Young people ‘expected’ to engage with government's new work support plans.

Some parents dont have a clue how to parent properly, or have chaotic lives that prevent it, much more effort should be spent educating and supervising failing parents.

Parents should prepare their children for adult life and work, mentoring is a big part of that, for single parents that is a big challenge. At present schools score pupils on education achievement, in addition they should be scored on behaviour and development standards. If that means less teaching time for other subjects it still needs to be done because if behaviour and social skills are lacking other learning is wasted.

eazybee

How about banging on about families not preparing their children for work: punctuality, time keeping, a work ethic, politeness and a sense of responsibility should all be inculcated at home.

The thrust of my posts have been in response to the above .... we cannot deal in "shoulds" where these children are concerned ... we would all like it if all parents were up to the job but sadly they are not.

We have to do everything possible to increase the life chances of their children. I think there is general agreement on this and we have to hope that AB's ideas will get the right support and bear fruit.

A few of them may escape via education, however if the parenting
is poor then their life chances will not be as good as those where parenting is supportive. They shouldn't miss out of course but the impact of poor parenting is generally much greater than any mitigations that are put in place. It isn't blaming but it absolutely involves judgement one way or the other.

Of course it would be just great if all parents were wonderful but that is not the reality.

What do we do? - do we say that until all parents come up to scratch we allow their children to be sold short and regard them as collateral damage - or do we do all we can as a society to support those children in acquiring a good education so that they can rise above their poor start and have a good life and contribute to society?

Do we sacrifice that generation of children whilst we slap the wrists of these naughty parents?

Poor parenting has always been with us - I was a social worker; I should know - but at no point should we write off their children because we disapprove of the actions (or inaction) of their parents. Of course we also worked with the parents and there were projects on the go that were addressing this, but the Tories decided to ditch them.

Improvements to education need to happen for every child whoever their parents might be. The worse the parent, the more the support in school is needed. And sometimes this involves support workers.

I know that in an ideal world the parents would be getting their children along to these opportunities, but if they don't do we just say that's tough and these children should miss out and slip neatly into the cycle of disadvantage that got them there in the first place. Or do we put proper support in place to make sure they can have the opportunities on offer?

Supporting parents is not a quick fix which is why the Tories ditched it as it did not have instant media appeal, but it is desperately needed. But whilst that is going on we have to address the needs of the children so that they get the chance to themselves be better parents.

My objection is to those who say that parents should be blamed. It may be that their parenting is poor but blaming them solves nothing - we have to ask ourselves how their parenting came to be so poor in the first place and seek to make sure that this is not reproduced into further generations. That is the priority.

Of course the issue of parents is not irrelevant. That is why we have parent-teacher partnerships. It's a team effort between the home and the school, and when it works well it helps children to thrive.

It is also true that the die is not always cast from early on. In spite of the odds, some children who have had a disadvantaged upbringing can, and do, overcome this, going on to have successful lives. The input has to come from several directions.

We can do something about poor parenting it should not be a taboo subject all parents must be supported, to raise children properly, parents rights should be replaced with parents responsibility

Galaxy

Yes but I think the question is what. I think to help those children parenting is vital not irrelevant as someone stated up thread. And judgement is needed, anyone who is involved with families is in a sense judging all the time, it is how we decide whether a safeguarding referral is necessary.
We can be on the 'same side' and have different views cossy

Yes but I think the question is what. I think to help those children parenting is vital not irrelevant as someone stated up thread. And judgement is needed, anyone who is involved with families is in a sense judging all the time, it is how we decide whether a safeguarding referral is necessary.
We can be on the 'same side' and have different views cossy

Galaxy

If the children have had poor parenting there chances won't be equalised by a thousand support workers. I am sorry but we are not helping these children by pretending that parenting isn't fundamental to success.

No, I do agree, but for those who’ve not benefitted from good robust loving parenting, we have to do something to help, surely?

Galaxy

Yes I know cossy I have spent 30 years working with vulnerable children, it is why I won't pretend.

I think we are probably on the same side just perhaps different perspectives?

Something has to be done to prevent things getting even worse

Yes I know cossy I have spent 30 years working with vulnerable children, it is why I won't pretend.

David49

"I think, from what I’ve read and heard, it’s not simply a step back to more vocational and technical education. It seems more a step forward, preparing children for the work that’s actually available, including education and training in AI."

Much more technical training, many of the basic skills I use today I learned at school, at my side now is the coffee table I made made in woodwork when I was 14, it's survived 63 yrs. I was not academic but enjoyed school because I could achieve in a practical way.

That has been missing from schools for decades.

The point is David to provide our young people with the skills, knowledge and education required for them to find sustainable employment in their local labour markets.

So the training/education is to be focused on which roles require filling. Woodwork and technical skills are fantastic but very little help if in a particular local area AI and nursing skills are required.

I am not disagreeing with you, but simply stating that the point of these changes is to align skills with job opportunities in the geographical areas in which these young people live.

Galaxy

If the children have had poor parenting there chances won't be equalised by a thousand support workers. I am sorry but we are not helping these children by pretending that parenting isn't fundamental to success.

I disagree! Sorry, but I’ve worked directly with some of these chaotic families.

As an example several of the families with whom I worked had “chaotic” upbringings themselves. Many grew up in our “hit and miss” care system, others never even got that far being left with heroin addicted parents or other issues.

If new parents have had no role models, for whatever reason, they have to “learn” to parent in a different way to many of us.

That different way is to provide them with support at a very early stage so they become better parents than their parents were.

Early intervention is the key. Surestart and children’s centres provided stable and consistent support. One of the projects I worked on was “soup and a story” sounds very simplistic, but every week we ran a centre where mums or dads came with their young children who were helped to work together preparing vegetables for soup, whilst the soup was cooking stories were read to the youngest children, whilst the older children chose a book to read to their parent.

Some of these families have parents who are virtually illiterate (shocking in this day and age), don’t know or understand how to play with their children, haven’t the first clue about nutrition.

They didn’t have stable family environments themselves so had never learned.

Tackle these issues when babies come along, and by the time these babies start school they have resilient stable parents who’ve been supported by family workers in their homes and by learning within groups.

It works!

Requires money, resource and patience.

When successful saves money.

I was fortunate to be brought up with loving stable parents, with helpful resourceful grandparents and surrounded by Aunts/Uncles and cousins.

Many many people are not so fortunate.

Their chances even.

If the children have had poor parenting there chances won't be equalised by a thousand support workers. I am sorry but we are not helping these children by pretending that parenting isn't fundamental to success.

"I think, from what I’ve read and heard, it’s not simply a step back to more vocational and technical education. It seems more a step forward, preparing children for the work that’s actually available, including education and training in AI."

Much more technical training, many of the basic skills I use today I learned at school, at my side now is the coffee table I made made in woodwork when I was 14, it's survived 63 yrs. I was not academic but enjoyed school because I could achieve in a practical way.

That has been missing from schools for decades.

Perhaps if SureStart and the Troubled Families projects hadn’t all been pulled (the majority anyway) these families, who for many many different reasons are “failing” their children, would have got the wary interventions they clearly so desperately need to become more resilient, more stable parents.

Well exactly.

The system that is proposed cannot rely on parents who have already been failed by the system - there will need to be support workers to help YP get the benefit of the proposals. And they cost money.

Making our society more stable does not come cheap and we have to grasp the nettle on this.

Galaxy

We can do that if you want, but the state cant make up for lack of parenting, as has been demonstrated again and again. It is not about blame, it is that those children will statistically always be worse off in every aspect of their life. I support burnhams proposals from what I have heard so far, for those who have parental support they will be effective, for those who don't on the whole they won't.

Perhaps if SureStart and the Troubled Families projects hadn’t all been pulled (the majority anyway) these families, who for many many different reasons are “failing” their children, would have got the wary interventions they clearly so desperately need to become more resilient, more stable parents.

greyfur

*I don't think enough people realise how much in the way of benefits a Special Needs diagnosis brings*

I know one person and the amount of support is jaw dropping.
A fully furnished house, everything new.

Is this just a clever person playing the system or widespread?

Having worked on our welfare system for 14+ years and working with housing too, I can tell you this isn’t widespread.

I know of one family personally, single Mum with 4 daughters, the youngest born with a very rare set of disorders which a both life limiting and life changing and she spent almost the whole of her first year in GOS hospital.

They were allocated a council house with lots of adaptions, it didn’t come furnished, but she also has a care package in place, as not even the most dedicated parent could care for their child 24/7 and never sleep, so an additional bedroom was included in their council house.

I’m not quite sure people fully realise how very difficult it is having a severely disabled child, which prevents at least parent from working and has a seriously detrimental effect on any other children in the immediate family.

We can do that if you want, but the state cant make up for lack of parenting, as has been demonstrated again and again. It is not about blame, it is that those children will statistically always be worse off in every aspect of their life. I support burnhams proposals from what I have heard so far, for those who have parental support they will be effective, for those who don't on the whole they won't.

Luckygirl3

The issue of parents is irrelevant. The worse the parents, the more we should be supporting a good education for their children for all our sakes. Happy appropriately well educated children benefit us all as they lead satisfying dignified lives rather than slipping into addiction or criminality.
Away with the blame nonsense!

👏👏👏

The issue of parents is irrelevant. The worse the parents, the more we should be supporting a good education for their children for all our sakes. Happy appropriately well educated children benefit us all as they lead satisfying dignified lives rather than slipping into addiction or criminality.
Away with the blame nonsense!

I agree Cossy- it seems a pragmatic step forward to prepare pupils for work thats actually available.

The second part of Alan Milburn's independent review into young people who are NEET and numbers could reach 1.25 million within 5 years without major reform when published hopefully will dovetail.

The country needs this major reform and it's onwards and upwards and good luck from me too.

I think, from what I’ve read and heard, it’s not simply a step back to more vocational and technical education. It seems more a step forward, preparing children for the work that’s actually available, including education and training in AI.

Tbh, I’m all for it and have been saying for years that surely ALL training, including a percentage of degree education, should be geared towards joining a workforce where there are vacancies.

I don’t knock education for educations sake, as I truly believe it’s of value, BUT, gearing up our next generation and those now NEETs, has to be about education and training and gentle nudging into job roles we actually need to fill and there are enough variants of them to satisfy most people.

Good luck, I say, onwards and upwards.

I’m surprised that one maverick politician is enough evidence to justify the continuation of an underachieving working class which is the situation we have in the UK historically and currently.