Basic Civil Engineering first year Notes- Chapter 4 Building.pptx
Why do young people looked after at home (under a Home Supervision Requirement) not flourish at school?
1. Why do young people looked
after at home (under a Home
Supervision Requirement)
not flourish at school ?
John Paul Fitzpatrick
Ed. D Student
e-mail:johnpaul.fitzpatrick@strath.ac.uk
2. Why explore Home Supervision
Requirements (HSR) & Education?
• Very little prior research about young people looked after at home,
particularly from young people’s viewpoint and little focused on
educational experience.
• Largest grouping of young people that are looked after are under home
supervision (5,437 out of an entire Looked After Children’s population of
16,171).
• Poorest educational outcomes compared to all other looked after
children.
3. Education & Home Supervision:
Context Attendance of children
continuously looked after
for 12 months (June 2011)
(Scottish Government, 2011)
4. Education & Home Supervision:
Context Exclusion from school (Rate:
per 1,000 children )
(Scottish Government, 2011)
5. Education & Home Supervision:
Context
Source(: Scottish Government, 2011)
Positive Destination Data
(Scottish Government, 2010)
6. Education & Home Supervision:
Context Average tariff score of S4 pupils
2004/05 to 2009/10
(Scottish Government, 2010)
7. Study Aims & Processes
• To explore young people’s views of being under a HSR and their
education through their narratives.
• Empower participants through adopting a narrative interviewing and
analysis approach, itself a mechanism for creating agency.
• To make sense of narratives through undertaking thematic analysis to
enable drawing of practice recommendations.
• Draw on social capital theory as underpinning theoretical framework/
• Interviewing 23 young people across three local authorities over two
depth narrative interviews.
• 1 st interview > transcription > case notes > interactive presentation &
feedback > follow up questions
8. Methodology - Why Narrative?
• Narrative approach– aiming to develop a shared imagination with
participants, a process which itself “creates ‘a space beyond the
immediate confines of the local” (Gustavson & Cytrynbaum, 2003, p. 13)
• Narrative inquiry remains particularly useful for studies examining
experiences of stress and coping (Hauser, Golden, & Allen, 2006), -
stories are commonly used to describe life transitions illuminating the
ways critical events bring understanding and shape behavior (Webster &
Mertova, 2007)
9. Progress & Challenges
• 23 first round interviews completed, six second round interviews
completed.
• Working with ‘Gatekeepers’ (or around. Or over. Or beside)!
• Need for utter reflexivity.
• Young people, temporality & reflection.
• Narrative interviewing & young people.
• Relationship building.
• Staying congruent with young people.
• Dealing with adult perceptions.
• Recognising the absence of data, is data itself!
11. Early Findings
• Reasons for being under the supervision requirement were varied. Most
had been placed under the requirement for reasons of their non
attendance at school. Others were for reasons of care and protection or in
a few cases for young people's offending behaviour. One young person
interviewed had 17 crime files.
• Continuity and stability, both of family and professional relationships, are
important. Young people expressed frustration at a lack of continuity in
their lives of professionals who understand their views and needs,
necessitating multiple retelling of their stories and views.
• Young people often do not understand the intent behind, or the
implications of, an HSR.
12. Early Findings
• Many young people value the structure and support that an HSR provides
and feel they had derived benefit from the support.
• Young people looked after at home value informal coaching, mentoring
and support mechanisms when subject to an HSR.
• Many of the young people in the study felt that there was little support or
encouragement or value attached to education in the family home; for
others it was seen as a vehicle for securing a positive future job through
further education or training.
• Most of the young people in the study were not optimistic about their
future prospects - and indeed appeared to have a poverty of aspiration.
13. Early Findings
A final thought
• For most of the young people in the study, members of family appeared
to have strong influence on young people’s actions, particularly older
siblings with a strong bond and trust.
• Early findings suggest that family support is critical to young people’s
educational progress and that more should be done in order to support
young people in their whole family context.
• Greater attention needs to be paid to young people’s support needs
during transition periods from primary to secondary; failure to meet these
needs combined with instability in the family home is often a catalyst for
non-attendance and exclusion from school.
Editor's Notes
Welcome - bit about myself... then onto context of home supervision and then describe my research study around looked after young people and their experience of education and some of the findings with time for questions and answers.
Study be McLung - which was mainly quantitive with some qualitiative, there was a study undertaken in 1995 looking at views of Home Supervision that was commisisoned by Scottish Executive but unpublished and recent work undertaken by Andressa Gadda which looked at HSR using multi methods including parents views , social workers views and secondary analysis of work comparing against case files. 2000 young people in Scotland have been on home supervision requirements for five years or more according to recent research published by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. next slide stats in terms of attendance
In recent years, there has been a raft of Scottish policy measures introduced to try to address the multiple and complex needs of looked after children. The publication of ‘We Can and Must Do Better’ in 2007 places firm emphasis on the importance of education for looked after children. It makes explicit two areas for urgent attention namely, “the vital importance of stability and continuity within education and care settings” and “The need to raise awareness of the educational needs of looked after children and young people and improve training for all foster carers, residential workers, lead professionals, support workers and associated professionals” (Scottish Executive, 2007, p.4). There has also been a range of changes to inspection frameworks for teachers and the development of national guidance designed to assist in reducing exclusions of looked after children by raising teachers awareness of the issues that looked after children face (Scottish Government, 2010a). However, despite the endeavours of both policy makers and practitioners, outcomes for young people who are looked after at home have not significantly improved. This has resulted in Scottish parliamentary interest in the form of an Enquiry into educational attainment being by the culture and education committee in 2012.
social capital - Networks can provide social support, self-esteem, identity and perceptions of control (Cohen & Syme, 1985; Brown & Harris, 1978). Both informal and formal social networks are essential components of ‘social capital’, a resource produced when people cooperate for mutual benefit. For Putnam social capital encompasses ‘‘ ...features of social life- networks, norms [including reciprocity] and trust- that enable participants to act together more effectively ...’’ It is is a helpful construct for identify- ing conditions which contribute to the quality of life. As a concept which bridges structural and cultural ap- proaches to poverty, social capital is a useful heuristic tool in understanding the relationship between poverty, place of residence, and health and well being. Social workers, ,key workers, Teachers as actors and brokers of power potentially to help young people leverage their social capital by navigating insitutional barriers and complexities of daily life for vulnerable young people. In one of the authorities young people were participants in a programme where they received additional support in the form of coaching and mentoring. Mix of mainstream and specialist provision, and different geographies but that was by accident rather than design. I was more concerned about achieving my sample.
In order to get as close to the young people’s experience as possible and see the world through their eyes, I chose to adopt a narrative approach for the study.
However, despite the fact that at a senior level approvals were granted, this only represented a small aspect of the process of gaining approval. A key aspect to gaining access to participants was the ethos, approach, interest and willingness of the headteachers in the schools. Headteachers at the local level have considerable power to grant or deny access to young people for interview. In one local authority in particular, several headteachers denied access to participants to even gauge their interest in the study without parents being approached first. I felt that this showed from teaching staff, a greater respect of parental rights rather than young people's rights. Interesting how ease of access improves when working within an organisation such as CELCIS - there’s almost a sigh of relief - Andressa and colleagues from elsewhere have written on this in terms of the identity of the researcher - mutliple hats that we wear - and how the act as enablers. In another school, one teacher, the designated manager responsible for looked after children within the school, went to great lengths to disuade me from interviewing one young person as "i'm sure they'd have nothing worth hearing to say to you". However, I carried on regardless, determined to allow the young person to participate. The contrary occured, with the young girl in question providing 30 minutes of recorded interview and incredibly useful insight as she volunteered her opinions and experiences of being under a supervision order. Having to work hard to gain credibility and trust and reassure those working with young people of your competence and understanding - Hanging about time prior to interviews with coaches really helped gain trust / start to build a relationship and make interviews more successful. absence of data - Young people on second round interviews who had been expelled, one young person was in crisis on my day of arrival, another had been taken into an emergency placement arrangement, illness, and several were missing from school on the day of interview.
The girl who had burned down a factory causing a million pounds worth of damage whilst traunting. One young person on talking about having nine different social workers - " all the stuff about school. all the stuff about at home. I did this, I did that… did that… got to tell them about nine different times.” and “ Dunno. cause I have got to repeat myself all the time, just like who I actually am. “ Home Supervision - young people don’t understand it - this was highlighted throughout several of the interviews - highlighting a need for advocacy and effective communication and engagement with young people in terms they understand. Value structure - young people asking to remain on home supervision . coaching - This includes positive support and the interest of significant adults in their lives, such as siblings, friends, family members, social workers and teachers
The girl who had burned down a factory causing a million pounds worth of damage whilst traunting. One young person on talking about having nine different social workers - " all the stuff about school. all the stuff about at home. I did this, I did that… did that… got to tell them about nine different times.” and “ Dunno. cause I have got to repeat myself all the time, just like who I actually am. “ So in terms of GIRFEC , what do we need to systemically to strengthen and create resources that allow quality of relationships with young people? Home Supervision - young people don’t understand it - this was highlighted throughout several of the interviews - highlighting a need for advocacy and effective communication and engagement with young people in terms they understand. Value structure - young people asking to remain on home supervision . coaching - This includes positive support and the interest of significant adults in their lives, such as siblings, friends, family members, social workers and teachers
Young people asking to remain on orders whilst still at school. One young person on talking about having nine different social workers - " all the stuff about school. all the stuff about at home. I did this, I did that… did that… got to tell them about nine different times.” and “ Dunno. cause I have got to repeat myself all the time, just like who I actually am. “ Home Supervision - young people don’t understand it - this was highlighted throughout several of the interviews - highlighting a need for advocacy and effective communication and engagement with young people in terms they understand. Value structure - young people asking to remain on home supervision . coaching - This includes positive support and the interest of significant adults in their lives, such as siblings, friends, family members, social workers and teachers
However, many of the young people in the study had little social bonding outwith family; limited to small groups of peers; little community based participation and expressed having a distrust of others, particularly those in authority such as teachers and social workers. From many of the narratives that young people have talked about their school experience, it almost appears that they have been able to contain chaos of home life at primary but combined with transition - bigger school, different environments, (many young people talked about getting lost and feeling lost, not enough attention, struggling with class sizes and busyness) - they are then unable to cope any further. Young people cited positive benefits of being in smaller settings and non mainstream provision.