Barnardo's Practice Profile
Blackford Brae Community Support Team
On the 16th August Daniel Clapton from the PINS Team visited Danny Holligan, Service Manager, and 2 of his colleagues at the Barnardo's Blackford Brae Project in Edinburgh. Read what they had to say about supporting young people who are experiencing difficulties at school.
Here we report on a conversation with colleagues working in Barnardo’s Blackford Brae Community Support Team.
Danny Holligan: I am the service manager for the Community Support Team. The aim of the team is to ensure that as many primary aged school children with emotional and behavioural problems as possible can remain in their own schools and families wherever safe and appropriate. I provide day to day management for staff and work closely with other agencies within the local authority’s working together strategy. The CST works within primary schools within both the North and South West of Edinburgh and also offer support for families of children who attend the Barnardo’s Blackford Brae School. The working together strategy has increased collaborative working both with other voluntary agencies and the statutory sector.
Pauline Carter: I work as a social worker - senior practitioner with Barnardo’s Community Support Team. Once an initial referral has been made I will meet with school staff, the family, other agencies involved and the young person to assess how best to meet their needs. The aim is to manage and resolve issues which are interfering with the young person’s education and putting them at risk of school exclusion. I work primarily at resolving problems in the community and at home.
Jayne Allan: I am a teacher and primarily involved with engaging with schools and supporting young people with behavioural problems within the school setting. This will often involve working with young people on a one to one basis to improve their self esteem, conflict resolution and anger management. I will also do group work sessions to improve young peoples interactions with their peers and work with teachers to develop strategies to manage behaviour within the classroom setting.
Practice Issues
What are the current pupil inclusion practice issues for your agency?
DH: The most far reaching change that has occurred to our service in recent years has been the emergence of the Working Together Strategy (the working together strategy is a City of Edinburgh Council initiative. For more information go to Working Together Strategy link) and the ways in which this could potentially affect the model which under pins Barnardo’s approach to work. We work with the school, the family and community and while we have approached this as a multi-disciplinary team we are now providing this support alongside a variety of agencies within the working together strategy. This brings challenges as studies have shown the necessity for good working relationships and good communication in multi-agency working. We work very hard with our colleagues from the local authority to ensure that we are able to provide a holistic approach to meeting the needs of the children and families we work with.
PC: I would agree that a major challenge is the move toward partnership and collaborative working with other agencies. Until recently it was the case that Barnardo's multidisciplinary team would be the main organisation working with the young people referred to us. This would mean I would have the primary role for a child in terms of working with him/her and the family while someone such as Jayne (Community Support Teacher) would work with the same young person within school. This would bring us into contact and we would regularly support each other around areas of concern and expertise. Co-ordination of resources will be very important and a number of mechanisms are in place to ensure that we all know who is involved with the children and their families.
DH: Within the Community Support Team we are quite clear about who has the skills and experience and are best placed to deal with particular problems. For instance, Pauline in her experience of working as a practice social worker has the necessary attributes to engage effectively with families and young people. Whereas, if we need a member of our staff to work within school we would as a rule call on the skills of one of our Community Support Teachers such as Jayne. We have found that it is helpful to schools and families to have such levels of expertise and a clear demarcation between who should have primary responsibility within a particular area and why. On a practical level it is good for staff within each area to bounce ideas of each other. It helps to have someone in the office who can tell you when is the best time to get hold of a teacher or how best to deal with an issue which may be going on at home.
JA: I think the problems which we are coming up against are also more complex. The young people seem to require a lot more input and support than would previously been necessary. They tend to be highly visible in the classroom, have difficulties in anger management, peer interaction and with authority. In relation to this, it is also the case that the parents we work with tend to have more complex issues than would have been the case previously. We encounter problematic drug use more and more frequently and it can often affect both adults within the family.
DH: Barnardos has set up a substance misuse working group with practitioners from across the country to look at the impact of this issue on families and share practice. In addition we will be holding an education conference in November for staff from across the UK to discuss issues and solutions regarding inclusion.
DH: The emergence of Ritalin and other drugs to manage young people’s behaviour has been a development which needs to be considered. It is clear for some young people Ritalin does improve their concentration and helps them cope better within a classroom environment. But, it is not good for a high percentage of young people to be on prescription drugs. Importantly, prescribing drugs to young people implies that their behaviour is not something that they can control and it is caused by factors out with their own powers. If this is the approach we are to take it indicates that we no longer believe in the ability of young people to manage themselves independently or in our ability to enforce boundaries and consistency to help them change their behaviour.
JA: While this is not about our service specifically, I think there is a real need to look at the teaching role. It can often be about crowd control and you would have to be super human to effectively manage the number of young people they have to on a day to day basis. It used to be the case that trainee teachers were told that all they needed to do to manage behaviour was to ‘make their lessons more interesting’. I am not sure how far we have moved on from this point and it is clear that more attention needs to be given to empowering teachers to manage behaviour more effectively. It often comes down to who is doing the work, their sense of confidence and morale. There are great models and ideas about challenging behaviour and creating a positive school ethos but if there are not implemented with purpose and energy they can quickly become diluted and ineffective.
Good practice: how do you make a positive impact?
What is the best way to positively impact on the life of young people and limit their chances of being excluded?
DH: Working together to meet the needs of the child and family.
PC: Head teachers have commented that when they talk to parents about us and the social work role they get a positive response because we are a voluntary sector organisation. We have also found that because we have developed good relationships with the school and families that we are already known to other children and families when we start working with them.
JA: It is clear that school staff face various challenges. Class sizes and managing difficult behaviour create serious problems for teachers on a day to day basis. What we have found is that teachers can initially feel somewhat compromised by the attention and support which we give to the young people who are causing the most difficulty in their classroom. Taken at face value it can appear to the teacher that the more a young person acts up the more attention and ‘rewards’ he or she is likely to receive. It is important to take the time to explain to teachers why some pupils need this additional support and attention and that it is not just about giving them good experiences but about increasing their sense of self worth, building positive relations with them and also engaging them around the issues which are causing them to cause problems within school and the classroom. We try and find some common ground and explain to teachers that if a child has learning difficulties or physical difficulties then it is taken for granted that they should receive extra support and assistance from adults. We believe that young people with behavioural difficulties should be given the same level of support and attention to help them manage and overcome their problems. It is not just the case of ‘if you are really naughty Jayne (Community Support Teacher) will take you on a trip’.
PC: I think teachers really like to know who they are dealing with and have the same staff coming into school. It is important to build relations with teachers, make sure they know why you are there and that they understand that you are keen to work in partnership with them to improve the behaviour and learning of their pupils. Sometimes this can just be about getting to know each other and taking the time to listen. A positive relationship with the class teacher is essential for the effective delivery of our work. It is very good for me as a social worker to work in partnership with Jayne who has much more experience of schools and how they operate. Talking and working in close proximity with Jayne has helped build my understanding of school life and the best way to work and engage with the teaching profession.
DH: Barnardo’s takes a holistic approach which attempts to engage with the three main areas in the child’s life – school, family and the community. While the focus is on the inclusion of the child in mainstream education we recognise the impact each area has on each other and believe the way to achieve best results is to work with all areas. We often find that a child’s behavioural problems within the classroom will often be the result of some difficult experienced at home or in the community. We place emphasis on working in all areas and using staff best qualified to work in each particular area. For instance, we utilise the skill and experience of our social work staff to engage directly with families whereas Jayne (Community Support Teacher) will work in within the school setting.
We also place a high emphasis on the importance of monitoring and evaluation. We work closely with our research team who consider the impact of the project’s work on the lives of those children and families with whom we work. This has been very useful in terms of producing a clear picture of current practice and informing the future direction of the service.
JA: It is really important to build on the young people’s sense of self worth. You can find talent with any young person. Along with the work we do with young people around behaviour and learning within the classroom setting we try and increase their experiences and social interactions. This might involve a trip horse riding, arts activities or encouraging them to attend a new group. All young people have talents which can be built on; it is just about taking the time to get to know them and recognising success.
