Children being looked after via special guardianship arrangements should get greater support at school due to the legacy of trauma, their early life experiences, and the complex family situation they have and may continue to encounter, a new study says.
There should also be a review of schools' special guardianship policies and practice in local authorities to ensure that their needs are adequately identified.
The research shows the need for a greater focus on the sense of school belonging of young people living in special guardianship and support for guardianship families in school
Experts say educational psychologists should have a key role by providing psychological training, supervision and mentoring to designated teachers and other school staff who support guardianship families.
Special guardianship is unlike adoption it is not a lifelong order, nor does it legally end the child's relationship with their birth family, instead it places a child or young person with a friend or family member permanently and gives them enhanced parental responsibility for the child.
For the year ending March 2020, 89 per cent of special guardianship orders were made to family members or friends. It is thought there has been a marked increase in their use in the UK. They are the most frequent permanency option for young people leaving care, with 930 placed in England in the first quarter of 2023/24.
A high proportion of young people living in special guardianship experience complex emotional and behavioural difficulties, specifically in expressing and managing their emotions. This may be linked to early experiences of trauma.
The study, by Dr Lata Ramoutar, from the University of Exeter, involved creating in depth case studies about seven children based on interviews with them, their guardians and school staff.
Each participant, recruited with the help of local authorities, attended a different school in one local authority in England. The guardians included grandparents, stepparents, or foster carers who had children in mainstream or special, primary or secondary schools. The children were aged between 10 and 16 and most had disabilities or identified special educational needs.
For all children interviewed the single most important feature of school belonging was peer relationships. Weaker peer relationships involving negative experiences were a source of anxiety, particularly for young people in secondary school and this left them feeling isolated, resulting in some avoiding school or wanting to change school.
Dr Ramoutar said: "Children described intense, "all or nothing" relationships, suggesting that although reliable peer relationships were sought, they were often transient. All young people had either experienced difficulties or were worried about how to maintain positive relationships with their peers over time. In response the young people either looked to their own or others' personal characteristics, for example, their appearance, their behaviour, their identity ("real me" and "fake friends").
"In most cases, their behaviour indicated difficulties in emotional regulation, for example, self-harming or running out of class. None of the pupils raised their own early experiences as an explanation of why things might go wrong.'
In most cases, guardians viewed the young people's friendships less positively, expressing concern about the quantity and quality of their friendships and attributing difficulties to the young person's social and emotional development. The difficulties in peer relationships were linked to environmental factors such as transition between schools, amount of adult support obstructing peer relationships, health conditions, and diagnoses. The guardians did not link the young person's school experience to their early life or care experiences.
Although some guardians spoke positively about specific staff members, all expressed an overwhelming frustration about staff's limited understanding of the needs of the young person and of special guardianship generally, with an inappropriate amount of support. Guardians' feelings of frustration introduced a vulnerability to the home-school relationship, and in some cases, communication completely broke down and the young person left or withdrew from the school.
The study found that although designated teachers considered information about the young person's early life to be important to meet their needs, some were reluctant to proactively ask for this detail and preferred instead for guardians to approach them.
Dr Ramoutar said: "Sharing information within school, between home-school, and across schools during transitions was key. Some designated teachers spoke of feeling frustrated with health and social care services because of their lack of information sharing which was obstructive to them understanding young people's needs.
