Every day in England over 4,000 young people are suspended from school.
The negative impact of school exclusion, whether temporary or permanent, is well documented. Young people who are excluded experience poorer education outcomes and damaged mental health and future life chances.
Here at Power2 we know that our programmes improve engagement with school and have a positive impact on children and young people’s wellbeing. We know this from the feedback we get from them, their teachers and their families.
Through their feedback and our robust impact measurement, we’re confident in what our work achieves. It’s always great, though, to have confirmation of its power from an external expert. That’s why we were delighted that Dr. Sarah Martin-Denham, Associate Professor of Care and Education at the University of Sunderland, was commissioned to evaluate the RootED intervention we delivered in Ellesmere Port to reduce school exclusions, in partnership with Social Finance and Cheshire West and Chester Council. Data was collected through semi-structured in-depth conversations with children taking part in the intervention and their parents.
Our work for this programme primarily comprised of 1:1 support for children and young people, based on our Power2 Rediscover approach. We focus on the specific needs of each child or young person referred to us, so we can support them with their vulnerabilities such as being in the care system, experiencing emotionally-based school avoidance, being at risk of criminal exploitation, or being at risk of exclusion.
We’ve already been told by the three schools we worked with in Ellesmere Port that our work prevented 29 permanent exclusions – as opposed to the 11 the original business case was based on – so we know it’s had an impact in terms of reducing the huge cost to society of children and young people not thriving at school. But it’s not just about the numbers – we were also really keen to find out what the children we worked with, and their parents and carers, told Dr. Martin-Denham about our work.
And we couldn’t be more pleased with her findings!
It’s clear from her report that our trusted adult approach – giving children and young people a psychologically safe space to talk and receive empathetic support – paid dividends. We know that today’s world can be really tough for children and young people, both in and out of school, and often a friendly non-judgmental listening ear can really help.
Other key findings include that our work establishes protective factors for children and young people accessing and surviving mainstream school by:
- Creating stable relationships. Children and parents emphasise the importance of positive and enduring relationships with adults and peers in school. Not all children were able to identify a significant adult in mainstream school who they had a positive relationship with, but all had a positive relationship with their Power2 programme lead!
- Helping children to feel seen. Children felt heard by their Power2 programme lead, emphasising that our team employed noticeable listening techniques and offered them a much-needed outlet for sharing anxieties and challenges that they did not feel comfortable sharing with peers, parents or other school staff.
- Developing effective emotional regulation. Specific techniques they learned during our work helped them cope in difficult classroom environments.
- Raising confidence. During the intervention, children’s confidence was reported to increase in a variety of ways, including their ability to cope in stressful situations, increased social interactions, and increased likelihood of attending lessons.
Professor Martin-Denham’s report includes testimonials from parent, carers and children themselves. As you’ll read, trusted adult support also established protective factors around children’s mental health and wellbeing too, as one of the parents told her:
He was self-harming last year. The Power2 programme lead was the one I contacted and then she spoke to him, and he opened up to her. If it wasn’t for Power2 and the support he’s had from it, I feel like it could have gone a completely different way because I know he was suicidal. He really was suicidal, and he was 12 years old, and no 12-year-old should feel like that. They’ve 100% prevented something serious happening
And the last word goes to one of the young people taking part in the programme:
Every school should have someone from Power2, just someone there that people can go to. I think it’s nice to get people back on track. I think it’s nice to have that second chance. I think it definitely would help people that are about to be excluded or step out and that.
We completely agree that every young person should have someone from Power2 – if you’d like to discuss how we can work collaboratively in your school or area please get in touch.
