A PRIVATE company is being paid by Barnsley Council to ring every school in the country where there is a Barnsley ‘looked after child’ to check they have turned up to school, it was revealed this week.
The educational outcomes for children in care are poorer when compared to all Barnsley children and all children nationally, and a report analysing the latest data was presented to councillors at a meeting at the town hall on Tuesday.
One of a range of measures in place to try and help children in care catch up with their classmates was revealed to be a drive on attendance - just 65 per cent of secondary school children in care achieved 95 per cent attendance in the last school year, and that figure drops to just 21 per cent when looking at year 11 students.
Liz Gibson, who leads a team of professionals who support the education of Barnsley’s children in care, said Barnsley-based company Welfare Call Ltd had been commissioned to contact every school where there is a Barnsley looked-after child every day to check whether they are in school.
“This provides live monitoring, and what that allows us to do is take action as it is happening,” she said.
“It allows us to take targeted action for specific looked-after children. Already I can say it is proving invaluable in terms of providing real-time data.”
She said Barnsley had been the 100th local authority to take up the company’s service. Staff from Springwell special school have also been tasked with stepping in to work with those persistently absent from school to help ‘re-engage’ them in their education.
“That’s important, as the data alone only tells us there’s a problem,” she said.
Councillor Malcolm Clements said he believed the council should be doing this work itself rather than paying a private company.
“Surely this company is making a profit out of this service. If we have got the money to be paying this company we could be using that money ourselves to employ staff to do that work for us, without the need to generate profit.”
But Liz said the service was paid for through the ‘pupil premium’ which is an additional budget for every child in care.
“It’s actually much more cost effective to do it this way,” she said.
“It’s only a very small percentage of the pupil premium funding, and they’re doing this for more than 100 local authorities across the country.
“Every single day, every single school which has a Barnsley looked after child, whether that school is in Barnsley or not, gets a phone call from Welfare Call. We just do not have the capacity to do this work.
“We’re talking about something like 275 phone calls per day, followed by a call to a foster carer or parent.
“They have about 80 or so workers doing that on a daily basis.”
Liz explained a number of measures to support children in care across all age groups.
When asked by Coun Sarah Tattersall what had been learned from looking at best practice in other areas, Liz cited the Letterbox Literacy Project, where children in care receive packages in the post with books selected specifically for them.
Careful choices are made and vetted to make sure they are suitable for each child’s circumstances, so might for example avoid talking about traditional families with a mum and dad.
“We identify the reading age of each child, and put together a pack of three or four books appropriate for them and their reading age. It builds up their own library chosen to help develop their literacy and recognising their background.
“It’s also great for raising children’s self esteem. Receiving a parcel in the post that’s addressed to them personally is a really lovely element of it.”
