Outreach

The Outreach Service Leadership

Position	Name
Outreach Manager	Lisa Caine
Lead Pupil and Family Practitioner	Hannah Buckingham
The Turnaround Project Manager	Jade Horsted

The Outreach Service Introduction

The Outreach Service, based at The Bridge Campus, uses a trauma informed relationship-based approach to promote and develop SEMH so that all children and young people can flourish in our school communities and successfully remain or reintegrate into mainstream education.

The aim of the Outreach Service is to support communities and individuals to understand behaviour as communication. The service helps build healthy approaches to meeting needs and solving problems, increasing awareness of the importance of relationships to strengthen families and our school communities, working in collaboration with all stakeholders to support positive change and improve inclusive practice across the city.

There are three parts to the Outreach Service:

1. MABS
2. Young Parents Support Service
3. The Turnaround Team

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MABS

MABS has been in operation in Portsmouth for over 18 years and became a fully traded SEMH Outreach Service in 2017. The service consists of a team of experienced Lead Teacher Advisors (working with school staff) and Pupil and Family Practitioners (working with pupils and families), supporting children, young people, families and schools with Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs.

As a fully traded service, MABS offers a range of evidence-based interventions providing needs led support, both with individual commissioning schools (early years, primary and secondary) and citywide through Local Authority and the Virtual School commissions.
MABS works with children from reception age through to Year 11.

Relationships are at the heart of the MABS service, and this approach recognises the importance of:

• Putting relationships first
• Promoting and developing SEMH for all
• Understanding children and young people within the contexts of relationships and wider factors
• Understanding SEMH as communicating a need rather than a problem
• Applying trauma informed and attachment aware approaches with children and young people with the most complex needs relating to social and emotional wellbeing and mental health
• Ensuring all approaches and interventions are evidence-based
• Using a collaborative process to ensure all stakeholders work together
• Recognising the need to promote and support wellbeing and resilience within the workforce

MABS Support & Intervention Offer

Support from MABS Lead Teacher Advisors is needs led and flexible, following a model of assess – plan – do – review. They help to translate the latest research from neuroscience and from the experts in child development, attachment awareness and childhood trauma into staff supported classroom practice.

This includes:

• Coaching / Mentoring / Supervision (1:1 or groups)
• Drop-ins / Consultation – across all areas of SEMH needs including:
  • Neuro-diverse profile
  • Specialist advice, assessment and understanding of SEMH needs to develop plans
  • Clear intervention strategies and modelling
  • Providing resources
  • Staff development
• Casework for identified individual children or young people
• Whole school approaches to supporting SEMH (reviewing and developing school policies, practice and culture)
• Evidence based staff training (for identified staff, groups of staff or whole school) including:
  • Sensory circuits and regulation
  • Zones of regulation
  • De-escalation and emotion coaching
  • Behaviour as communication
  • Developmental trauma and PACE
  • Collaborative problem solving
  • Nurture principles into practice
  • EBSA

Pupil and Family Practitioners work across all school age ranges and needs under the umbrella of SEMH, working directly with children and families. They teach children and families the neuroscience, attuning to the unmet needs and working to understand what the presenting behaviour is communicating, through play, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy.

Support can include:

• Mentoring or coaching either 1:1 or in groups with children and young people (within the home, school, or community)
• 1:1 family casework (within the home, school, or community)
• Parent / carer drop-ins
• Parent / carer workshops or groups
• Range of needs and interventions includes:
  • Transition
  • Loss and bereavement
  • Anxiety
  • Exam worries
  • Understanding myself (ND)
  • Developing social and emotional skills
  • EBSA
  • 1st aid or worry warriors
  • Family Support Plan
  • Restorative practice
  • Up2U Family Practice
  • DDP
  • PACE Parenting
  • Understanding behaviour as communication
  • Trauma response and understanding
  • Healthy relationships and exploitation

Entry Process

Commissioning Schools: All requests come directly from the individual commissioning school.

Individual child or young people requests for support with parental consent are submitted to the service and allocated to staff.

Bespoke staff development and support, along with group support for children, young people or parents, is negotiated through partnership planning and review meetings.

FAP reintegration support: Pupil and Family Practitioner support is offered to all children and young people moving between mainstream schools through the FAP ISP process – allocation via ISP.

Inclusion Outreach Service (MABS is one of the service partners): Support is available to all mainstream schools in Portsmouth to access Lead Teacher Advisory staff support for an individual child or young person with complex needs or at risk of educational breakdown by submitting an Inclusion Outreach Service request with parental consent. Bespoke support and wider staff training can be requested by contacting the service co-ordinator directly.

Exit Criteria

Commissioning schools: Support is needs led and the length of any intervention or support is reviewed and agreed with the commissioning school. All school SLAs run for two academic years and either party can give six months’ notice to terminate the agreement within the term of the contract.

FAP Reintegration: Support is reviewed after 6 weeks and according to the needs, either extended for a further 6-12 weeks or a maintenance plan can be agreed.

Inclusion Outreach Service: Support is needs led and the length of any intervention or support is reviewed and agreed with the partner school, linking in other services or pathways when needed and appropriate.

Impact of MABS

• Children and young people maintaining and thriving in mainstream school
• Successful reintegration into mainstream school
• Increased school attendance
• Reduced suspensions
• Improved relationships between Children and Young People, families and school staff
• Improved social, emotional and mental health skills
• Improved trauma informed awareness and practice in mainstream schools
• Increased staff confidence to meet the SEMH needs of children and young people
• Positive engagement with children, families, and schools
• Positive feedback from children, families, schools, and key stakeholders regarding the effectiveness of the team and evidence of desired change

Feedback from commissioning schools:

Testimonials – Commissioning Schools / Parents / Students

School feedback

“Thank you to the whole team for their flexibility, understanding and support this year! We really feel supported and the progress with staff perspective around PACE has been extremely positive.”

“It’s a very efficient and supportive service.”

“LTA, and other professionals that we have worked with, have really helped to shape the culture of our school.”

“PACE training totally altered the relational practice within the school and all staff have reported how beneficial this approach has been with the children.”

Parent feedback

“It gave us a lot of points to work and focus on and improved our lives for the better. It’s eased a lot of stress, and helped with my sons anxiety and gave me the tools and approach needed to help in particular situations.”

Young Person’s feedback

“Being able to chat and express my feelings, without the fear of being judged or miss understood. Being given different ideas and techniques on how to cope with my emotions or how to change throughout stressful situations. Also given me different views of what I can be or do in life.”

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Young Parents Support Service (YPSS)

Part of the Outreach support offer includes the YPSS. Supporting pregnant and parenting young people of school age from 16 weeks gestation until the end of Year 11, to improve their wellbeing and outcomes, with additional support in Year 12 to ensure that they move onto Post 16 destinations.

Young parents and pregnant teenagers are identified as part of the group of most vulnerable children and young people who are likely to be educated in alternative provision or missing from education altogether. The YPSS plays a significant role in keeping young parents and pregnant teenagers within mainstream education where appropriate in Portsmouth and has been instrumental in moving the city away from the notion that ‘pregnancy’ is a basis for alternative provision.

In line with the national picture, Portsmouth has seen a decrease in the teenage conception rate, therefore, the YPSS has become a ‘strand’ of the Outreach Service offer, rather than a standalone service. Targeted programmes and dedicated support (including 1:1 caseload care), and working in a multi-agency way, creates the best outcomes for this vulnerable group.

YPSS Support & Intervention Offer

YPSS staff work closely with schools, young people, families and key stakeholders to ensure that the right support is in place and there’s a clear understanding of the needs.

Support can include:

• 1:1 mentoring support for young parents (mothers and fathers) individually assessed in terms of need.
• Weekly group provision for young mothers and mothers to be (when there are 4+ young parents).

The Programme includes:

• Sexual health and relationships;
• Parenting and life skills;
• Emotional Health and Wellbeing- with an emphasis on:
  • Attachment awareness – PACE approach,
  • Building social and emotional skills,
  • Improving life and parenting skills,
  • Complementing and promoting school engagement and attainment, Post 16 EET,
  • Acknowledging that they are a parent as well as a young person / student, promoting emotional health,
  • Wellbeing and positive mental health,
  • Supporting young parents’ relationships in the family and encouraging wider family support
• Young fathers: 1:1 mentoring or a group offer (when there is 4+ young parents) with a focus around the; role of being a dad, practical parenting skills and healthy relationships.

Entry Criteria

Available to all young parents or parents to be (from 16 weeks gestation, including young fathers) who are of school age in Portsmouth. Schools can request support by completing a YPSS request for support form and submitting it to the Outreach Service.

Exit Criteria

Young parents are supported into Year 12 to secure their post 16 destination. A review and transition plan are agreed to ensure ongoing support needed, is in place.

Impact of YPSS

• Building, restoring, and maintaining relationships across the different domains of young parents lives to achieve positive outcomes.
• Reducing risk factors associated with teenage pregnancy (strengthened multi-agency safeguarding and early help practice for young parents and their babies).
• Reducing subsequent unplanned pregnancies.
• Improving emotional wellbeing and mental health of young parents and parents to be.
• Improving educational attendance, engagement and attainment.
• Reducing NEET rates for young parents and supporting transition to post 16.
• Working with school age young fathers: Children with positively involved fathers have better outcomes; young mothers with a supportive partner are less likely to get postnatal depression; becoming a father can be a positive turning point in confidence and re-engagement with education and employment.

Testimonials – Commissioning Schools/ Parents/ Students

“The support was good with helping the student make realistic plans for moving into further education, without the knowledge the student would have been high risk of NEET.”

School representative

“Without their support we would lose touch with some of our most vulnerable pupils.”

School representative

“(The group) lets us mums know we’re not on our own.”

Young Parent

The Turnaround Team

The Turnaround Team supports the city’s priority of high-quality inclusion (increasing attendance and reducing suspensions), to further increase successful reintegration of students from Alternative Provision at The Harbour School, back to mainstream education.

Following the success of the initial Turnaround Project, PCC Schools’ Forum agreed to the continuation for a further three years up to April 2027 (where it will be reviewed for a continuation)

The Turnaround Team provides support for mainstream schools (to include primary if capacity available), one-to one key working for the students, support and engagement with families, building prosocial behaviours and improving successful reintegration back into a mainstream setting. Staff work in a relational way, providing a wraparound reintegration service, collaborating with key partners, to ensure the best outcomes for the students supported.

The desired outcomes are:

• Successful reintegration from Alternative Provision to mainstream schools, ensuring that Alternative Provision places are available for those who most need them
• Improved attendance
• Reduced suspensions
• Improved family relationships

Entry Criteria

Schools cannot refer directly for support from The Turnaround Team. Turnaround supports pupils attending Short Stay School, permanently excluded students reintegrating back to mainstream school and The Harbour School Bridge Campus students returning to mainstream via consultation with professionals.

Exit Criteria

Following a full term (or 120 days) after the young person has returned to their mainstream school, the Turnaround teams support will end. TAF meetings are held to establish a plan (if needed) to ensure support is kept in place, that the pupil knows the plan and has a trusted adult identified in the school.

The Turnaround Support & Intervention Offer

• ‘Wraparound’ reintegration support working collaboratively with mainstream schools, children and families, and key partner services throughout the process.
• 1-1 mentoring sessions developing relationships and social, emotional, and mental health awareness and skills.
• Flexibility to adapt the level of support to match the needs.
• Career opportunities
• Evidence based interventions around SEMH.
• Whole family support to improve relationships.
• Family Support Plan intervention.
• UP2U Family Practice sessions.
• Offsite community-based engagement opportunities.
• PATH assessment and planning.

Impact of The Turnaround Team 2021- 2023

• 88% of students remain in mainstream education who attended Short Stay School (120 days post transition). 100% of students remain in mainstream education who transitioned following a permanent exclusion or from The Harbour School main provision (120 days post transition)
• 96% of Short Stay School children had a reduction of days lost to suspension whilst at The Harbour School, 100% of permanently excluded children reduced their days lost to suspension whilst at The Harbour School. During the first term back at mainstream school 61% of Short Stay School pupils reduced their days lost to suspension, 89% of permanently excluded children reduced theirs.
• Improved social and emotional skills: Mainstream schools and The Harbour School staff report an improvement in all aspects of Social Emotional Skills, with the most significant areas being: emotional wellbeing and mental health, social skills and motivation. It was also recognised that the children supported developed greater trust in professionals.
• 100% of young people felt supported by Turnaround since returning to mainstream school.

Testimonials – Commissioning Schools/ Parents/ Students

“X has been the best worker and she has helped me to think about my decisions and do the best that I can.”

Young person

“I’m no longer living in fear, life is manageable and pleasant. I have a plan now of what I want to achieve, you guys (Turnaround Team) brought us back together…”

Parent feedback

“Without Turnaround, pupils would lose a powerful and impactful advocate and voice.”

School representative

Outreach Service Impact- 2022- 2023

Over the previous academic year, the Outreach Service received 408 individual casework requests for support.

• 265 via MABS School commissions
• 73 via FAP reintegration
• 29 via the Inclusion Outreach Service
• 4 via YPSS
• The Turnaround Team supported 37 children to successfully reintegrate back into mainstream education

In addition, The Outreach Service provided training and workshops for 200+ staff and parents across mainstream schools, key services (HAF and the Music Service) and The Harbour School including:

• Developmental Trauma and PACE
• PACE for Parents
• Behaviour as Communication (School staff and parents)
• Zones of Regulation
• Sensory Circuits and Regulation
• Understanding the ADHD of ND
• PACE: Regulate, Relate, Reason, Repair