The term ‘care experienced’ refers to all children and young people who are currently looked after or have previously been at some point in their life. This term, therefore, widens the scope of children and young people who are deemed to be disadvantaged due to being looked after, though they might not necessarily be currently.
A child or young person could be looked after at home, in kinship care, with foster carers, living in a residential unit, or in secure care.
Looked after children and young people predominantly have lower attendance rates, higher exclusion rates, lower attainment, and have lower rates of moving on to positive destinations after leaving school compared to other pupils. Even if they are no longer looked after, you can see how such an experience can have a lasting impact and move us to now consider the needs of our ‘care experienced’ population.
The reasons that contributed towards a child or young person becoming ‘looked after’ may not have completely gone away even though they have returned to their home, and not to forget there will be others on the cusp of becoming ‘looked after’ who will also have similar needs and be experiencing these same disadvantages. The focus for intervention is therefore much wider than just the pupils who are currently ‘looked after’.
The information on this website will hopefully provide you with useful information about current guidance, advice and research, and details of projects that are happening in Angus to help improve the outcomes for looked after and care experienced children and young people.
Angus Educational Psychology Service responsibilities with LAC/LAAC:
- Looked after children (LAC) and Looked After and Accommodated Children (LAAC) are a priority for EPS. Every LAC in Angus has an identified link EP. The extent of EPS involvement with any Looked After Child will be within the context of the Continuum of Need.
- For LAC placed out with Angus, EPS has a key responsibility in identifying and accessing appropriate education provision (including funding), and monitoring and reviewing the educational progress of the child or young person. The link EP collaborates with other professionals from social work, health and other local authorities to ensure the educational needs of the child/young person are being met. This may include attending planning meetings, pre-enrolment meetings and/or school review meetings.
- An EP has been allocated to support the LAC inclusion project, which has an initial focus on improving educational outcomes for children in residential houses.
- Other responsibilities in relation to LAC include:- acting as an education representative on the Foster Carers’ Consultative Group, Corporate Parenting Lead Officers Group and Fostering and Adoption Panel; attending local authority case review meetings; providing training to school staff to raise awareness of the needs of LAC; reviewing and analysing education data for LAC; ensuring colleagues within Schools and Learning are upholding their Corporate Parenting duties; providing training to foster carers
