Social Work and the Education of Children in Foster Care

Abstract

To what extent should social workers advocate the educational needs of children and young people in foster care? Jane Aldgate, Anthony Heath, Matthew Colton and Michael Simm present the findings of a recent study.

Investing in children’s futures: enhancing the educational arrangements of ‘looked after’ children and young people

“…1986 ; Bebbington & Miles 1989). These overlapping areas of investigation suggest that a high degree of educational disadvantage results from poverty and social deprivation prior to placement in public care ( Osborn & St. Clair 1987; Aldgate et al . 1993 ; Stein 1994; Humberside County Council 1995; SSI and OFSTED 1995).…”

Learning with Care: The Education of Children Looked after Away from Home by Local Authorities in Scotland

“…The OFSTED/ SSI (1995) inspection found very little involvement of schools in care planning and insuff icient priority was given in these plans to educational arrangements. A number of studies found that there was much greater focus on behaviour and school attendance than on attainment at statutory reviews and that social workers were over-optimistic about children's attainments (Jackson, 1989;Fletcher-Campbell and Hall, 1990;Aldgate et al, 1993). More positively, although Francis (2000) found that 'details (on school files) of the attainment levels of the 14 children proved to be elusive in the extreme', in most cases the inspection had little difficulty f inding this information.…”

“…Most research has found that foster carers are committed to acting as 'good parents' as far as the education of their foster children is concerned, but that they do not often receive enough resources or support to help children overcome earlier disadvantage or to cope with special needs (Fletcher-Campbell and Hall, 1990;Aldgate et al, 1993;Quinton et al, 1996). As Borland and colleagues wrote, summarising Aldgate et al (1993):…”

Young mothers in care, contributing to the contemporary debate

“…Thirdly, the methodology was influenced, following the pilot research, by the finding of high levels of illiteracy amongst the young women. Previous research has highlighted the link between proximity to the care system and educational disadvantage (Aldgate et al, 1993; www.gov.uk/socialexclusion, 2002) and this was made apparent to me when the majority of young women revealed they could not read or complete a questionnaire: thus, semi-structured interviews became the preferred methodological option. The questionnaire included questions on the events surrounding the pregnancy; family relationships and relationship with the father of the baby, friends, schooling and details of their care experiences.…”