School Home Support is a charity working with children and families to maximise educational opportunities and improve life chances.
Partnering with schools, local authorities and communities, School-Home Support looks beyond the classroom to understand and tackle the issues affecting children’s learning, such as poverty, inadequate housing and mental ill-health.
Since 1984, they have used early intervention to break intergenerational cycles of deprivation and low aspiration, replacing them with children in school and ready to learn.
The biggest influence on a child’s life is their experiences at home. School-Home Support employs expert Practitioners to work with families on addressing a wide range of complex issues, building their engagement and resilience so that they can resolve future issues independently. Without this support, children are much less likely to achieve their best potential.
We have never known a more desperate time for vulnerable families, recovering from the pandemic and now facing the biggest cost of living crisis for decades. Many of the families School-Home Support works with feature one adult who is in work, but average pay is shrinking. These families don’t know how they will pay the bills, put food on the table, or afford their child’s bus fare to school. The increasing number of challenges they face makes times harder, and more intensive casework support vital. Families who were dealing with one major issue are now dealing with many more when their children are referred to School-Home Support.
The funding we provide to School-Home Support enables its practitioners to provide advice and support to families in Bradford and Kent, enabling them to access vital support with bills, gain employment and crucially get children in school and ready to learn.
“It has been a really tough last couple of years initially with the impact of Covid-19 but now the rise in the cost of living. I am seeing an increase in the impact this is having on the families I support – there has been an increase in the number of families accessing food banks, and being in debt with essential utility bills and rent, meaning children are coming to school hungry and less engaged in their learning, not having the correct uniform and equipment”.
Zoe Dempsey, Bradford SHS Practitioner
In 2022, the charity saw a 30% increase in intensive casework support in comparison to the previous year, with more families facing a heightened severity of need. It is clear that an increased level of demand for these services will continue. Our funding has enabled School-Home Support practitioners to continue to provide advice and support to families in Bradford and Kent throughout these challenging times, enabling families to access vital support with bills, gain employment and crucially get children in school and ready to learn.
In 2022 we worked with the following schools;
- Brompton Westbrook Primary, Chatham
- Byron Primary School, Gillingham
- Knowleswood Primary School, Bradford
- One In A Million Free School, Bradford.
Supporting SHS to deliver:
- 121 individuals supported via intensive casework support
- 1,698 interventions of intensive support
- 309 individuals that benefited from early response
- 893 interventions of early response support; and – average attendance increased by +11.7% (for those who achieved an increase in attendance)
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