Written Evidence from Dr Sophia Gowers and Dr Katherine Mycock, University of Derby (CFA059)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

Executive summary

Background

1. We are Early Career Researchers who specialise in conducting Participatory Research with children and young people. Sophia worked in primary and early years settings for 10 years, undertaking roles as Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 leader. She is a qualified SENCo and undertook the role of Inclusion Leader, with responsibility for Looked After Children, learners with special educational needs and/or disability, Pupil Premium and was a Designated Safeguarding Lead. Sophia completed an EdD whilst in post, developing a map-based methodological tool to elicit young children’s perspectives on the multimodal texts encountered in their everyday environments. Katherine taught in secondary schools for 5 years before completing a PhD. This used a combination of ethnographic and Participatory Research Methods to explore how children learn about nature through outdoor learning in Primary education. We both were post-Doctoral researchers on Project Fortitude, a European Council funded project, using a range of digital and non-digital methods explores children and young peoples’ legal capabilities.

2. Since, we have worked together on evaluations and research that examines specific policy and practice-based interventions aimed to improve the lives of Looked After Children and those with Special Educational Needs and Disability. Currently, we are part of a team evaluating Irish Government Social Policy to promote inclusion in Early Childhood Education and Care. We are making this submission based upon our experience as teachers and researchers. We specifically draw upon our contribution to an evaluation of a Creative mentoring project delivered within a Local Educational Authority in England for Looked After Children.

Response to Children and Families Act 2014

Question 1: To what extent has the Act improved the situation for the most vulnerable children, young people and families in England?

3. To improve attainment in England amongst Looked After Children the Children and Families Act (2014) made it a statutory obligation for Local Authorities to establish a ‘Virtual School’ Headteacher, as educational advocates for Looked After Children. The University of Derby evaluated a ‘Creative Mentoring’ intervention, funded by a Virtual School, which pairs an individual mentor, a freelance creative arts practitioner, with a Child who is Looked After (Nunn et. al., 2021; Mycock and Gowers, forthcoming). Mentors deliver an individualised one-to-one programme in school involving 1–2-hour weekly co-designed sessions. Sessions could involve drama, dance, music, cooking, imaginative play, drawing, model-making and storytelling. This evaluation found that the Creative Mentoring Programme, for most mentees, not only supported educational attainment but also provided broader holistic nurturing benefiting children’s relationships, confidence, participation and wellbeing (Nunn et. al., 2021). However, it is important to highlight that the quality of the intervention was heavily dependent upon the skills and experience of the Mentors, as well the commitment of the young people and their carers (ibid.).

4. We would like to highlight how pro-active, well-designed and responsive interventions funded through the Virtual School, such as the Creative Mentoring Programme, can provide significant benefits to Looked After Children. The way the Creative Mentoring Programme was funded was crucial to its success; flexible spending enabled a responsive approach. Highly skilled creative-arts practitioners, with experience of working with children and young people, were recruited with the individual they would be mentoring in mind. Practitioners and mentees were matched according to their personalities and interests. It is important to emphasise that the intervention went beyond an academic tutoring approach, which for many of these young people would reinforce schooling and adult-child power dynamics. Instead, the Creative Mentoring Programme provided a safe space where mentees could explore their experiences and emotions through a range of child-led creative arts and play based activities. A separate evaluation is currently underway which aims to evaluate the impact of 1:1 Creative Mentoring sessions for young people aged 15-18, through the use of randomised control trials (see What Works CSC, 2021).

5. It is important to note that there is considerable variation in the ways in which Virtual Schools work across England, therefore we do not wish to generalise the good practice we observed to all Virtual Schools. It has also been highlighted in another study that there is little sharing in practice between Virtual School Headteachers and a lack of appropriate data on interventions to say whether they make a difference to outcomes (see Sebba and Berridge, 2019).

Recommendations

6. Funding for interventions for Looked After Children and young people should facilitate flexible deployment. This is key to ensuring they are appropriately individualised and responsive to the needs of the individuals taking part.

7. Children and young people should play an active role in shaping their own care and education, as well as informing the support provided through the Virtual School and other services. This should be through a meaningful process of consultation, whereby children and young people are able to present their views in ways that reflect their preferred means of responding and communication styles. Within our participatory approach to the evaluation, we engaged in a game-based activity involving the design of ‘rankings and ratings’ cards. We felt it important that children were viewed as experts in their own lives and experiences and sought to reflect this in our research design. Within any consultation activity, it is important that children and young people are listened to, their suggestions responded to, and where possible actions implemented.

8. All children and young people who are Looked After should be provided opportunities to work with adult mentors who focus upon the holistic wellbeing of the individual and not solely upon academic attainment. It is important that mentors have experience of working with children and young people and that they have a range of skills to build positive relationships. As within the Creative Mentoring Programme we examined, all mentors should be carefully matched to an individual, considering their interests, strengths, needs and personalities.

References

Drew, H., & Banerjee, R. (2019). ‘Supporting the education and well-being of children who are looked-after: what is the role of the virtual school?’ European Journal of Psychological Education, 34, 101–121.

Mycock, K. & Gowers, S.J. (forthcoming). ‘Eliciting Looked After Children’s Views and Relationships Through Card-based Participatory Research Methods’, Journal of Participatory Research Methods.

Nunn, A., Turner, R., Adhikari, J., & Brooks, C. (2021). 'Derbyshire Virtual School: Creative Mentoring Programme Final Report'. Derbyshire: Derbyshire County Council Virtual School.

Sebba, J. & Berridge, D. (2019) ‘The role of the Virtual School in supporting improved educational outcomes for children in care’, Oxford Review of Education, 45(4), 538-555.

What Works CSC (2021) ‘Creative Mentoring Trial Evaluation’. Available at: https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/research-project/creative-mentoring-trial-evaluation/

April 2022