The Virtual School for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, 0-25 Lucy Wawrzyniak School Intervention Leader: Looked After Children Mark Walker EET Co-ordinator

The Gap % of children achieving 5A*-C inc Eng and Maths 2013

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All FSM LAC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOeQUwdAjE0

What are the barriers this child may face in school and in life longer term?

Children in care in England (DfE, 2014) How many children (0 to 18 years old) were in care in England on 31st of March 2014? • 68,840. In Oxfordshire: 514

What is the main reason for entry into care? • 62% in care because of abuse or neglect

What percentage of Looked After Children in England showed a cause for concern on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire assessing their emotional wellbeing? • 38% in England. 51% in Oxfordshire. How many children in care have a Special Educational Need? • 67.8%. In Oxfordshire: 79% 64.6% of children in all schools in England attain 5 or more A*-Cs GCSEs including English and Maths. What is the percentage for children in care? • 15.3%. In Oxfordshire 16.1%

Some Outcomes of Children in Care in England

• Achievement gap is lower at KS2 (26% for Maths, 23% reading, 28% writing)

• Twice as likely to be permanently excluded • Three times as likely to have a fixed term exclusion; • Only 8% access HE compared to > 50% of general

population • Educational experiences and outcomes contribute to

later health, employment (22% unemployment rate), involvement in crime (27% of those in prison).

DfE (2013) Statistical First Release 11 Dec 2013

The fewer changes in placement, the better the performance (source DfE, 2013)

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Key Stage 4 attainment for looked after children by stability in year

43% 29% 20% 13%

(Not in) Education Employment or Training

As of 30 September 2014, there were 383 care leavers in Oxfordshire aged 16 to 25. 79 of these were Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children, including 4 who are All Appeals Rights Exhausted. Information about their engagement in EET is available on 334 (91%) of these young people, and indicates that 63 per cent or 211 young people were in education, training or employment. 123 care leavers or 37 per cent were NEET.

Only 81 per cent of care leavers aged 16 and 17 are EET compared to 96 per cent of the general population A high proportion - almost 80 per cent - of care leavers have Special Educational Needs. Almost five per cent are teenage parents, compared to 0.5 per cent of their peers and a similar proportion are homeless.

Definitions Looked after child (LAC)

A child aged under 18 who is in the care of local authority. The local authority has a

'Corporate Parenting' responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of the child.

Care leaver

Overarching term for young people, aged 16 and over, who have been in care for a

qualifying period of time and who are either still in care, or have left care. The local

authority has responsibility to care leavers until they are 25.

Within legislation, the term care leaver is broken down into four different categories:

Eligible child

Relevant child

Former relevant child

Qualifying child

Eligible child Young person aged 16 or 17, who is still looked after, and meets the criteria for

becoming a care leaver. The criteria are that they were in care for a total of 13 weeks

or more since they were 14, including some point when they were 16 or 17.

Relevant chid Young person aged 16 or 17 who is no longer looked after but meets the criteria for

becoming a care leaver, ie they were in care for a total of 13 weeks or more since they

were 14, including some point when they were 16 or 17.

Former relevant child Young person aged 18-21 who was previously Eligible or Relevant, ie they were in

care for a total of 13 weeks or more since they were 14, including some point when

they were 16 or 17.

Qualifying child A young person who was been looked after between the ages of 14 - 18, including

some point when they were 16 and 17 years, but for less than 13 weeks. They are

entitled to a limited service from the local authority.

Note - if the care period was less than 13 weeks and the child was under the age of

16, they are not qualifying children.

Note - if an eligible or relevant child returns home successfully for 6 months, while

under the age of 18 they become qualifying children.

Marilyn Monroe Goldie

Kriss Akabusi

Leo Blair

Neil Morrissey

Paolo Hewitt

Seal

Our Heroes

Who are the Virtual School for Looked After Children and Care Leavers and

what do they do?

• A county Council service who support and challenge schools and key partners to ensure the best outcomes for all children in care.

Support and Interventions provided by the Virtual School

• Personal Education Plans • Support and training for Designated Teachers • One to one tuition • Learning Mentors • Therapeutic interventions (180, Art Room etc) • Attach team; PCAMHs, CAMHs • Appropriate curriculum? • Out of county monitoring/advice on provision

etc. • EET Support and signposting where risk of NEET

PEP future planning

https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/content/personal-education-plan-pep-toolkit

http://www.careleavers.com/entitlements

Legislation

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/raising-the-participation-age

Pupil Premium Plus

• From 2014, LAC are eligible if looked after on the date of the local authority census (March each year);

• The formula is £1900 per child aged 4 to 15 on August 31st; • Schools have a responsibility to ensure that the money has

a positive impact on the child’s learning; • Ofsted requirement that schools evidence how PPP was

spent and how it has benefited LAC; • Virtual School Head is responsible for allocation of Pupil

Premium Plus in practice; • If the child’s education is at direct LA expense (e.g.

permanently excluded to a PRU or in a ‘private’ education provision), LA deploys PPP as it sees fit.

• Partnerships with all other agencies

Social care

Placement

Carers

Health, including Substance misuse

support teams

Police/YOS

Schools, colleges and other providers

SEND teams

Arts and sports providers

Carers

What does CEIAG look like in your school or college?

Case Study • A came into care aged 7 following a some previous care episodes and a placement with

her Aunt.

• She had been abused physically and mentally by her mother, father and step father.

• She was accused by her mother and step father of trying to harm her sister.

• Her younger sister started to have epileptic seizures at the age of 1.

• Her sister had clear brain injuries.

• When the authorities realised what was happening she was brought into care, where she stayed until the age of 14 when she ran away to live with her birth mother.

• While in care, it was clear she was a loving, caring person, who cared deeply for her sister.

• When abused again, she was placed with her birth father and following a repeat of his previous abuse, was placed back in care.

• You have been told she is self harming.

• She is now in year 10 and achieving Ds and Cs. What conversation do you plan to have with her when you meet her?

She tells you….

I've known since I was little that I wanted to go to university - I don't know why or how I knew, but I knew it would enable me to have a better quality of life, and to be able to ensure that my sister also had a better quality of life.

I know that I have always wanted to work with children - I can only guess that this comes from caring for my sister and knowing I was good at it - well, better than my mum!

What do you suggest?

Her story…

I was very delicate in years 10 and 11 - I had run away from foster care to live with my birth mum in year 9 where I was badly abused again. I was in a very bad habit of self harming after that - I didn't know why I did it but I knew it gave me a feeling of relief when I did. No one even began to question if I was ok or even to consider the effect that living with my birth mum had had on me.

I've gone through every job of working with children over the years - anything from being a play therapist, a nurse, a midwife, a psychologist, working with children with disabilities etc

I had missed a lot of school by year 10 and I struggled academically but because I was still 'average' in some subjects everyone just assumed that I was doing well - I was turning up for school so what more could they expect from someone in care! In year 11, a couple of weeks before my GCSE's and just before I was supposed to move back in with my dad, the police turned up and told me that he had died. I really struggled with the death of my dad, and I think for the wrong reasons. It wasn't so much that he had died but more that I had to accept that I was never going to have parents and I was alone in the world. My schools response to this was to offer me a room on my own for the exams. My tutor still continued to call me 'Gemma Euslace' instead of 'Gemma Eustace'.

I am and always have been very self reliant! I don't think I've ever had an experience where I haven't had to be. Even now, it takes me a while to trust people - not that its obvious. But I would never rely on somebody else because it always ends badly.

I don't remember anyone ever talking about future jobs with me! I knew I wanted to go to uni but I didn't know what I wanted to do. But it would have been useful if people had actually believed in me and realised that actually, given how much school I had missed, I was actually doing well to be 'average'. It also would have helped if someone had explained the process of getting in to uni and about UCAS points (I had never been told about this when thinking about college courses). I never thought I would be 'clever' enough to do a PhD - I am only doing a PhD because other people believed in me! My old manager emailed the Rees Centre at Oxford University, to tell them that I wanted to do a PhD on children in care and to recommend they meet me. I only did the applications, because other people encouraged me to apply that I did them - I didn't in slightest, think that I would get accepted. Even now, I'm waiting for that email to say 'sorry, we gave the scholarship to the wrong person!'

What do you feel Looked After Children and Care leavers may need that is different?

What might you do differently in your practice?

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven William Butler Yeats

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dreadlock+alien+well+done&safe=active&gws_rd=ssl

Well Done

Contact/further information: www.Oxfordshire.gov.uk/virtualschool www.careleavers.com http://www.thewhocarestrust.org.uk/ www.reescentre.education.ox.ac.uk