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Young people in care in Northern Ireland are being given the
opportunity to create their own libraries. The DIY 4 Life
scheme was set up by the North Eastern Education and Library
Board to improve literacy and numeracy levels among young
people living in care homes.
The £20,000 scheme, funded by Northern Bank, is being
piloted in the Magherafelt area and will be rolled out in
11 homes over the next two years. Each home has been allocated
between £1,600 and £3,000 to spend on books and
educational resources. Young people will decide how the money
is spent and will be responsible for decorating and furnishing
a library area inside the home.
The board is also encouraging support teachers to hold classes
in libraries. Kim Aiken, coordinator for the board's library
services, said: "Young people in care may only be getting
a few hours of schooling a week. Libraries are a safe, stigma-free
base outside the care setting. We want to give them what may
be their first positive experience of education and there's
great long-term potential."
There are 2,400 young people in residential care in Northern
Ireland. Seventy per cent of care-leavers across the UK do
not have any GCSEs or GNVQs.
(Young People Now, 3 September 2003)
Children in care will be sent to private boarding schools
under plans being drawn up by education secretary Charles
Clarke. Hundreds of young people would go to fee-paying schools
to improve their educational achievements and provide them
with a more stable environment in which to grow up. The move
would mark the biggest partnership between the Government
and independent schools since Labour abolished the assisted
places scheme in 1997.
Mr Clarke believes that boarding schools offer many of the
60,000 so-called looked-after children a better chance of
academic success. They would also provide more enriching and
cost-effective pastoral care than local authority social services.
The average cost of a boarding place is £16,500 a year,
compared with £100,000 for a child in a residential
home and up to £30,000 for foster care.
Research by the Department of Health shows that 90% are in
care through no fault of their own, but because of abuse,
parental neglect, family breakdown and other welfare concerns.
Many young people in care suffer constant disruption as they
are moved through a succession of care homes and foster families.
One in seven is placed with at least three different foster
parents a year. Former children in care make up one in three
of the prison population; one in four is a parent by the time
he or she leaves care; and one in five is homeless in two
years.
Several hundred youngsters could be placed with boarding
schools, but the number could grow to thousands if the scheme
proves successful. Local authorities already have power to
buy places at boarding schools for children in care, but most
refuse to do so on ideological grounds. Social services are
unwilling to spend public money on what they see as a privileged
education outside the state system.
(The Times, 13 June 2003)
Research by the Prince's Trust has found that more than
half the young people brought up in care homes or under the
supervision of social workers have been excluded from school.
More than one in six teenage girls in council care are either
pregnant or already mothers by the time they leave the system.
One in ten said they hardly ever bothered to turn up at school
at all. Nearly four out of ten care-leavers had been homeless
and more had been in trouble with the police.
The Prince's Trust will be putting an extra £2million
into its schemes that try to help lonely and confused teenagers
leaving the care of local councils by providing them with
adult mentors to advise and guide them.
Official figures show that in London and Scotland more than
seven out of ten children leave the care system with no educational
qualifications. This is 14 times the rate among all school
leavers.
(Daily Mail, 9 October 2002)
A Glasgow community project is winning the battle to keep
children out of residential education. Only two of the 24
children in the Shield Project have returned to a residential
school since the project was set up three years ago.
Based in a local primary school, the project aims to keep
children in their own or a foster family and at a mainstream
school. Funded by the Scottish Executive, Barnados and the
social work and education departments in Glasgow, the project
has a staff of eight who provide community-based support for
up to 15 children under the age of 13.
Brian Emmerson, project leader said, "What makes this initiative
unique is the use of foster care, educational support, volunteer
and befrienders to enable children to stay in their communities
and to attend mainstream schools." A major reason for their
success so far is the frequent meetings between social work
staff and educational psychologists.
The children's behaviour, social skills and reading ages
have all improved. There have also been benefits for the participating
agencies. "The project has helped to break down professional
barriers by requiring people to focus their combined expertise
to meet the needs of the children," said Brenda Emmerson one
of two seconded primary teachers from the eight participating
schools.
(TESS, 27 July 2001)
In a development of its other work with children in care,
the National Literacy Association has been running a project
exploring the impact of the use of PSION hand-held computers
on the reading attainment and literacy skills of children
in care. The 60 children involved in the project are aged
between 10 and 14, are in foster care and have shown reading
delay on standardised reading tests. The 18-month project,
backed by the Who Cares? Trust and Kent Social Services, is
being evaluated Professor Sheila Wolfendale and Trevor Bryans.
The final report is due autumn 2003.
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