Case Study: Getting Lucy back on track

Lucy joined our Resilient Futures Programme, as her Mam was worried about permanent exclusion from school due to multiple suspensions. She had a reputation of engaging in Anti-Social Behaviour, and her Mam had attempted a referral for mental health support but had been unsuccessful. This is Lucy’s story.

Several previous interventions such as an Early Help or Family Worker From another organisation had failed, as they weren’t the right fit for Lucy’s needs.  Mam stated that we were her last opportunity for support to prevent permanent exclusion from school. The relationship between not only Lucy, but also Mam and Stepdad, with the school was extremely negative with no trust and no positive communication between school and home. The future seemed out of reach.

Once we started supporting Lucy, we were made aware that Mam had made multiple formal complaints against the school; She felt her daughter was not understood at school and was barely hanging on in preventing permanent exclusion. Lucy had 33 suspensions since joining the school 13 months prior and was due to receive a written first warning towards permanent exclusion.

All previous interventions were unsuccessful despite being very involved with both school and home life. A referral to an Education Partner had been made but this was withdrawn when we came into the picture. This frustrated Mam as she desperately wanted Lucy to receive as much support as possible, and part of our work at the start was helping the family to understand just how much we could achieve together. We set about the work of re-building the relationship between the family and school, and setting Lucy back on the path away from permanent exclusion.

One of our Young Person’s Family Entrepreneurs met with school and identified all the interventions that had previously been tried and their view on the next steps for Lucy. We supported Mam to try and move past all the negative past experiences with school and have a fresh start going forward. We all attended a positive meeting with school where everyone was heard and communicated with each other and made a plan going forward to try and prevent Lucy being removed from school. We encouraged Mam to take Lucy to the GP, assuring her we would work together to get Lucy the right mental health support. Lucy was accepted by CAMHs (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service), and she signed up to be one of our first Young Volunteers at the Hub, helping us out at Christmas time, doing Christmas gift wrapping to fundraise for youth projects. She then volunteered at HAF in February and she has recently started volunteering at Howdelicious Café after school one day per week.

Lucy’s dedicated member of staff has been going into school to support Lucy in lessons so she can build her confidence up and learn her coping strategies. They regularly met with Mam and had 1-1 sessions and noticed that she was carrying a lot of negative emotions and the stress associated with balancing a busy life so we referred her to get some support of her own, via counselling sessions at the Hub.

The acceptance of CAMHs referral has finally helped Mam feel like Lucy is going to get the assessments needed and the support she needs.  The positive meetings at school have helped Mam and School communicate with each other effectively and respectfully and ensured everyone was hearing what they needed to hear and make a plan together to get the

correct support for Lucy to prevent permanent exclusion. Lucy being a Young Volunteer gives her a sense of purpose and self confidence and a feeling like she is contributing to the Hub positively and showing her that she can be trusted and can make good behavioural choices. 

Referring Mam to counselling sessions is helping her sort out her own feelings and emotions and that time for her to share her worries without being judged and has been incredibly beneficial 

We are very proud of how far we have come in four months, especially how well Mam is starting to see a positive future and how Lucy is trying to make positive changes at school. We are looking forward to seeing where we are in the next month or two and hopefully our support will not be needed any more when Lucy and all of her family have the knowledge, confidence and patience to thrive without us.