JOIN NOW

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://zoom.us/j/94036509308?pwd=OHlvZVFrN2FCSXN3bDY3RDhtUGlTUT09

Passcode: 831298

Looking Back Looking Forward: Insights through COVID and Beyond

We have all had to try to manage to deliver services remotely and deal with the pitfalls of this and the impact on clients. Now we are faced with the need to support clients to feel safe enough to re-engage with face to face contact and try to repair any additional trauma and damage that might have been incurred as a result of the lockdown.

Part of a series of 2 webinars each with two speakers and time for questions and discussion and each focusing on different aspects of service delivery.

Guest Speakers

Education - Patrick Finegan

Virtual School Head and IRCT Trustee

The Rise and Rise of the Virtual School.

Before Covid-19 Virtual Schools had begun to extend their empires from Looked After Children to now include adopted children, special guardianship order children and those on a residential order. They were faced with the expanding role of supporting more traumatised children who found it difficult to cope with an educational system that gave almost no recognition to attachment issues, toxic stress, adverse childhood experiences and as for emotion coaching! To ensure they are not complacent Virtual Schools are seeing the numbers of children coming into care rise sharply as lockdown caused many families to collapse.

While Virtual Heads spent lockdown trying to access hardware for their looked after children, fund the use of educational software and hire on-line tutors, they were receiving reports that indicated an actual increase in the enjoyment of home learning by some of its more troubled children. Without the pressure of school rules, peers and some, less than empathic adults, they were finding schoolwork stimulating and challenging and carers were pleased at the improvement in both their behaviour and mental health.

Currently the new school world that will start in September, consists of far more questions than answers, but we can predict that schools will not easily address the needs of this vulnerable group. If the use of inclusivity, nurture groups and the trusted adult are to be sacrificed in order to facilitate social distancing, bubbles and regimented procedures, then the wave of new looked after children that arrive, will not fare better than the current ones; and the data for them is already shameful.

So, what can we do? This presentation will open discussion on this issue and explore some possible solutions.

Care Leavers - Carrie Wilson Harrop

Young People's and Project Coordinator at the Care Leavers Association and Trustee IFCO / IRCT Trustee

Speaker extract to follow.