Red Balloon response to Ofsted warning over 'untracked' children

I welcome the concern expressed by Ofsted (17 August, “Ofsted says local authorities and schools losing track of children”) regarding children who are missing from education and are vulnerable to harm. I should like to draw your attention to what could well be a significant proportion of these: children who have been so severely bullied that they have either self-excluded or been withdrawn from mainstream school by their parents or carers for fear of their safety. Red Balloon, which sets up learner centres for their recovery with the aim of supporting their return to mainstream education, estimates that at any one time there are between 6,000 and 10,000 such young people.

In some cases, when Local Authorities do know of these children, they are deemed to have “elected” to be home educated, whether or not their parents or carers are in a position to carry out such a programme – this is in the absence of any alternative provision of education in a safe environment with an appropriate recovery programme.

And there are others, perhaps “long-term absent”, who stay at home, spending much of the day in their bedrooms, having lost self-esteem, suffering from depression, self-harm and flashbacks, and in a significant number of cases, the will to live. These are “below the radar” and become lost to society.

Public recognition of this problem would encourage the parents and carers of these children to make them known to the Local Authorities instead of fearing that they will be threatened with jail because they are not sending their child to school.

To see Dr Herbert's response in the Guardian, copy and paste this link into your browser: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/20/self-exclusion-bullied-children

 

 

 

-- Posted by Red Balloon - on 20th August 2010 --