Supporting our vulnerable students in these uncertain times

Sent on behalf of:
Debra Rutley, Executive Headteacher, Aspire Schools and
Richard Nash, Service Director, Children’s Social Care, Buckinghamshire Council

Dear All

During this period of uncertainty, schools may want to consider an ‘outreach model’ as a viable alternative for keeping vulnerable students safe. Although this is very different from what we are traditionally used to providing at schools, an outreach model can ensure safeguarding and learning is happening, whilst also reducing the need for extended face to face contact between students and staff.

Supporting student welfare
To develop an outreach model that works for your school and community, you may want to start by focusing on what support for vulnerable families during this crisis actually means. For example:
• To check on welfare of both students and families
• To check on safety of children
• To support learning.

Many of these things can be done remotely by providing mobile phones for key staff and making regular contact. At Aspire we are trying to keep this simple by asking students and families the following questions:

1. How are you and your family keeping?
2. Anything else?
3. Do you need anything?
4. How can we help?

All of the information is collated and then reviewed by SLT. We ask ourselves:

1. Can we help?
2. Do we need to pass this on to other people/agencies?

Supporting student learning
A lot of students and their families find independent learning very challenging and will give up without appropriate support.

As with student welfare, learning and motivation can also be supported remotely through regular phone calls and virtual communications. When work is being set remotely, teachers need to consider how the work will be approached, where the potential roadblocks might be, and what can be done to remove them.

Once a learning task has been set, contact with a member of staff can be beneficial. Teachers need to be asking the same sort of questions that they would in the classroom:

1. How are you getting on with your learning?
2. What support do you need?
3. How can I help?

Again, by collating this information centrally you can direct questions to the correct members of staff and avoid duplicating the amount of times that students are contacted by staff. Support can be provided in the form of talking things through, providing extra resources, or supporting parents etc.

Meeting basic need
Through our remote contact with students, we have been able to establish those who need more support, and those whose basic needs are not being met. When concerns are raised about individual students and their families, we step up what is being provided for them. This may be using volunteer staff to do home visits (on the doorstep, at a distance, with PPE where possible) or by referring our concerns on to another agency or department.

Some of the things that we have provided for our students so far include:
• Food parcels, including hot meals three times a week
• Entertainment and activities such as games and puzzles
• Hygiene and cleaning products
• Recipe bags that can be both nourishing and a learning activity

These visits allow us to have sight of our students and talk to them face to face from a safe distance, in the street or from a bedroom window.

This is not a model that can be implemented for all of your students, but could be considered for those you are most concerned about, especially where there is a risk they could slip through the net.

You do not need to do this alone and can be supported by other agencies including Aspire.
drutley@bcuksgfl.org.uk

Children’s Social Care
Children’s Social Care are continuing to work with children and families and are running the service as described below. There are already indicators of serious domestic abuse incidents and pressures. It is even more important that strong and well communicated inter-agency work takes place to ensure that school staff and social workers provide planned interactions. It is recommended that any outreach work with children who have a social worker should be co-ordinated before work starts.

Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub and Out of Hours
This part of the service is running as usual and there should not be any noticeable difference to anyone referring a child in.

Assessment, Help and Protection, Disability and Children in Care
All the above teams are working remotely and are staying in contact with children and young people through electronic devices and using video wherever this is agreed. The service is focussed on ‘safe and well’ monitoring. All staff are acutely aware of the increased pressure on everyone including our families. The priority is to have frequent contact and ‘see’ children via video devices. Where it is clear that a child is at immediate and highest risk home visits will be authorised. To date the service has had to do a number of visits and have removed children as a result of increased and unacceptable risk.

Child Protection Conferences and Looked After Reviews
These are taking place electronically using Microsoft Teams.

Social workers are talking to families about their child/ren attending school. Although there has been small increases in attendance most families are saying they are fearful of infection and do not want to do this. Although families may make different choices over time, the service recognises the need to respect this choice unless there is evidence of a child being specifically at risk.

We both hope that this information is helpful.

Kind regards

Debra Rutley                                                                                            Richard Nash
Executive Headteacher                                                                          Service Director, Children’s Services
Aspire Schools                                                                                         Buckinghamshire Council
Email: drutley@bucksgfl.org.uk                                                          Email: Richard.Nash@buckinghamshire.gov.uk