To Every Complex Problem There's A Simple Solution. And It's Wrong

Wednesday the 27th of September and two items dominate the news.

• Item one. A school aged girl has been stabbed and has died. Her assailant is, it would appear, a 17 year old male.
• Item two. Absences from school are running at twice the pre-pandemic average.

It’s wrong and opportunistic to conflate the two. It is, however, wrong and naive to deny that there are some concerning issues that are both faced and presented by an increasing number of our young people, our future.

Looking back, some of the bigger obstacles I’ve encountered professionally have been articulated in a single question and challenge, “How do we break down silos in order to provide and meaningful services to people?”? What saddened me was how well the question/prompt was responded to by grass-roots, client facing colleagues and how badly directorates (with a few notable and noble exceptions) answered the same: almost invariably thwarted by policies and procedures. Budgets spring to mind first and, on some occasions, a lack of will to to take organisational risks in the name of delivering a better service.?

Dealing with attendance first. We have moved from a support/intervention model to a compliance/sanction one. Historically, Education Social Workers developed a great sense about their cases and were pretty sharp at identifying “habitual waggers,” from young people with very real and pressing challenges in their lives. We made it easy for co-professionals to talk to each other, learn from each other and create some time and space to give things a chance to work.? Their role has been reconfigured and it would seem that this approach is scarcer now, that intervention is informed by target data, and? is time limited and outcome driven, remaining it appears both incapable and insensitive to the many complexities our young people and their families encounter.

The “Long Tail of Lockdown,” has a sting in it, we’re feeling it now and it is visible in our data as discussed in several lead articles across the media. What is less apparent is a strategy, a well funded approach that recognises the severity of the challenges faced now and the many opportunities we have to find solutions that do not automatically lead to courts, fines, increased alienation and significant impacts on the mental health and well-being of too many children anad families. Awful things continue to happen to children and young people.

In 2004 the Five Outcomes of “Every Child Matters” were given legal status in the 2004 Children Act. Here they are:

1. ?Being Healthy so that they are physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually healthy, have healthy lifestyles and choose not to take illegal drugs.
2. Staying Safe from maltreatment, neglect, violence, sexual exploitation, accidental injury and death, bullying and discrimination, crime and anti-social behaviour in and out of school, have security and stability and are cared for
3. Enjoying and Achieving so that they are ready for school, attend and enjoy school, achieve stretching national educational standards at primary and secondary school, achieve personal and social development and enjoy recreation.
4. Making a Positive Contribution so that they engage in decision-making, support their community and environment, engage in law-abiding and positive behaviour in and out of school, develop positive relationships, choose not to bully and discriminate, develop self confidence, successfully deal with significant life changes and challenges and develop enterprising behaviour.
5. Achieving Economic Well-being so that they engage in further education, employment or training on leaving school, are ready for employment, live in decent homes and sustainable communities, have access to transport and material goods, live in households free from low income.?

They are laudable aims, ones that I would like to see as the Overarching Statement for a Schools and Academy Trusts: a sort of “This is what we’re here to do,” approach to developing our young people. The Statutory Instruments within the 2004 Act were incorporated, with others into the seminal Working Together to Safeguard Children” framework, 2018 and laudable though the principles are, there has been an ongoing and accelerated reduction in capacity to deliver. Contraction of Services, unstable real-terms funding, an emphasis on sometimes abstract targets over desirable outcomes has, in part, brought us to where we are: we are at the level of the Parish Pump. Whereas strategy has seemingly been abandoned, having been kicked into the long grass, the needs and? aims remain and will continue to do so.

I now want to turn my attention to the awful events of yesterday. A child murdered it would seem, by another child. Whatever the circumstances are, the presence of this and other, similar horrors seems at times, too much for us to comprehend, too big for us to look at and too real, regular and frightening for us to feel there is anything we can do that can reduce the possibilities recognisably similar nightmarish events occurring again and again. There are no cheap political points to make here. What we have is another scream for help from a society that desperately wants our children to be safe and grow well into a productive and caring adulthood. It is time for some courageous, challenging and candid conversations.