Schools as a community space/Alternative living spaces
Description
K218 Working with children, young people and families Mind Map on Schools as a community space/Alternative living spaces, created by selinaward on 08/05/2013.
Schools as a community space/Alternative living spaces
Children raised in communities where there are limited opportunities to
meet people from other communities may grow up with a worldview which
excludes others.
Schools may have the capacity to confront prejudice, not only through the
formal curriculum but, perhaps more importantly, through the ‘hidden
curriculum’ such as the informal interactions outside the classroom, the
behaviour and beliefs which are modelled by teachers and schools
norms and values
Crafter argues that some teaching in schools may
serve to undermine values, beliefs and ways of
thinking learned in the home.
This may undermine children’s
confidence and serve to distance them
from their culture of origin, but the
Movement for Integrated Education in
Northern Ireland is based on the belief
that, in the struggle to resolve conflict,
school is the place to start.
In multi-cultural societies, schools offer a space where children
and young people can mix and learn together. In some societies,
schools have been used to segregate and have consolidated
divisions in the wider society
There are arguments for and against integrated education,
and adherence to one or the other view may be strong
It is important for practioners to understand
where a child lives beucase they may have
additional needs.
Care Plans are documents setting out the
actions to be taken to meet the child’s or
young person’s needs, and they record the
person responsible for taking each
identified action.
It will include information and recommendations about
the child’s education, health and welfare. The local
authority is responsible for ensuring that Care Plans
are regularly reviewed and the identified actions
carried out. They often include details of contact
arrangements with friends and family. In this way,
continuity of important attachments can be
acknowledged and maintained.
The outcomes for many of the children who experience moves in and
out of the care system can be poor. Entry into care is often traumatic,
bringing with it a loss of contact with family and community.
60% of children ‘looked after’ in England were
reported to have emotional and mental health problems,
often leading to poor health, educational and social
outcomes after leaving care.
Frequent placement changes can often affect a child’s
sense of identity and self-esteem. Up to 80 per cent of
’looked after’ children and young people are living
separately from key attachment figures, such as
siblings.
For example, in the clip of young people that had left foster care, all described being split up
from their siblings and other family members. They were often told by the social worker what
was going to happen, rather than asking them what they wanted. False promises were also
made like stating siblings would be kept together but in reality a "lack of resources" meant
siblings were often split up so far apart that even visiting became an issue.
One well-established method of working with children and young people is life
story work, or life course analysis. Life story work can help children and young
people gather and talk about a personal or family history, and so help them
develop a sense of identity.
It can be undertaken by practitioners working with cared-for
children, but may also be a tool used successfully by adopters and
others. It can be an organised activity with a trained person, or a
more informal process reflected in the everyday conversations
between carers and children and young people.
As with all tools, the method requires caution. It can help carers, their
children and their foster children to share common ground in the spaces they
inhabit, through co-constructing an understanding of the past
It is defined by Rose and Philpott (2005) as ‘a factual narrative
about their [children’s] lives and the lives of those closest to them’
Rose and Philpott also suggest that:‘Life story work involves taking
children along their journeys step by step, not passing over events, facts
and beliefs or making the assumption that a child has understood or
accepted, when that may not have been the case. At each step it is
necessary to ensure that the child has first of all listened and then said
that she has understood’
To avoid loss of identity "Big Connor" was given a life storey book by
his social worker so he could understand his family background and
maintain his family identity whilst in foster care.