Working with Parents

A Guide for Education Professionals

Carmel Digman, Sue Soan

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781412947596, 9781412947589
• eBook ISBN: 9781446246818
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

?This book would be excellent for anyone thinking of taking on the role of home/support worker or someone already in this post who would like to refresh their ideas and views. The book would also be of interest to those who want further insight into the complex role of the home/support worker? - Nasen?s Special

?This book uses case studies across a range of ages to give practical advice on best practice when working with children and their parents in conjunction with other professionals….[T]he book contains much value to both class teachers and headteachers? - Headteacher Update

?This realistic and wide-ranging book supports the work of a growing number of school-based support staff? - Extended Schools Update

?This book helpfully covers the broad range of issues that home-school workers are likely to negotiate on a day to day basis. They give a realistic account of the challenges of working with parents from a school context, outlining a range of approaches, interventions, case studies and information to help practitioners provide effective support.? - Jo Hook, Transition Information Sessions (TIS) Consultant - Family and Parenting Institute

With the opening of Children?s Centres and the implementation of the Every Child Matters agenda, multi-agency working is now a reality. This book will provide advice and guidance on successful strategies to employ when working with parents and interdisciplinary staff.

Using case studies to illustrate best practice across a range of age groups, the book looks at strategies for dealing with the effects of the following issues on children:

o domestic violence

o bereavement and loss

o learning difficulties and special educational needs

o neglect and poverty

o anger and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties

o addictions within the family.

There is advice on working directly with children and examples are cited from children from 0 to 19.

This book is an essential read for all those involved in the education and care of children.

1

Working with Parents

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opening chapter will focus on identifying the roles and responsibilities of a home/school worker within the context of the ‘Every Child Matters’ (DfES, 2004) agenda of:

• being healthy
• staying safe
• enjoying and achieving
• making a positive contribution.
• achieving economic well-being

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It is firstly important to consider why the initial Green Paper entitled ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) (DfES, 2003) was written and what it hoped to achieve. It was written as a response to the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, and the subsequent inquiry led by Lord Laming, which tried to identify how her death had been allowed to happen and how another such death could be avoided. The government wanted to try to ensure that such a tragedy should never happen again because of the lack of statutory agency action and collaboration. As the then Prime Minister Tony Blair stated:

we are proposing here a range of measures to reform and improve children’s care – crucially, for the first time ever requiring local authorities to bring together in one place under one person services for children, and at the same time suggesting real changes in the way those we ask to do this work carrry out their tasks on our and our children’s behalf. (DfES, 2003: 1)

The specific areas of intervention with parents that home/support workers can engage with will also be defined in this chapter. It is seen as a role undertaken by designated school staff members, and therefore the interventions and strategies suggested here will enable these professionals to support children to fully engage with school and their education. The personal safety, the mental and physical health, and general well-being of the home/school support workers will be considered as these are always vital factors to consider when planning interventions.

Understanding the home/school support role in schools requires a clear analysis of the different areas in which the role functions and the impact of the role on children’s education. Local authorities and individual schools are increasingly viewing the role as a significant tool to promote closer, positive relationships between school and home, especially encouraging parents to become more involved in the education of their children.

Whether the school designates a specific person to this role or sees it as the shared responsibility of a staff team, home/school liaison aims to develop relationships with families, making ‘school’ a focal point in the community where the families can access support and advice. The government hope that as daily week-day attendance at school is a statutory requirement, the development of such a role, which is in line with the Every Child Matters agenda, will improve the outcomes for children. Even the most isolated and disaffected families usually make contact with a school. If such families can be encouraged to collaborate in the education of their children, they may be enabled to make positive changes in their lives with help accessed through their home/school support worker.

Where problems are entrenched within a family, interventions offered by other agencies may be time-limited, providing only brief respite and help. However, home/school support offers intervention for as long as the children are in the school and will not immediately withdraw support when improvements are achieved. The authors have found through their experience that over time parents will become confident in approaching school to access help, and when this happens help can be tailored to their long-term, as well as immediate, needs.

Every Child Matters

Being safe

Risks to the safety of children fall within a very broad range of definitions, and school staff, because of their regular contact with children, are more likely to be aware of those ‘at risk’ children. Risk factors fall into two broad categories:

1. Environmental risks: where children are exposed to danger within their environment. Examples are: poor housing and hygiene, domestic violence, bullying, local community violence.
2. Behavioural risks: where children are choosing dangerous behaviours. Examples include: substance abuse, dangerous games, criminal activities.

Identification

In the initial stages of any induction into the post as a home/school support worker, families will come to your attention that have a history of concerns and difficulties. Referrals for these children will come from both teaching and support staff, or from parents themselves. Children may also come for advice and may disclose issues that help to identify them as ‘at risk’. The referral process is discussed in the ‘Points for practice’ below. For referrers, identifying features may be:

• parental concerns about peer pressure, bullying, etc.
• children with frequent injuries, however minor
• sustained and reliable reports of risk-taking behaviours or dangerous family circumstances
• outside agency involvement, e.g. police or social services.

While some children will be living lifestyles that involve considerable risks to their safety, others will be exposed to risk because of temporary situations and interventions may only need to be brief.

There are families who are transient for many reasons, such as travellers, families escaping domestic violence, families with housing crises, families avoiding debt repayment, and refugee and immigrant families. Many of these may be facing considerable risks to safety and require help to improve their living conditions.

Interventions

Offering help to families within school will depend upon resources and community links. Part of the development of the role is to ‘network’ and ‘access local resources’ from statutory and non-statutory agencies, and voluntary groups. Help should be realistic and accessible and where there is resistance, it should be left open to parents to change their mind. If help is freely offered with clear information about confidentiality and also whom it will involve, then families can make informed choices. (Note: Where children are at risk in any way, then schools’ child protection procedures should be followed and referrals may be necessary in the best interest of the child, even if the parents object.)

Interventions are limited only by the imagination and resources of the school and might include:

• simply listening
• giving advice on parenting
• giving advice on debt, housing, addiction, domestic violence
• monitoring children in school and offering individual or group work
• making referrals to other agencies, e.g. Social Services.

Engaging with parents

The school environment is particularly suited to the process of engaging with others on a social level. For most parents, nursery and primary school greatly enlarges their circle of friends and acquaintances. Children make friends and parents follow suit at the school gate and at school events and gatherings. A home/school worker uses these situations and enhances them, introducing parents to wider possibilities including links with services, local knowledge, support in times of difficulty and opportunities to become more involved in the school community. The process may take time and involve considerable effort, particularly if the role and/or the home/school worker are unfamiliar.

Methods used to engage with the families may include any of the following:

• informal chats at the school gate
• appointments made specifically about a given problem
• visiting the family home
• encouraging a parent to help in school in some way
• offering training courses or parent groups
• signposting to specific agencies where appropriate
• accompanying a parent to a meeting
• helping out in a family emergency.

The role may be seen as creating a bridge between families and school and other supporting agencies to overcome disadvantages of education, social confidence and poverty. In this role, you may be seen as the first person a parent/carer may approach when problems occur and the only one available at an easily accessible and non-threatening point, i.e. the school. This makes the role vital because crossing that bridge, or not, may make or break a family. Making the support offered realistic, genuinely relevant, non-judgemental and impartial becomes crucial, if the family is to be engaged and encouraged to move on.

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Case study: Leigh, aged 13

Leigh is 13 and has lived through considerable turmoil with domestic violence, homelessness and bereavement already part of her experience. She is currently refusing to attend school, is drinking heavily and mixing with much older children. Leigh’s mother, Sara, has two younger children and works part-time. She is finding Leigh increasingly difficult to handle.

Agencies involved with Leigh have included the local community police, Educational Welfare and Attendance Officers and her local community youth worker. Leigh’s home/school support worker has contacts with all these and has visited Leigh at home regularly. Leigh’s mother feels that she has never fully come to terms with her experiences and should receive counselling, but Leigh refuses all offers of help.

Her home/school support worker arranged for her to have some work sent home and, because Leigh will not attend school, she has arranged for her to see a youth counsellor through her local community health service. It took several home visits and chats with Leigh to persuade her to attend and, during these visits, Leigh revealed that she has also been bullied on the school bus. Her fears about attending school stem from this and her reluctance to tell her mother from her desire not to heap further worries on her.

Leigh’s home/school support worker has supported Sara in imposing strict boundaries on Leigh and whom she sees, and Leigh is now seeing her counsellor regularly. Leigh was also clearly given support with being able to feel safe on the school bus without the risk of bullying. The school ensured that this was appropriately dealt with.

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Points for practice

In this case study, the home/school worker liaised with other statutory workers ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the Authors
• Preface
• 1 Working with Parents
• 2 Domestic Violence
• 3 Bereavement and Loss
• 4 Special Educational Needs: Learning Difficulties
• 5 Neglect and Poverty
• 6 Anger and Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs
• 7 Coping with Addictions within the Family
• 8 Working Directly with Children
• 9 Moving Forward
• Bibliography
• Appendices
• Index