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Who looks after the looked after?
Looked after and accommodated children, on average, are eight times more likely to be excluded from school. By the time these children leave school, only 59 per cent go into a positive destination compared to 87 per cent of other children.
Many teachers, aware of the huge additional needs these children have, put heart and soul into their education and nurture. But giving can be a fraught activity. It is something of a minefield once you start to think about it.
Over any school year a number of these children will be referred to The Place2be for one-to-one counselling. "Looked after" is sometimes a euphemism for its exact opposite. One eight-year-old boy had already had four "placements" with different foster families. This latest was with warm loving foster parents. Christmas was coming and they selected the right presents, keeping it fair. To everyone's dismay, including the little boy's, it was a disaster. Unable to receive their love, he destroyed his presents and others, as well as any sense of a happy family Christmas. How difficult it would have been for them to anticipate that their kindness might actually evoke previous experiences of unkindness.
When he returned to school, he was still kicking off, only no-one knew what about. Within a week or so he was in danger of exclusion. He was referred to The Place2be. Our role in such a situation was to work with both the foster parents and the child to help them repair this damage, and make sense of it in terms of previous experience. Giving is fraught. It nearly always stands in as a symbol for what we have not been given. And the more generous the gift, sometimes the more strongly a sense of disappointment and the need for compensation follows in its train – for both the giver and the receiver.
Teachers working with looked after children will have also had the experience of what they offer being thrown back in their faces. It can be painful to receive something offered with love and care – far easier to take a rejection or a reprimand. For some children we might articulate this as "I know I'm not wanted. I've already been rejected by my parents. I don't believe the kindness of this person. And anyway, what's to say they will reject me too?"
There is no easy solution here. But understanding the child's circumstances, and some of their likely responses, while tempering our own reactivity may go some way to giving the relationship a better chance.
Award-winning charity
The Place2Be works in 172 schools to improve the emotional wellbeing of children, their families and the whole school community, providing school-based counselling and support, as well as professional qualifications for counsellors and trainee counsellors. For more information visit www.theplace2be.org.uk
Podcast
Jonathan Wood, National Manager of the Place2Be, talks to a Parent Councillor from Place2Be and a parent who has used the service that Place2be offers within schools to parents. Listen to the podcast by clicking on the play icon of the player below:
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