Background

 

What happened in 2023?

During 2023, RCBC and Skyblue convened 13 workshops engaging 104 different people across the local system to shape the UK’s first theory of change linked to the challenge of addressing persistent and severe absence from school and college.

These workshops awakened more curiosity and knowledge about the ways in which attendance is something that many different people can or could contribute towards – across education and learning settings, the virtual school, public health, youth justice, serious violence and crime, social care, early help, family services and hubs, inclusion, welfare, attendance, the voluntary & community sector infrastructure and others, it led to the production of the Theory of Change and much more besides and of course the central role of each child, young person and family, by purposely seeking out lived experiences from those that have struggled with their attendance but went on to turn that situation around into more stable, healthy routines, we discovered the importance of listening to and understanding each circumstance before trying to ‘fix a problem.’

We also started to understand the scale of the challenge by working with services that have data and intelligence – but we found they could be even more joined up to work around the needs of each child, young person and family.

As a result of these 3 ‘workstreams’ (lived experience, data and intelligence and system and services), by the end of 2023 RCBC felt more confident about who is most affected by persistent and severe absence, the reasons for these struggles and behaviours and the wide variety of support available to improve the situation. This led to a Theory of Change process which provided the time and space to deeply think about how change might be stimulated – in a way that puts relationships first and where barriers are systematically removed.

We are grateful for continued support for this Project from: