Someone to watch over you

Sixteen-year-old Joy was taken into the care of the London Borough of Barnet six months ago. She had a history of mental health problems, had been sectioned several times and, despite concerted efforts by the authorities to keep her with her family, it was finally decided that a stay away from home would be better for everyone involved. She became one of Barnet Council's 372 looked-after children. She was placed in a specialist unit, a combined care home and school, and assigned a social worker.

Sixteen-year-old Joy was taken into the care of the London Borough of Barnet six months ago. She had a history of mental health problems, had been sectioned several times and, despite concerted efforts by the authorities to keep her with her family, it was finally decided that a stay away from home would be better for everyone involved. She became one of Barnet Council's 372 looked-after children. She was placed in a specialist unit, a combined care home and school, and assigned a social worker.

At first she seemed very unhappy. She ran away from the home on several occasions and refused to settle to do any school work. Now, just three months later, she has, say her carers, blossomed. She is in the process of being statemented for special needs for the first time in her schooling, she is receiving extra tuition and has been give a laptop computer for use in her room. Sitting just one GCSE this year would have been considered a feat for her a few months ago - now she is studying three subjects at this level and every effort is being made to boost her pass rate from a D to a C.

Like most children in care, Joy has a lot of support within the authority from social workers, carers and teachers. But she is being given some extra special encouragement in the form of an education champion - a senior officer from the council who - behind the scenes - is monitoring her progress at school, responding to problems and using his/her influence to divert extra resources to Joy if necessary.

Joy's champion is Jill Stansfield, the borough's director of education. She admits that the scheme takes her far beyond her role as corporate parent, and gives her a much greater sense of responsibility for this child. "It brings home to you, in a way that you don't normally get at my level, that these are real children and what you do can make a real difference to their lives," she says.

Joy is one of 43 Year 11 pupils being championed in this way. Shantha Shanmuganathan, her social worker, is in no doubt about the value of the scheme, saying: "With all the other things that children in care have to deal with, their education can so often take a back seat. It is good to have someone particular behind them, and it helps us, as social workers, to have someone to turn to when things go wrong. The fact that Joy is being statemented in record time certainly has something to do with having the director of education as her champion."

The scheme is the brainchild of Paul Fallon, the council's head of children's services, and it came, he says, out of sheer desperation. "Last year was a particularly poor year for exam results amongst looked-after children in this borough," he says. "One third sat no exams at all and only eight per cent were awarded GCSEs with grades A to C. We had to think of some way to improve things." And he had to think quickly. Under a new Government target, due to come into force next year, local authorities must have just under a quarter of their children in care achieving five A to C GCSEs and 90 per cent of those eligible must sit one exam.

So, with target failure looming heavily, Fallon came up with the idea of education champions. He enlisted the help of other senior council officers and, in September last year, each officer was assigned one of the 43 pupils. Their instructions, says Fallon, were clear. "I asked the officers to have the same expectations as if they were their own children," he says. "If they are not satisfied with the service they are getting, then they should use whatever muscle or money they have to improve it for their child.

"The one thing that children in care have told me over the years is that although people are very sympathetic to them and their history, the thing that really blights their education is, quite simply, people constantly making excuses for them and having low expectations. That triggered the thought of having great expectations, and championing was born."

Fallon makes the analogy with Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, where the hero, Pip, is supported by an unknown benefactor. "We are all like the convict Magwitch, who gets deported to Australia, but who looks out for Pip from afar, sending him money when needed, but never revealing his identity to him."

Leo Boland, the chief executive of the council, says he leapt at the chance to become a champion. All he was told about his child was that she was a refugee, with no family in this country. He immediately met with her social worker and, although it's early days, he says, they have had some success. "We have managed to speed up some processes," he says. "She has got funding for extra tuition and we are making contact with some voluntary groups to give her support."

When Boland discovered that it was the child's ambition to get into a particular college in the borough this September, he made sure her name was put on the waiting list. "This championing role is really about being a middle-class, pushy parent - and this is what I am being for this girl, as I would for my own children. All these children have very competent social workers and very competent teachers, but all of the research shows that parental support is essential for children who aren't in care, so that has to be true for children who are in care as well."

Susanna Cheal, from The Who Cares? Trust, is very positive about the council's scheme. The aim of her charity is to improve public care for children, and she believes that this kind of championing is a step in the right direction. "It means that the officials in the authority are taking their corporate parenting responsibilities very seriously, and that has to be a good thing." In fact, she says the council is ahead of the game. "From June this year, local authorities will, under the new Children Act, have a stated duty to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children," she says. "It's the first time that a duty like this has existed and their performance will be closely monitored."

Cheal's one criticism of the scheme is that it is starting much too late. "What's the point of starting the championing when the children are in their final GCSE year?" she says. "The damage done to their education will have started long before that. These children need support from primary school if it really is going to have an impact on exam results."

This is just a pilot scheme for Barnet, but at a meeting held before Christmas, it was decided that it should be rolled out to other school years in the future. Stansfield is delighted with the decision. "We accept the criticism that younger pupils should be involved, so I have asked the authority's social workers to tell us which children would benefit from somebody rattling the cage a bit, and I have already been approached by more senior council officers who are keen to get involved."

The scheme doesn't come without costs, but Fallon says this is one area where lack of resources isn't the problem. "We have the budgets to look after these children's education," he says. "What has constrained us in the past, if anything, has been the lack of imagination and breadth of thought about what we could do for them." Perhaps, in this case, a little lateral thinking will go a long way.

education@independent.co.uk