How classroom counselling raises achievement in poorest areas

Project
Place2Be – Shoreditch hub

Funding
£160,000 over two years from the Private Equity Foundation

Purpose
To boost children’s emotional and mental health by providing counselling in schools in some of the poorest wards in London

Background
Established in 1994, Place2Be is a school-based counselling service that has had success across the country, helping children cope with problems and perform better in the classroom. In 2010, the charity established a new “hub” in Shoreditch to co-ordinate its first cross-borough project. The scheme serves some of the poorest areas in London in the boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Islington. The decision to set up a hub in Shoreditch originated from a partnership with the Mayor’s Fund for London. The service was established and expanded thanks to funding from the Private Equity Foundation, which has supported Place2Be over the past five years.

Action
The Shoreditch hub has just finished its second year, co-ordinating work at seven schools – six primaries and one secondary. “Every school has got a proportion of children that cause them concern, but very often they don’t know where to turn,” says Sarah Kendrick, hub manager. “Schools want the best for their pupils, but don’t necessarily have access to mental health services that meet the needs of children.”

The service offers one-to-one support, group work and a universal lunchtime drop-in service, as well as work with parents and teachers. Special educational needs co-ordinators, inclusion support workers, school pastoral teams and sometimes head teachers and teachers refer pupils for sessions with trained counsellors and therapists. Each school has a project manager and a team of four volunteer counsellors or therapists – either those in the final stages of training or fully qualified professionals who do pro bono work.

The scheme offers different levels of support to help children with a wide range of needs, from those coping with a one-off issue to those with long-term problems with domestic violence or parental drug and alcohol or mental health problems. The Shoreditch team has helped children with the challenges of arriving in the UK and worked with a number of children in care who have had multiple placement breakdowns or suffered trauma early on in life, says Kendrick. Counsellors get weekly supervision and regular support.

“This is a really coherent model and one of the main reasons it’s so successful is that it can reach every corner of a school,” says Kendrick.

Working across three boroughs has helped improve cross-borough collaboration, adds Kendrick, and a planned expansion will see the hub extend to a further borough when two schools in Newham join from September. Head teachers from all schools serve on the scheme’s steering committee.

Outcome
In the hub’s first year, 2010/11, it was available to 2,490 children across seven schools. Eighty-seven children received individual counselling sessions, while 37 took part in group work. A total of 705 children self-referred to the Place2Talk drop-in sessions, which recorded a total of 1,800 visits.

Outcomes data also shows the scheme, which is operating in an area with a 75 per cent child poverty rate, reached some of the most vulnerable children. Eleven per cent had a child protection plan, 38 per cent were receiving free school meals while 43 per cent of those supported through one-to-one work and group sessions had special educational needs (SEN), five per cent of whom had a full SEN statement.

According to teachers, 77 per cent of children who were disruptive in class showed an improvement in behaviour, 60 per cent of all those who got one-to-one support were more able to focus on classroom learning. The project uses strengths and difficulties questionnaires to assess young people’s progress, with 62 per cent of children’s “total difficulties” score showing improvement following intervention from Place2Be.

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