Post adoption support

[SuperAunt08]

Has anyone accessed post adoption support, particularly in relation to school? I have an Education Support worker ringing me on Friday after I made a very vague request for support following some concerns from school about his behaviour. I am not confident that the school have the skills/knowledge/resource to understand his behaviour and deal with it but I have no idea what support is available or what I am asking for. It would be good to be armed with some ideas before the phone call

We have had lots of school issues and lots of involvement with post adoption support. How old is your son? Which area if the country are you in? Happy for you to DM if you rather. My sons are 8 and 9 so all our dealings have been at primary school

Thanks he has just turned 7 and is in year 2 in the North East. We are not living in the same county as the adoption agency but only about 30 miles away and he’s only been placed with us for just over a year - unfortunately just before 1st lockdown

Is it possible to suggest some training for the school on early trauma, attachment and children who are care experienced? I’ve heard of schools using pupil premium money to buy in training - all the external support in the world won’t help if the school just don’t get it. A good understanding of the needs of care experienced children (as opposed to general training in SEN) can make a huge difference to your child’s school experience.

This is what I am hoping as I think they could really benefit from it, they are a small school with limited experience with children with additional needs, but I’m not sure if that can be accessed via post adoption support and whether I can influence training for the school. I’m just not sure what is reasonable or realistic to expect.
I was aware of some minor behavioural issues but was blindsided by a letter sent home expressing serious concern and threatening exclusions and so reached out for support without really thinking through what exactly I need

We are in the south west and used a company called Catchpoint who went into school to observe our boys and fave feedback to the school as to why they were behaving in certain ways. We also got the adoption uk book "let's learn together" and gave it to school as a starting point. It's only £3.95 and explains things really well for teachers with no clue about attachment!
Have you thought about a multi disciplinary assessment funded through ASF?
Also we had the virtual school head for our LA go in to school which was really useful.

That sounds great, it gives me a starting point for discussions tomorrow thank you. I didn’t expect someone to get back to me so quickly so wasn’t prepared with ideas to suggest.

How did your conversation go? I'd be interested to hear anything they recommended, we're having a very tricky school week!

I spoke to an education support worker who agreed that the approaches being used in school regarding the discipline system etc were not necessarily working or appropriate and suggested that she could get in touch with the teacher and discuss techniques and make suggestions about how best to use the pupil premium plus to support better and then to arrange a meeting between us all but unfortunately it was just before half term so I haven’t heard anything yet.

Just an update, an education support worker had a meeting with my sons teacher and head teacher this week and fed back to me today. It was really useful, she has advised the teacher of some new strategies to try and educated them on trauma and attachment and has agreed to keep in regular contact and has also advised the school to apply for Higher Needs Funding for additional support as well as assessing him using something called Thrive to identify his emotional needs and what further support he needs. I feel a lot more positive now