It's the success stories of getting kids back to class that keep school attendance manager Michael Doyle going in what can be a very difficult job, writes GRÁINNE FALLER
‘OUR JOB IS to support the right of a child to attend school.” The age-old image of a school attendance officer chasing after truants is way off the mark, according to former attendance officer Michael Doyle. “Obstacles to a child attending school often come down to family dysfunction,” he says. “Officers engage with families and other agencies in an effort to find solutions to those problems.”
School attendance officers are now known as education welfare officers and operate as part of the National Education Welfare Board (NEWB). Doyle is in charge of the Leinster North region and parts of Dublin, managing, advising and supporting 17 education welfare officers and clerical staff.
He’s had a busy morning. “I went on a home visit where there were serious health and safety concerns. An education welfare officer had been threatened by the family and I didn’t feel that it was appropriate for the officer to visit. I decided to go with a senior member of staff instead.”
Later on he will meet with senior staff members to decide whether two school attendance cases need to progress to court. But Doyle is very clear about what his job is about: “The welfare of the child.”
The NEWB is the national body charged with encouraging and supporting school attendance, retention and participation. Last September, other bodies (the Home School Community Liaison Programme, the School Completion Programme and the Visiting Teachers Service for Travellers) were integrated into the NEWB in an effort to provide an integrated service.
Those on the ground hope that this more integrated approach leads to a service that will reach more students.
As it stands, schools report a case to the NEWB if a student
has been absent for more than 20 days. However, since this level of absenteeism actually applies to one in every six second-level students, reaching everyone is impossible. So cases have to be prioritised. Top of the list will be students with no school place; students who have been suspended for more than 20 days; cases of threatened expulsion; a child on criminal charges who has a school attendance problem; or children released from the care of the HSE into the care of a guardian or a foster family.
“You have to understand that you have a lot of families concentrated in certain areas who have all sorts of problems,” says Doyle. “For us to be visiting that family on a school attendance issue . . . I mean, they see this as
a minor problem compared to all of the other difficulties in their lives. They’re just fed up, really, of people and agencies coming into their lives.”
In such circumstances, a high level of sensitivity and respect is required of all education welfare officers. Doyle’s staff come from backgrounds as diverse as teaching, community welfare and even the Garda.
“People know when they’re being listened to,” he says. “It takes time to build a rapport, and our officers acknowledge that. It’s also hugely important for us to listen to the child. We have to get an understanding of what their experience is.”
Sometimes problems can be resolved in a couple of visits. More intensive cases take longer and are not always resolved.
There are triumphs. “I remember one, a case where a second-level child wasn’t attending school on a regular basis. She was in first or second year. The education welfare officer made a home visit and wasn’t really made very welcome, wasn’t invited into the family home and was kept outside. After a number of visits the relationship improved and eventually the officer was invited in.
“The home was in chaos. There was no electricity, the house was cold, the school uniform wasn’t being washed, and the girl felt embarrassed going to school. So the officer, with the permission of the parents, linked in with a family support officer through the HSE and the matter was resolved.”
But sometimes, court proceedings need to be issued. “It’s always a last resort and it’s always a very difficult decision,” says Doyle. “I’m meeting some seniors about two cases that may need to proceed to court later, but I’ll only approve that if I’m satisfied that everything else has been done locally to help that child and family.”
The NEWB has an enormous job to do. Doyle and his staff of 17 for Leinster North cover a region that stretches from Finglas to Drogheda and over to Cavan and Monaghan. He admits that it’s a huge area for 17 people to cover. “We would love to provide a service to every school in the country but we don’t have the capacity to do that,” he says. “Every school is entitled to a service, although not every school will need a service from us.”
However, in the absence of any prospect of increased staffing levels because of the economic climate, the NEWB is hoping to improve the current operation. It has just completed a successful pilot scheme that will hopefully go some way towards both standardising the intervention process, focusing on early intervention for the child. Essentially one of the ideas was to involve schools more in early intervention when attendance difficulties started to occur. The details were many but, crucially, the schools engaged in preventative steps before referring a case to the NEWB. If properly implemented, it is expected that this method of operating will enable officers to deal with more cases within the given time frames. It is hoped that this model of operating will be rolled out nationally sometime in the near future. “We’re optimistic about that,” says Doyle.
He enjoys the job but admits that there’s a sadness to it as well. “It’s not unusual for me to have coffee with education welfare officers now who work in the areas I worked in when I was an attendance officer,” he says. “I hear the same family names emerging time and time again. It’s an inter-generational thing, where there isn’t a tradition of regular school attendance or embracing what the education system has to offer. You have a lot of parents and grandparents who had very poor experiences when they were students themselves and it goes on.”
However, the successes keep him going. “I think that when you’re involved in a positive outcome it gives you a great lift,” he says. “I was just with one of my senior officers yesterday and we were discussing a case where a child had been out all of last year and is now back repeating second year in school, attending every day. That’s not all down to us, there was another agency involved, but there’s a great sense of achievement about something like that. There’s a great sense of hope for the child. Education affects every aspect of life, prospects and expectation. It’s wonderful to be involved in improving things for a child like that.”
Officer class
MICHAEL DOYLE
Age: 58
From: Dublin
Career: Background in social science. Community development worker with the first Combat Poverty Programme. Became a school attendance officer in 1981 working in the Liberties, Dublin. Promoted to senior attendance officer 10 years later and then manager in the NEWB in 2003.
School attendance in Ireland: More than 55,000 students miss school each day (27,000 primary and 28,000 post-primary). Some 50,000 primary and over 55,000 post-primary students are absent for over 20 days in a school year. That's one-in-10 primary students and one-in-six secondary students. Some 15,000 young people leave school early while 1,000 never make the transition from primary to secondary.
Absenteeism affects all schools but is greater in disadvantaged areas. NEWB has 91 staff in service delivery. These include education welfare officers, senior education welfare officers and clerical staff.
Prosecutions: In 2008 the number of cases on hand was 102. Of these 17 were struck out, 14 ended in convictions and 73 were carried into 2009.
