< Previous | Contents | Next >

Learning with Care:
The education of children looked after away from home by Local Authorities

Chapter 9: Policies, management and quality assurance

9. Background

9.1 Effective strategies to improve the educational experiences and attainment of looked after children are required at a number of levels: national, local authority, institutional/agency (i.e. school, social work area team, fostering team and residential unit) and individual (i.e. social workers, residential workers, foster carers, teachers, parents and children themselves). This chapter considers the Children’s Services Plans from all 32 local authorities, the reviews of Children’s Services Plans received, and the questionnaires returned by 30 local authorities. It evaluates the policies pursued at a local authority and institutional level by the 5 local authorities inspected.

Evaluation and recommendations

Local authority policies

9.2 The education of looked after children was not a prominent issue in most local authorities' Children's Services Plans. Only a minority of the 32 addressed the issue explicitly. The reviews of Plans were more likely to have addressed the education of looked after children than the original Plans. Of the 5 local authorities inspected, only one had included the education of looked after children in its Children’s Services Plan.

9.3 Children's Services Plans and their reviews provide important opportunities to develop the educational provision for looked after children, particularly where they contain targets for improvement. They also provide an important means of being publicly accountable. Local authorities should include explicit consideration of the education of looked after children in Children’s Services Plans and reviews.

9.4 Twelve of the 30 local authorities which returned questionnaires said that they had a policy on the education of looked after children and 11 supplied details. A further 4 authorities were hoping or planning to develop a policy. However, only a few policies had the primary and specific aim of considering the educational needs of looked after children. These addressed a wide range of relevant issues (see Appendix 3). Four of the authorities inspected had specific policies, 2 of them still in draft form.

9.5 The implementation of policy was only examined in one of the authorities inspected because the policies in the others were either in draft form or very recent. The policy which was examined related to Educational Support Plans for looked after children. The Support Plans were soundly based and well presented. Helpful guidance on their implementation had been issued. This was a commendable and promising development but some aspects of implementation required further consideration. These included the following:

• mixed levels of awareness of the policy throughout the authority;
• slow, and sometimes single department implementation of Support Plans. Only 6 out of the 10 sample children had a Support Plan and their development had not always included both school and social work staff;
• confusion about how the Support Plans might fit with Records of Needs, individualised educational programmes and reviews of the care plan; and
• the poor quality of completion of the Support Plans, in spite of their potential value.

9.6 Local authorities should develop an integrated policy covering education and social work which ensures that the educational needs of looked after children are met effectively. They should also provide joint professional development for education and social work staff, and carers, to ensure that they are able to contribute effectively towards the implementation of the policy (see main recommendation 5). The policy should clarify the educational difficulties faced by looked after children and what should be done about them. Appendix 3 provides a list of issues which such a policy might cover. In order for it to be implemented effectively, some key steps need to be taken. These include consultation with staff, carers and young people; widespread briefing and training; dissemination of the policy; regular monitoring of implementation; and regular review of whether the policy is achieving its aims.

Policies for schools, social workers and carers

9.7 A number of school staff, including some head teachers, said that they did not consider that they had any special role in relation to looked after children beyond the general responsibility they had for all children in their school. A few felt that looked after children were not necessarily a disadvantaged group. However, in best practice they were usually aware that the special circumstances of looked after children did merit particular consideration. They acknowledged the importance of the following:

• issues of confidentiality and the need for sensitivity because of the children’s background, circumstances and vulnerability;
• the need for joint working with social workers, carers and the Children’s Panel, and involvement in reviews of the care plan; and
• an emphasis on building the self-esteem of looked after children through praise, consulting them about who should attend reviews, of monitoring their progress unobtrusively and ensuring that the older children attended careers interviews.

9.8 The vast majority of social workers saw their main role in the education of looked after children as liaison with carers, schools and other agencies, rather than actively promoting the child's education. Liaison with parents concerning their child’s education was rarely mentioned. In the best practice, social workers mentioned the importance of the following:

• effective collaboration with school staff;
• advocacy, where necessary, on behalf of the child with the school;
• direct educational work with the child which might include visits to places of interest, attendance at school events or encouragement for children who lacked parental support;
• arranging funding for educational activities; and
• supporting carers in their educational role with the child.

In consultation with local authorities, the Scottish Executive should develop methods of spreading good practice in the education and care of looked after children.

9.9 Foster carers described their role mainly as "just getting on with it" and most said they had not received any guidance on their role with regard to education. Some residential carers had a more considered view of their role, particularly in one authority where the education of looked after children was discussed regularly at the unit managers’ meeting. Foster carer handbooks, which existed in all 5 authorities, and statements of functions and objectives, which existed in all the residential units visited, all covered education. However, some of the coverage needed to be more detailed and up-to-date, with sharper objectives. Local authorities should develop and implement policies to help foster carers and residential care staff promote the education of the children in their care.

9.10 The questionnaires returned by local authorities revealed a mixed picture regarding the extent to which training had been provided on the education of looked after children. Some staff and carers had the opportunity of joint training on the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 or LAC materials (see footnote 11) and, on some of these courses, there had been limited coverage of the educational needs of looked after children. Some education staff, social work staff and carers in the 5 sample authorities had received similar training but more detailed and specific training on the educational needs of looked after children had rarely been provided. Educational staff would benefit from greater knowledge of the reasons children become looked after, the legal definition of a looked after child, the impact of the trauma they have experienced and its effect on their education, and the rights of children and parents. Social work staff would benefit from greater knowledge of children's cognitive development, the school curriculum and how schools work with children. Both education and social work staff would benefit from greater knowledge of research findings and joint training on these issues. Local authorities should provide joint professional development for education and social work staff to ensure that they are able to contribute effectively towards meeting the authority's corporate responsibility for the education and care of looked after children (see main recommendation 5).

Local authority committees and structures

9.11 Three of the authorities inspected had separate elected members' committees for education and social work although the social work committee included other services in 2 of these authorities. The remaining 2 authorities had children's committees covering education and social work services for children, although one still retained separate education and social work committees as well. Only one of these authorities had taken steps to combine its education and social work services for children under the one overall manager. Given their recent introduction, it was not possible to evaluate the effects of these different organisational structures on the education of looked after children.

9.12 Working relationships between senior managers in education and social work appeared close in most of the authorities visited. All 5 authorities in the sample had senior managers in education with designated responsibilities for looked after children, as did 75% of the authorities who returned questionnaires. In one authority inspected, 2 jointly appointed senior posts had been created. In another authority, senior managers of the 2 departments met weekly to resolve policy issues and any particular difficulties with individual children. Current working relationships were often contrasted with a much more negative picture from a few years ago when, as one manager described it, "we never met but would just fight about money for placements". The evidence found of increased joint working and closer working relationships at both member and officer levels was welcome and encouraging.

9.13 Three authorities operated Joint Assessment Teams or School Liaison Teams (hereafter called JATs) in all of their secondary schools. None of the authorities had JATs in primary schools. JATs were standing groups comprising staff from the school, the local social work area team, specialist staff such as educational psychologists or group-workers and representatives from other organisations such as the police, careers or youth service. JATs met regularly to consider any pupils experiencing behavioural difficulties in school, particularly those at risk of exclusion. They aimed to draw up multi-disciplinary support packages to resolve pupils’ difficulties. Looked after children were highly represented among those discussed at JATs, which is not surprising given the higher than average number of exclusions involving looked after children. There is a role for JATs to:

• monitor all looked after children at the time they become looked after, or when they change school, to ensure that all the relevant agencies are providing necessary support: and
• ensure that lines of communication are clear and that any potential difficulties caused by the child’s removal from home or change of school can be dealt with sensitively and appropriately.

Social workers' caseloads

9.14 Most of the social workers interviewed had caseloads of between 20 and 35 children and families, a minority of which were cases of looked after children. In one authority, where some teams carried generic caseloads, numbers ranged as high as 60 cases. Another authority was considerably increasing its complement of social workers because of concerns that workloads had become too high. The majority of social workers said that they did not have sufficient time to address fully the educational needs of looked after children. Nevertheless, some were addressing them well. Their success appeared to derive from good personal organisation and clarity of purpose in the tasks that they undertook.

Resources

9.15 Most residential and foster carers were confident that, if asked, their local authority would provide additional funds for items such as books, school trips, equipment or tuition, although most foster carers had not put this to the test. Relative carers were less certain that additional resources would be provided though they also had not asked. In one authority, which had recently made financial cutbacks, carers as a whole were less certain that resources would be made available and one foster carer had been refused a grant for her foster children to go on an educational trip to France with the school.

9.16 Social workers, carers and young people were often worried about whether finance would be available to support young people in further and higher education, and during their holidays, once they reached their 18th birthday. Whilst social work managers said that the money would always be found, the lack of dedicated budgets meant that a special case needed to be made on each occasion. Since local authorities aimed to increase the numbers of looked after young people entering further and higher education such "ad hoc" arrangements are insufficient. It is recommended that specific financial arrangements are made which help young people feel confident that they will be adequately supported until they complete their chosen course of study.

Quality assurance

9.17 Only 4 of the 30 authorities returning questionnaires said they maintained a central register or database of information about the education of looked after children covering aspects such as attainment, attendance, rates of exclusion, and the type of service they were receiving. In all these authorities the information held was only partial. For example, in one of the authorities inspected, residential units provided regular returns on attendance and exclusions of looked after children and yearly returns of Standard Grade results but information was not collected about children in foster care or about attainment in the 5-14 curriculum. Another authority had sent questionnaires to all their schools to collect information about looked after children's` progress. However, they had only had a 40% return. A number of authorities indicated that they had plans to start collecting such information in future. Without accurate statistics it is impossible to monitor the effects of any strategies aimed at improving the educational performance of looked after children. Each local authority should keep accurate statistics on a range of aspects of the education of looked after children as agreed in the Social Work Information and Review Group document "Local and National Information Requirements for Social Work".¹⁹

9.18 The significant number of cases in the sample for which assessments, care plans and placement agreements were not in place indicated a lack of monitoring by social work services managers. This lack of monitoring sometimes occurred even where authorities had clear policies and expectations of what was required. It is unacceptable that local authorities have failed to implement statutory procedures relating to looked after children some 3 years after their introduction. Local authorities should implement quality assurance procedures to ensure that statutory requirements are met effectively (see main recommendation 2).

9.19 The majority of primary and special school headteachers knew how many looked after children they had on their roll and who they were, although they did not always have an overview of their attendance and attainment. Secondary school headteachers did not usually know how many looked after children they had on their roll. Three out of the 5 authorities inspected noted in their questionnaires that there were schools in their authority which had designated staff with responsibilities for looked after children, or that they were about to implement such a system. A further 4 authorities returning questionnaires also responded positively on this point. However, it was apparent that these staff were not in place in all schools and, where they were, remits often varied considerably from school to school. It was not necessarily the case that there was one member of staff in each school who had an overview of all looked after children including their attainments and attendance. A senior member of staff in each school should maintain an overview of looked after children’s progress and take responsibility for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place for supporting the children’s education (see main recommendation 4).

Main recommendations 8 and 9

Local authorities should include explicit and targeted consideration of the education of looked after children in Children's Services Plans and reviews. (9.2-9.3)

Local authorities should keep accurate statistics on a range of aspects of the education of looked after children as agreed in the Social Work Information and Review Group document "Local and National Information Requirements for Social Work". (9.17)

< Previous | Contents | Next >