Khulisa - closing the educational disadvantage gap

"I’ve spent 15 years working with young people and I’ve never met a young person who doesn’t want to be in education” Jodie Wickers, CEO of Khulisa

The education landscape in the United Kingdom is undergoing a seismic shift. Khulisa has shone a spotlight on the alarming decline in school attendance, exacerbated by the pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. This month, you can vote for Khulisa in our July charity poll, and help them win a donation of 20% of our profits! Find out more about what Khulisa do for children and their education and see why they need your votes this month.

The Troubling Numbers

The statistics paint a grim picture. Since 2019, overall absence in schools has surged by over 50%, and persistent absence, where pupils miss 10% or more of lessons, has more than doubled.

While the rise in persistent absence affects all young people, the ‘attendance gap’ continues to widen, with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds significantly more likely to be both absent and persistently absent in comparison to their peers. In 2022-2023, 37.9% of disadvantaged pupils were persistently absent, compared to 16.7% for non-disadvantaged peers. Given the link between school attendance and attainment, these numbers alone should send shockwaves through our education system. But they only tell part of the story.

Digging Deeper: Understanding the Why

In collaboration with their partners, in the first research of its kind, Khulisa spoke directly to parents from across different social groups and across the country to understand the reasons behind this sudden drop in attendance. Khulisa also facilitated six focus groups with young people to support this research.

The findings are sobering. There has been a profound shift in parental attitudes towards education, a change driven primarily by the seismic disruption brought about by the pandemic. The idea that every school day matters, has seen a distinct shift. And this is a shift with significant implications for both education and student well-being.

A Complex Challenge

This shift in parental attitudes isn't a simple issue with a straightforward solution. It's a reflection of the unique challenges and disruptions introduced by the pandemic and exacerbated by the crisis in children’s mental health and the rise in the cost of living. Every one of the findings in the report (which you can read here) underscores the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to the problem, addressing not just attendance but the underlying causes of absence from school.

“We are facing a profound shift in parental attitudes towards school attendance, and the implications for our young people’s education and wellbeing are deeply concerning.This research highlights th at investing in the emotional and mental health support of young people, and providing early intervention and tailored support for families, is not just good practice – it’s imperative. Prioritising this is key to ensuring children receive the support they need to thrive in school and beyond. The findings of this study make an undeniable case for this critical change in our approach to education and family support.”

- Jodie Wickers, CEO of Khulisa

The Call to Action

This report is a call to action. The role of schools changed during the pandemic. They went from primarily serving as educational institutions to assuming the role of community hubs, often becoming the only avenue of support for children's mental health. This transformation became especially critical during the pandemic when access to CAMHS and mental health services reached levels of inaccessibility for the majority of families. Despite the evolving role of schools and the rising level of need, there has been no corresponding increase in funding to help schools address these challenges.

Instead, they are seeing schools being driven by government policy into adopting blanket approaches to attendance (which are not only ineffective, as the report shows, but also disproportionately affect poorer families) leaving little room for nuance. Focusing solely on getting a young person to school and punishing their families when they don’t, lays the blame and the responsibility to fix issues around attendance on children and their families.

How Khulisa Can Help

1. Underscores the need for better joined-up working and signposting to para-educational agencies, particularly those in mental health, to ensure that those best placed to offer support can do so effectively.

2. Advocates for the implementation of comprehensive training for parents and teachers to recognise and address children's well-being.

3. Recognises that this problem cannot be understood without considering funding. Other strains on the education system are manifesting in the attendance crisis – better-funded schools will have better attendance.

4. Highlights that SEND and children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are significant factors in the attendance crisis, investing in these two areas, and in early intervention so that young people are supported before they ever reach a moment of crisis, will significantly improve attendance.

We cannot continue on as before. The pandemic has shifted every aspect of our lives. Our response to the school attendance crisis must be comprehensive, compassionate, and collaborative. The time to act is now, for the sake of our young people and their futures.

Support Khulisa UK

The young people that Khulisa work with have appalling chances of stable adult lives. Without support, just 1% will achieve 5 good GCSE grades, with drastically higher likelihoods of being homeless, unemployed and developing severe mental health problems. The young people they support are 15 times more likely to become perpetrators of violent crime, and 20 times more likely to go to prison in their lifetime, than an average child. Face It is a preventative programme for young people aged 13-16, at risk of exclusion from school. Delivered in school over 12 weeks, they work across London(90%) and Manchester (10%). Our young people all share an experience of adverse childhood experiences (DV, poverty, parental addictions, care) and are growing up in communities with a high level of unmet needs, economically and socially.

Their flagship programme Face It is a neurosequential intervention for young people aged 13-16, delivered in school over an academic term. They use Bruce Perry’s “Regulate, Relate, Reason” to structure the programme, initially building self-regulation skills and only when the group is no longer dysregulated, moving on to build trust-based relationships, and then onto the core content of the programme.

We use a mixture of 1:1 and group settings to build resilience and self-regulation in both environments, allowing young people to share and explore the roots of trauma with a trusted adult 1:1, while also starting to develop relationships and share with their peers in a safe and contained space.

Website: www.khulisa.co.uk

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You can vote for Khulisa from 1st July 2024 - 31st July 2024 in our charity poll.