SHS in the Media: School-Home Support shows early help best practice
News article from January 10, 2018
This fortnight’s issue of Children & Young People Now magazine included a special report on best practice in early help. School-Home Support (SHS) was featured as part of the report: the article included an interview with CEO, Jaine Stannard, as well as a selection of our outcomes.
It begins:
“School-Home Support
– Practitioners work with families to address the root causes of poor attendance and behaviour
– They play a pivotal role in the Troubled Families programmes
– Nearly three quarters of children improved school attendance last year and 82 per cent improved behaviour
Most social workers are reporting rising thresholds due to budget cuts, both for “children in need” intervention and “early help”, putting the onus increasingly on schools to identify struggling families and facilitate support. For more than 30 years, School-Home Support’s (SHS) trained school-based practitioners have been helping hard-to-reach families address the root causes of their children’s poor attendance and behaviour, and helping them to address their full potential.
SHS has more than 60 practitioners, mainly employed by schools. But it’s also contracted by two London authorities to work within Troubled Families programmes. Newham allocates borough-wide cases to a six-strong team of SHS Practitioners. Meanwhile, in Barking & Dagenham, three practitioners work with 30 families they’ve identified from day-to-day work within schools. Each becomes the family’s “lead professional”, agreeing a plan with them to tackle their issues, enlisting help from other professionals through “team around the family” meetings. “[SHS practitioners] have a very early relationship with families who know their face in school, enabling them to gather intelligence before things escalate,” explains Shaun Childs, the council’s head of intervention and community solutions.”