001: Sarah
Interviewer:
Sarah: I:
Sarah:
Ok, so you know that the focus of the interview is generally to, kind of, think about the young people the YOT works with, and in particular with a focus on education.
Yep.
So if we just start by thinking about a particular young person, who you might be working with at the moment, or that you know quite well, can you just generally tell me about them, this particular case?
Ok, so it’s a young person who has just come out of custody, having been in for just under 12 months. He is a looked after child from another London borough and he was moved to [our borough] on his release, um, into foster placement, um because there were fears for his safety going back to [borough] where he is
originally from. Um, prior to going into custody he was in a mainstream school, however, his attendance and behaviour and attendance started to slip towards…he is now in Year 11…um, so towards the end of year 9 his behaviour and attendance were starting to slip and that’s when he started getting involved in gangs and offending behaviour. But nevertheless he wasn’t excluded and he remained at mainstream school until going into custody. When in custody he was in a secure children’ home, and he did exceptionally well in there. He sat two of his GCSE’s, um, and his
functional skills level 3, and so, just really excelled in education. A very very motivated young man and very keen to continue with his learning. However, due to one reason or another, when he was released back into [our borough] there wasn’t a prompt handover from his home local authority, and we didn’t know about him until he’d been here for about 3 weeks. Um, he was also out of education at this point, nothing had been arranged for him. We had to follow the [local authority] protocol of going to a fair access panel and that sort of thing. We didn’t have any information from the home YOT to support our applications to [local authority] schools so this all dragged on. The young person during this time was very proactive and he tried to enroll himself at two different colleges. But because of
Comments:
Just come out of custody
LAC moving borough Fears for safety
Attendance problems
Behaviour problems Started getting into gangs
Did exceptionally well in custody Very motivated
Poor handover from other LA
Nothing arranged when came out of custody
Poor handover from other LA
Very motivated Very motivated
147 I:
Sarah
his age they said no because he was still Year 11. He also got himself under a Princes Trust programme, you know, all of that. He was doing really, really well. But things were still dragging on. Then, after Christmas we were starting to get a bit of progress in terms of getting him allocated a school, receiving information from where we need it. However, the young person, his motivation, understandably, was…was, kind of, dropping by the day. There were concerns about him smoking cannabis again, mixing with old peers, all of that. So, we worked very, like, very closely with [our local authority] education department and the home local authority where he was from weren’t being very helpful. So we put a lot of pressure on [our local authority] and eventually he was accepted by
alternative provision and he had two success…he had an interview and then an admissions panel due to the seriousness of his offence. And he started at [name of college] doing a construction course on Monday this week. So, it’s been…it sounds a positive outcome, but he is a young person, um, who’s spent the whole, um, nearly 3 months being out of education. You know, I’m hoping that he will stick to it now that he’s got…he’s getting up and going somewhere every day is a bit of a shock to the system, and he’s finding other pupils in his class very immature.
Ah ok. Just going back a bit, to his experiences of education before he came here, you said he was in mainstream school, but that that was deteriorating a bit, tell me a bit more about his history, if you know it. Um, his history was that he had a lot of attachment issues I believe, from quite a young age, in that his mum died, his biological mum died, and he was brought up by another woman who he calls mum, but who wasn’t his real mum. And, dad, he has, um , an on/off relationship with dad, and he started to get into offending when he was about 13 and all of his offences were where he was coerced by older gang members. So, his index offence which he was in custody for was
Motivation dropping Smoking cannabis Influence of peer group
Work closely with education dept Poor handover from other LA Alternative provision Construction course Time out of education Getting up and going somewhere very day is a shock
Attachment issues Traumatic experiences Inconsistent family relationships Gang involvement
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