Policy & Practice: Judgment call

A 10-year-old boy was attending a club for after-school andout-of-school care but was intimidating other children and staff.

An out-of-school co-ordinator describes how they were able to keep theboy in the club and improve his behaviour.

- During the course of several school holidays we began to have concernsabout the behaviour of one of the members of our after-school andout-of-school care club.

A 10-year-old boy who was living in foster care was regularly introuble, often because of his violent and aggressive behaviour and badlanguage.

He would intimidate other children and new or young staff.

He hung around with 16- and 17-year-olds at night, and his behaviour wasreflecting theirs. The result was that he intimidated and bullied theyounger children. His behaviour and attitude created problems normallyassociated with older children and we decided we would have to treat himas such. We did not want to exclude him from the club so, despite hisyoung age, he was referred to our mentoring service, which provides avolunteer mentor for children with problems. It is normally for youngpeople aged 13 and older, and offers the chance to talk to someone aboutany problems and try to work them through.