrived. This family support role is central to the task and key to the achievement of social inclusion.

Because the threshold of statutory intervention is relatively low it has so often been the job of the EWO to both provide support and broker specialist services from elsewhere.

3. Addressing the issues

There are some key issues that need to be addressed:

o The EWO task is fundamentally one involving parents and children and young people: this can include providing support, safeguarding rights or ensuring compliance;

o The EWO relationship with a school is a complex balancing act between the demands of the service, the school, the child and parents; within these demands the educational and social needs of the child must be predominant;

o Unlike other education support services, the EWS has a statutory role to intervene with families and children and young people regardless of whether the intervention is welcomed.

4. Identifying the gaps

There are two key areas where we believe there are gaps in services to support the education of Children and young people:

Family support services-particularly at primary schools.

EWOs are sometimes engaged in supporting parents on issues that appear not to impact directly on education or attendance. This is often because support services vital to the child are not available from other agencies, in particular where there are no direct child protection concerns or where other services' thresholds of concern' are not met.

This lack of provision often prevents the EWS from achieving improvements in attendance. We recognise that these needs may increasingly be met through other services such as Sure Start and On Track, but provision is of course not yet universal. Despite variations in the level of service every school in the country will have access to an EWO. The EWO also has a vital role to play in assessing need and brokering other services.

Child Protection is a particularly important issue for children of primary school age. Although measures are in place to detect and report concerns of this nature, we believe that adequate EWS support to primary schools is imperative if we are to be involved in training school staff as well as detecting and prevent abuse. The threshold for involvement by an EWO is low compared with other services. Our experience tells us that a deterioration in attendance, punctuality and behaviour can be a very early warning sign to where there are difficulties in a family: not sufficient to prompt SSD involvement but certainly sufficient to warrant investigation.

The EWO should be able to assess family circumstances and either provide direct support (on a focused and time limited basis) or make appropriate referrals to other services.

Supporting young people and their families

There is a lack of provision for social work support to young people. (This we believe is separate from family support, as many young people do not enjoy a sufficiently positive relationship with their families.)

This area of work crosses into youth offending and preventative measures aimed at those at risk of criminal behaviour. Nevertheless this is not consistent across the country and the EWS is again often the only service working with young people. Where parents and young people are unwilling to engage, the EWS may be the only agency where thresholds for statutory intervention have been reached.

It is also the case that many young people experiencing difficulties at school do not go on to involvement in criminal behaviour but do become socially excluded in a range of other ways. It is common for an EWO to be the only agency supporting parents and maintaining contact with a disengaged young person.

Whilst we would applaud some excellent practice from youth work and Connexions PAs centred on young people, the engagement on the young person's part is one of choice and can sometimes be a very different relationship.

The EWS role in supporting hard-to-reach young people, particularly those who are not enrolled at a school or other educational establishment, should be strengthened. With high thresholds for statutory intervention by other agencies, only the EWS has legislative powers to pursue engagement in the young person's best interests. It would be important to work closely with Connexions personal advisors and youth workers on this.

5. The way forward: behaviour and education support teams within children's services

It is important that the EWS does not exist in isolation. Indeed operational isolation is not an option within integrated service provision. It is imperative that this fact is recognised.

The profession needs to be combined with behaviour support, reintegration and other related services to provide a multi-disciplinary service, with an appropriate legislative and statutory framework. Effective partnership working should not distract the EWS away from its core task of promoting school attendance.

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