Next Practice in Communities for Learning - Wakefield

Family support  

Wakefield Local Authority will extend knowledge of social work practice to teachers, support staff and headteachers. They will work closely with school communities to tackle the needs of whole families and to develop a newly skilled support staff role that can address social needs in a preventative sense.

This trial maps the interface between health, education and social care services and trains school staff to develop skills normally associated with social care staff. Through this, it explores the reality of integrated practice and the potential to engage very hard-to-reach families. The field trial enables two schools involved to access a wider range of skills and approaches to support, raising attainment of some of the lower achieving children in the district. It also enables the schools to build relationships between staff working in different agencies by beginning to tackle the different values, skills and approaches across different professions. The trial involves training school staff in social action theory, anti-oppressive practice and social work approaches to enhance two schools' capacity to respond to their families. These approaches are intended to empower and give a voice to families who are currently not engaged with the school. The placing of social work students in the schools with practice supervisors will add capacity and model approaches to engaging families to support raising attainment and to overcoming barriers to learning. The trial has achieved alignment with the delivery of family learning, the support services offered through the family centre and the provision of bespoke NHS support services in the schools thereby modelling a consistent and integrated approach.

See a map showing the locations of all the Next Practice in Communities for Learning field trial sites.

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