“Access to education is a huge problem that often goes unaddressed, and a decade of social services budget cuts has seen more responsibility and expectations around family support passed onto schools. Last year, one in nine children from schools across England were persistently absent from school and as the level of overall absence increases, the likelihood of achieving five good GCSEs decreases. School-Home Support works at the core of these issues, partnering with schools and other organisations to support disadvantaged children and families to maximise educational opportunities, improve life chances and wellbeing and address root causes to education barriers. We’re looking forward to support SHS to scale their operations to meet the increased need due to COVID, utilise impact to drive growth and to develop their policy work.”
Gina Cicerone and Sam Butters, Co-CEO’s Fair Education Alliance
About School-Home Support (SHS)
School-Home Support (SHS) is a charity working with disadvantaged children and families to maximise educational opportunities, improve life chances and wellbeing, and address root causes to educational barriers. We partner with schools to provide specialist practitioners support to families that face issues beyond the classroom, such as poverty, inadequate housing and mental ill-health.
By working with a pupil’s family, SHS achieves positive change that lasts. On average, two years of support from an SHS Practitioner results in 50 extra days in school. That’s ten extra weeks in school - per pupil, per year.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw demand for SHS quadruple, and our safeguarding referrals increase sevenfold - but our teams have risen to every challenge and met the need. We also successfully delivered technology and internet to families facing a home learning disadvantage gap due to digital poverty.
Over the next two years, we want to be reaching even more families by becoming a staple in schools across our target geographical areas where poverty and persistent absence rates are high. We hope the FEA Scaling Award will help us achieve this by connecting us with a network of highly-engaged experts, who possess the capacity and resources to develop our growth strategy