For the love of learning Promoting educational achievement for looked after and adopted children

Transcription

1 For the love of learning Promoting educational achievement for looked after and adopted children Randy Lee Comfort, a social worker, educational psychologist and mother of both birth and adopted children, is founder and Executive Director of Our Place, a unique centre in Bristol for adoptive and foster families. Here she focuses on how the centre responds to the educational needs of the children and families who attend. Key words: looked after, adopted children, educational achievement, support Education makes good people and good people act nobly. Plato Background Our Place is a non-profit, registered charity, 1 established in 1998 to address the need for support, understanding and professional input for any family who adopts or looks after children. To help parents, carers and the professionals who work with them, the centre offers workshops and seminars around issues of child development, behaviour management, social emotional relationships and other topics of interest for those who foster and adopt. We provide activities for children both after school and during school holidays. In addition, the centre runs a weekly toddler group and there are bimonthly men s groups, women s groups, sessions for single adopters/foster carers and meetings for gay and lesbian adopters/ carers, as well as social events and periodic gatherings for families who have adopted from overseas. Individual and family counselling is available with qualified professional staff members upon request. Any family who fosters or adopts can bring the whole family, including birth children, to Our Place. We are open five days a week with occasional Saturday activities and parties. There are no geographic boundaries and no charges for any activities at the centre. We don t differentiate between families who foster and those who adopt, partly because a significant number do both but mostly because the children have very similar issues. The average age of an adopted child in the UK is now about five years (Department for Education and Skills, 2004). This means that most adopted children, other than those adopted internationally, will have come through the care system. Their early years are likely to have been unsettled and undermined by neglect, abuse, environmental disadvantage and instability, just as much as those of children currently in care. The families who use Our Place are ethnically and socially diverse, about a third having adopted from overseas. This contributes to the interest and variety of centre activities. We have a strong commitment to promote peace through international understanding. The educational work of Our Place In the last few years we have become increasingly aware that educational success (or lack of it) is a critical component in the lives of looked after and adopted children and their families, a fact that is now very well documented in the research literature (Goddard, 2000; Jackson and Sachdev, 2001; Jackson and Simon, 2006; Selwyn et al, 2006) and recognised in government policy and legislation (Department of Health, 1998; Children Act 2004; Department for Education and Skills, 2006). We are aiming to meet the needs of these children by emphasising educationally oriented projects and programmes and making concerted efforts to redress school failure for those who come to the centre. 1 Our Place is primarily funded by a charitable trust, supplemented by occasional grants and donations from other sources. While not directly connected to any statutory or voluntary agency, we work co-operatively with them, and frequently consult with Bristol s adoption support workers and other social workers, educators, medical professionals and therapists. 28 ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

2 Recognising that many carers and adoptive parents have trouble knowing how to approach schools on their child s behalf, Our Place provides information about parents and children s rights at school, and about what can be available to a child with special needs. Our Place has offered numerous workshops over the years aiming to help carers and parents to understand how to negotiate the complicated maze of special education at school. We have worked with self-help groups and with local authority Heads of Special Education, with SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators) and with Education for Looked After Children teams in order to help parents and carers access the services they need for themselves and for their children. Not infrequently, we have accompanied families feeling in need of support to meetings at the school. Most teachers and far too many social workers believe that once a child is placed in a good home, she or he will be able to settle well and work successfully at school. This is a misconception. Both looked after and adopted children bring with them histories that continue to interfere with their school progress even in a settled placement. Also, many foster carers who have patience, endurance and very loving hearts have not had positive school experiences themselves. This tends to inhibit their successful involvement with the school and with their child s academic pursuits. Our Place addresses the disrupted lives and the educational careers of looked after and adopted children on a number of levels. We care enormously about educational attainment and offer individual or small group sessions for academic tuition, but we also recognise that preparing for school is a process to which few such children have been adequately exposed. By providing activities at the child s developmental level, and by offering talks, seminars and discussion groups for adoptive parents, carers and the professionals who work with them, we hope to facilitate this comprehensive process of helping a child of any age to get ready for school (Comfort, 1997). Parents and carers find it extremely useful and informative to talk with others in the same position: I felt very alone as an adoptive parent in a small village outside of Bristol but now I have met several other families at Our Place, and we have become really good friends. I ve learned a lot from these parents about how to get better educational services for my children. Managing behaviour promoting learning Most staff at Our Place work part time and all are trained and qualified in their particular field, be it teaching, dance therapy, research, counselling, play therapy, art, craft or drama. We think about, plan and carry out all activities in a manner that will be developmentally appropriate, educationally productive and socially sensitive for the specific children involved. In this way, we try to supplement what looked after/adopted children desperately need, but have missed and/or are still missing in their overall development. The professional quality of the staff needs to be at a high level because simply maintaining or entertaining these children is not enough. There is no time to waste and each child requires highlevel input. Children s activities are centred around creative, fun, physical things to do. Many sessions are arts and crafts based, which may include science experiments, cooking or building. We offer dance, movement, sports and drama, and water and sand play for all ages. There is never any pressure to participate, create a product or perform. Activities are for having a relaxed good time in the company of others, and to learn to share, interact and socialise education in the widest sense. Sometimes just being a good audience is the best role for children to take on. Not getting into trouble, not being excluded or bullied are critical aspects of a child s time at Our Place. Nevertheless, boundaries are important and clear. Children in care who have lived without consistency and predictability do best when the lines are tightly drawn. Structure is something these children tend to know little about but greatly benefit from: ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

3 I like coming to Our Place because I see my friends and we always do something fun, but it doesn t matter if you don t want to do it. Sometimes I d rather watch for a while. (Eight-year-old adopted boy) Young children in care/adopted bring heavy emotional and behavioural baggage with them to school and to their new families (Fahlberg, 1995; Cairns, 2002; Geddes, 2006). They have extreme thoughts, fears and experiences that are far beyond the understanding of most of their classmates and teachers. These emotions often preoccupy their minds at school and at home. Moving to a stable and permanent home (in the case of most adopted children) is actually only a beginning for them. While they need to start their living and learning all over again, in reality they cannot because they already bring with them a genetic and environmental history. Disruption, disorganisation, lack of stability and inconsistency will have an effect on a child s emotions, behaviours, attention and readiness to learn (Archer, 2004). Classrooms of 28 to 34 students are not comfortable places for children in care because they often find the setting overly stimulating, frightening and incomprehensible, and their consequent behaviours can be extremely difficult to manage. A disproportionate number of looked after and adopted children are excluded from school. With that in mind, it is a policy that no child is ever excluded from Our Place. In order to help children feel safe, feel they can trust and be trusted, and be ready to learn social and academic skills, we ensure that there are always enough adults for each child to have plenty of individual attention. For example: Bruce is a nine-year-old who has lived with his adoptive parents for four years and is still testing the family as well as the school. One on one, Bruce is delightful but even being with just one other child brings out the defensive, bullying, show-off, inattentive side of him. Bruce is capable of achieving academically but with few social skills, he has no friends. Without help he is unlikely to make educational progress and is at high risk of exclusion from school. Over the years, we have found that nearly all children are able to control their behaviour in a one-to-one situation with an adult. While we have sometimes found it necessary, both for the child and for the group, to have a staff member take the child out of the room to play elsewhere, it is our preference to have staff and child stay in the activity room so that the child can learn to calm down and re-group within the context of the social setting. If a child can manage his or her behaviour well enough to stay in the classroom, there is obviously a better chance for him or her to learn. Many of our children can only participate in a group activity for minutes or less, and then need a short time away to calm themselves and refuel. Usually they are able to rejoin the group later. When a child does need to leave the group in this way, it is always with an adult and time out is never portrayed as a punishment, simply as a chance to collect oneself. This is in recognition that looked after and adopted children are very often afraid to be left on their own. The staff member may talk with the child about how to reorganise; this might take the form of giving them an opportunity to look at their own behaviour, as in the following example, or it could become a group activity: In an after-school session, Mia doesn t want to have anything to do with any of the three activities on offer. She shouts that art is dumb, she doesn t like any of the food being made in the cookery session and playing in the toy room is boring. Mia is making a lot of noise, interfering with other children s projects and unable to settle on anything to do herself. The teacher, Sharon, tells Mia that she has something special in the front room that she wants to show her, and Mia agrees to go with her to see what it is. Sharon is not sure that Mia will like the particular book that she happened to bring in that day, but she is content that at least Mia has removed 30 ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

4 herself from the group of children who are getting on with their activities. Mia in fact does not like the book, but she chooses to lie down on a pile of pillows and sucks her thumb for a while quietly. Sharon comments that Mia must have had a tiring day at school today. By allowing Mia her own time, she enables her to regain control of herself, and this eventually enables Mia and Sharon to talk about the bad day Mia had at school. Mia does not rejoin the group that afternoon, but she does calm down and is able to talk with Sharon about her feelings and about the way she chose to act them out. In eight years, we have never had a single fight and the building has had no damage. Bullying is not even a relevant concept because it simply is not tolerated. The minute a child says something unkind to someone, we intervene and talk about how mean words can hurt. By keeping children occupied in an activity they enjoy and feel they can handle, by allowing children to participate or not, by combining a flexible approach with very clear boundaries and by offering viable choices, we find that all children are manageable, if not always easily so. Once children have learned to behave acceptably and to control their emotions, they are more ready for school and its social and academic demands. The close supervision of children and the zero tolerance for hurtful words or behaviours are augmented by the equally strong support and acceptance of children s feelings and emotions. Children are encouraged to talk about how they feel if that is what they want to do. Equally, they are respected for their choice to not talk about anything and just be with other children or sometimes, just to be alone with an adult they care about. Our Place has learned important lessons about being with and teaching children who are looked after and adopted. Much of what we know can be shared with parents, carers, schools, teachers and other professionals in order to improve school life for the children in their care. The second half of this article discusses how schools can join with adoptive parents and foster carers to enhance the social and academic careers of children who enter school with too much negative past experience to be able to benefit easily from classroom and playground settings (Aldgate, 1990; Hinde, 1998; McParlin, 1998; Thomas and Beckford, 1999). Most schools do not have the luxury of individually meeting the emotional behavioural needs of looked after and adopted children, but there is still a lot they can do (Our Place, 2004). Helping schools and teachers Adoptive parents and foster carers can be an integral part of the educational process their children will enter, so they need to learn how to become involved in a positive and productive relationship with the school. By helping the child s teacher and school to understand what being looked after or adopted can entail, by working with the teacher to interpret the child s behaviour and by being supportively involved with the school, parents and carers can become true advocates for the children in their care (Krementz, 1997; Crook, 2000). Many teachers have little idea of what looked after children may have gone through in their early years. Initial teacher training still includes little or nothing about the care system or children in care. Most children do not come to school with a history of moving homes and schools frequently, recurrently changing neighbourhoods and families, and having no or inappropriate stimulation for months or years on end. Generally, teachers do not expect that primary school children will have suffered sexual abuse, extreme neglect, hunger and violence. Although they may be familiar with situations in which children of divorced parents go back and forth between mum and dad, contact with birth parents for looked after and adopted children is of a very different nature and can spark extreme emotional reactions from the children involved (Quinton et al, 1997; Macaskill, 2002; Borkowski, 2006). There are many ways in which teachers and parents can make school a more viable and comfortable place for looked after and adopted children (Comfort, ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

5 1992; Jackson, 2001). Simply understanding their behaviour is probably more helpful than any other tool in beginning to deal with and manage them in the classroom and avoiding the need for punitive measures and exclusions. Knowing that substance misuse, physical abuse, neglect, violence, poverty and separation trauma can result in neurological and emotional effects that create obstacles to learning may enable teachers and parents to approach the child with a different kind of sensitivity (Cairns, 2002). It is not uncommon to find visual and auditory processing problems in the population of looked after and adopted children (Stock Kranowitz, 2005). Speech and language disorders often arise in children who have been institutionalised, adopted from overseas or have simply never been talked to or listened to. No matter how early, or what the circumstances, the mere fact of being separated from birth parents is a loss that differentiates adopted and fostered children from those who grow up in their birth families (Golding et al, 2006). Sometimes a child may appear to have one or more learning disorders when the difficulty is actually emotional. Equally, the reverse may be true. It can be too often assumed that a school problem is emotional when the root is actually a specific learning disorder. It is crucial that a proper assessment should be available to all children whose early years have been at risk and whose development seems to be slow (Jackson and McParlin, 2006). Teachers and parents/carers need to be assertive in initiating educational assessments and medical evaluations of the adopted/ looked after child s developmental progress in order to know if it is a specific learning disorder or a medical disability that needs to be addressed. Patterns of behaviour Children are always learning, but they may not be learning what the teacher is teaching. Winston Churchill While no two children are the same, and even the same child can be very different in dissimilar circumstances, research and experience have helped to identify some patterns of behaviour that are repeated frequently among looked after/adopted children and must be at least partly responsible for their high rates of exclusion from school. Many children who have been removed from their birth homes are hyper-vigilant. They have trouble concentrating on what the teacher is trying to teach but are acutely aware of what everyone else in the classroom is doing. Slamming doors, particular smells, noises and lighting may trigger violent or fearful behaviour because of past associations. When a child misbehaves seemingly for no reason it may be for a reason that felt very real to the child, even if he or she cannot identify or explain it. Children who have defied and survived severely injured childhoods tenaciously hold on to the behaviours and attitudes that served them well in a former time, even when they are counterproductive in their current situation (Cairns, 2002). When teachers or caring adults are aware of this, they are less apt to be taken off guard and to respond insensitively to unpredictable behaviour. Practical strategies for schools and teachers Many adults who have made a success of their lives cite a special teacher who motivated and encouraged them (Jackson and Martin, 1998). Schools and teachers are in a prime position to do something, one student at a time, to change the educational trajectories of looked after/ adopted children. Since primary school teachers spend six hours a day, five days a week with the same children, they are invaluable mentors for those whose early lives have been unreliable and bleak. A first step is to read and learn more about children in the care system and to acquire at least a basic understanding of the issues unique to them. Talking with other colleagues/professionals and with adoptive parents and foster carers about children looked after and adopted is useful. They may have discovered methods and approaches that work well with a particular child. 32 ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

6 In the classroom It is important to recognise that change represents something especially big, negative and personal to the child who has been looked after. Transition points are far more stressful than for other children. Moving into a different class, adjusting to a new teacher and different rules constitute a complicated process for the child in care. Sometimes she or he may regress quite significantly and take a long time to settle into the new classroom. Teachers who understand that this is not a difficult child, but one who finds him or herself in a difficult environment can be creative in dealing with the situation. Paradoxically, a student who has only known harshness in life may feel illequipped in a classroom where things are calm and happy. Unaccustomed to this kind of setting, the child has no skills with which to handle the situation, and may seek to destroy the calm in order to reconstruct an environment in which he or she knows how to function. Teachers may want to develop a different set of reinforcers, positive and negative, for the looked after/adopted child: treating children according to their individual needs is a fair approach. For example, being praised in front of others can be scary for the looked after child, who may react by destroying whatever piece of work or action that he or she had previously done well. These are children who have so little experience of positive reinforcement that they are afraid of it. They do not know what to do with it, so they get rid of it quickly. Low-key verbal rewards and unobtrusive stickers or a quick pat on the shoulder may be more easily tolerated. Encouraging children to make choices about their behaviour is important, but again something with which many children in care have had little experience. Small choices with little consequence are best for starters: Would you like to use the red pencil or the blue pencil today? The curriculum needs thinking about to avoid causing unnecessary stress. Family trees, mother s day cards, autobiographies, grandparent interviews, baby pictures and early memory stories do not have to be eliminated, but they do need re-evaluation and tactful handling. These are highly charged areas for children in the care system. For older children, subjects like biology, psychology and drama can cause similar emotional stress. In the playground The playground can be a very difficult place for children with self-regulation difficulties and is often where the kinds of incidents that lead to exclusion arise. It is not helpful to keep a child in from playtime if that is where they make friends and learn to play with others. Some ways to make it easier are: Pair the child with a partner or buddy for playtime take care to choose the right buddy and rotate this person frequently. Give the child a special task to do in the playground each day, for example, go around and count all of the children wearing red shirts. Find a special dinner-person who is willing to be available in a kind and understanding manner. Maybe that adult can help to find some specific tasks or games of interest to the child. On the other hand, the child should know that if outside is feeling too hard, she or he is allowed to come into the office and read a book until playtime is over. This is not a punishment; it is giving the child an opportunity to make a positive choice. Conclusion This article has emphasised the need to acquire a one-step-at-a-time, individualised approach to helping children who have had a difficult start in life. With sensitive support and great patience, adults who work with looked after and adopted children, be they parents, carers, teachers or other professionals, are able to help troubled young people settle into home and school, and to make significant strides in their social emotional and academic careers. Our Place contributes to the educational achievement of looked after and adopted children by providing a comfortable, attractive and safe environment in which the children can develop a love of ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER

7 learning that will enhance their social skills and self-confidence as well as their academic growth. This is an accomplishment that will stay with them throughout their lives. Moreover, at Our Place, we encourage parents and carers to become a supportive and co-operative factor in the child s learning process, and this helps to build a strong and necessary founcation for educational success. In the words of Albert Schweitzer (1955): The greatest victory is the one we have over ourselves. References Aldgate J, Foster children at school: success or failure?, Adoption & Fostering 14: 4, pp 38 49, 1990 Archer C, Substance misuse, attachment disorganisation and adoptive families, in Phillips R (ed), Children Exposed to Parental Substance Abuse, London: BAAF, 2004 Bennathan M and Boxall M, Effective Intervention in Primary School: Nurture groups (second edition), London: David Fulton, 2000 Borkowski M, Understanding the Complexities of Contact for Adopted and Looked After Children, Bristol: Our Place, 2006 Cairns K, Attachment, Trauma and Resilience: Therapeutic caring for children, London: BAAF, 2002 Comfort R, Teaching the Unconventional Child, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1992 Comfort R, When nature didn t nurture: What s a foster/adoptive family to do?, Infants and Young Children 10:2, pp 27 35, 1997 Crook M, The Face in the Mirror: Teenagers and adoption, Vancouver BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2000 Department of Health, Quality Protects, London: DH, 1998 Department for Education and Skills, Care Matters: Transforming the lives of children in care, Green Paper, London: DfES, 2006 Fahlberg V, A Child s Journey through Placement, London: BAAF 1995 Geddes H, Attachment in the Classroom: The links between children s early experience, emotional well being and performance in schools, London: Worth Publishing, 2006 Goddard J, The education of looked after children a research review, Child & Family Social Work 5:1, pp 79 86, 2000 Golding K, Dent H, Nissim R and Stott L, Thinking Psychologically about Children who are Looked After and Adopted, London: John Wiley & Sons, 2006 Griffiths C and Hibbert H, Believe in me: Supporting designated teachers supporting literacy, London: National Literacy Association/ Who Cares? Trust, 2005 Hinde J, Nurturing neglected minds, Times Educational Supplement 1315, 16 January, p 15, l998 Jackson S (ed), Nobody Ever Told Us School Mattered: Raising the educational attainments of children in care, London: BAAF, 2001 Jackson S and Martin P, Surviving the care system: education and resilience, Journal of Adolescence 21, pp , 1998 Jackson S and McParlin P, The education of children in care, The Psychologist 19, February, pp 90 93, 2006 Jackson S and Sachdev D, Better Education, Better Futures: Research, practice and the views of young people in public care, Ilford: Barnardo s, 2001 Jackson S and Simon A, The costs and benefits of educating children in care, in Chase E, Simon A and Jackson S (eds), In Care and After: A positive perspective, London: Routledge, 2006 Krementz J, How it Feels to be Adopted, New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1997 Macaskill C, Safe Contact? Children in permanent placement and contact with their birth relatives, Lyme Regis: Russell House Publishing, 2002 McParlin P and Shotton G, Children in care: how can you care?, Education 26:3, pp 15 22, 1998 Our Place, Meeting the Educational Needs of Looked After and Adopted Children, Bristol: Our Place, 2004 Quinton D, Rushton A, Dance C and Mayes D, Contact between children placed away from home and their birth parents: research issues and evidence, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry 2:3, pp , 1997 Selwyn J, Sturgess W, Quinton D and Baxter C, Costs and Outcomes of Non-infant Adoptions, London: BAAF, 2006 Stock Kranowitz C, The Out-of-Sync Child, New York: Penguin Group, 2005 Thomas C and Beckford V, Adopted Children Speaking, London: BAAF, 1999 Randy Lee Comfort ADOPTION & FOSTERING VOLUME 31 NUMBER