I worked in a residential boarding school run by the local authority for boys with poor school attendance and behaviour problems where it was thought they would benefit from being removed from their environment ( family). Typically they were young boys who came to the attention of the education welfare service before social services. Interestingly if they had come to social services they would have found themselves in foster care but with the expectation they went to a local school. I mention this in light of an article in the Guardian about the Government's drive to get children out of foster care into boarding schools.
The Local authority closed the boarding school I worked at several years ago. (I recently saw it on tv it was used for the exterior scenes in a remake of St Trinians the notorious and fictitious all girls boarding school ).The reason they gave for closure was that the boys would be better educated in local schools and benefit from growing up in their local community. The staff were clear the school was being closed as a budget saving exercise. Much cheaper to send the kids to local school under a banner of being more " inclusive " . Education would deal with the teaching, social services could work with the families. In essence it was a cost shunting exercise . Interesting then that now education and children's social services come under the same department boarding school should again be promoted as a way to care for vulnerable and troubled/troublesome young boys.
One of the big advantages for local authorities is the cost: with foster care coming in at around £100,000 a year, a £ 40,000 a year boarding school place seems financially attractive. Always assuming that in school holidays the young person can return home.
At present, there are only about 100 young people in boarding schools funded by local authorities but a new Department for Education-funded information service, is aiming to increase that number up to as many as 2,000. For this target to be achieved social workers will need to be convinced that this is a better option not just a cheaper one. To date they are not convinced, a previous research project aiming to explore the impact of these placements had to be abandoned earlier this year due to a lack of referrals from social workers.
Certainly foster care doesn't suit all young people,for some it is just too intense.
I left the special residential school to work in a local authority adolescent unit ( children's home). There were 11 and 12 year olds in the unit who had had multiple foster home break downs. They went to local schools. It was considered highly unlikely any of these young people would be fostered. Would any of them been better off in a boarding school?
Blair McPherson ex social worker, former director blogger and author www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
