School-Home Support

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SHS’s qualified and experienced school-based practitioners are there to support children and families, whatever they are going through. As a non-timetabled resource they have the time to listen to parents at the school gate, visit families at home and offer practical and emotional support to any of the pupils in the school.

Read our latest 2008/09 Annual Review and Impact Report here to learn more.

Engaging parents and carers in their child’s education is a key factor of the child’s success but many are unable or unwilling to get involved in school life. SHS practitioners can get to the bottom of these feelings and discover that:  
  • some parents feel isolated if they are new to the area or are not confident speaking English
  • they may feel intimidated by school especially if they had a negative experience of school themselves
  • some parents are coping with a problem at home such as substance misuse or domestic violence
  • they could be in poor mental or physical health
  • some parents work full time and may not be around much before or after school
By quickly and effectively building strong, trusting relationships, SHS practitioners can address problems and help solve them before they become bigger issues. They create effective links between parents and school, so they see it as a friendly approachable place and somewhere they can meet other parents, take up a parenting or family learning course or even volunteer at the school.

Often recruited from the local community, SHS practitioners have the awareness to understand the challenges that families may face and the knowledge of other local support agencies that can help. We ensure that our practitioners are well matched to the needs of the school because the work that they carry out can vary from one school to the next depending on the needs. We are committed to delivering a service that is as individual and as unique as the families we support.



 
Case study
George* was referred to the SHS Worker by his teacher because he was often late for school and also collected late, sometimes by 25 minutes. He was also collected by different people.
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