Build trust and promote a key adult relationship

Build trust and promote a key adult relationship

The child or young person needs opportunities to develop trusting relationships with a familiar adult/s. This:

• Helps them to feel understood and accepted in school;
• Enables adults to be sensitive to observable changes in the young person's presentation and how they might be feeling;
• Supports the development of a personalised approach to promoting attendance;
• Ensures consideration of the individual nature of the barriers;
• Facilitates early intervention;
• Provides a sense of normality and consistency;
• Enables adults to avoid asking 'where they have been' or 'why they have not been in school';
• Ensures that adults are aware that feelings of anxiety can significantly impact on performance and attention.

The young person is likely to benefit from being able to identify an adult with whom they feel comfortable.

"It felt like I was kind of punished for having mental health issues, because I was punished for not turning up. But sometimes I just walked into school and I physically could not be there without breaking down and having a panic attack" (young person).

"I felt really alone and school didn't feel like a safe place for me" (young person).

“It is important to seek the young person’s view on the adult they work with. Sometimes when the school sets them up with the key adult they can say that they don’t feel like they get on with that person at all” (multiagency professional).

“We've got a team of experienced leaders who contact all vulnerable pupils on a regular basis” (school staff).

"I got the help I really needed, there was one teacher in particular who was really useful with all of my health problems. She was the person I just went to, I could go and talk to. I suppose I felt she wasn’t just a teacher" (young person).

"A new teacher joined when I was in Year 11 and I got on really, really well with her. She was my English teacher and she had come from a college; she had that education into mental health" (young person).

“That was one of the things that really, really worried him was, “Oh, no I didn't go in today. And now they're going to want to know where I was” (parent).