An Unconditional Offer (Part 1) : Through the eyes of a mother

I wanted to write about a conversation I have pretty much every year. Variations of it, at least.

A Mum will be on a tour, an open evening, some visit to my school and she asks to speak to the SENCo. Because her child has somehow ended up at the tail end of Year 6 (how time flies!) and now she’s not quite ready to let him stumble into this strange, labyrinthine school of mine without saying a few things first. Because our head has been busy painting a picture of the model student who he wants to see passing through our doors in September, and she knows that her child doesn’t quite... fit into that mould. Because she knows that he might do something in the early days that could give the wrong impression. And this is another opportunity for a fresh start, perhaps one of his last, and she's scared he might say something or do something that might spark that old cycle, that downward spiral. Do something that might lead us to reject him. And at that point, she knows she won’t be there herself, however much she would like to be, so she needs someone to take her place in those difficult, pivotal moments, by his side, on his side. So she walks over to me.

“He’s had a few issues at his Primary school,” she’ll say, her voice weary and apprehensive. Eyes already apologising for what her offspring might be about to inflict on us. “Sometimes he finds it hard when… his Year 5 teacher, you see, she didn't like him… he's got so much potential… I could've told you that approach wouldn't work with… you see all he needs is… what his teachers need to understand is… Once you win him round… once you get to know him…”.

And I try to reassure her as best I can. Because what I’ve learned is that at heart they're all just saying the same thing:

"Please don't give up on him".

Boy in the Lake 1 by Agnieszka Zawisza

Because she can’t give up on him, even if in those darkest moments she's come close to wanting to. And what she needs, what they both need, is someone who is able and willing to show the same level of commitment and dogged perseverance that she herself has shown these last ten years. An offer of unending support that is unconditional.

Because as a Mum she knows he doesn’t deserve to be where he is right now. Because she’s the only one who’s been with him since he was a tiny bundle of cells that was literally a part of her and now in many ways he still is, just the bundle of cells got bigger and things got complicated too soon. It takes a village to raise a child, and as I scan through his primary school file I can see that the edges of this village are porous and too many people have come in, too many have left. And she can see that each time someone rejects him he just starts to expect it more and more, and to prepare the grounds for this rejection. But it’s not his fault. That’s what she wants me to know, to feel, deep down, like a parent would. That it's not his fault. That he deserves better than this. 

I started thinking about all this when I first started sending my own child to nursery, and I realised that what I was really looking for in the brilliant, dedicated staff there was just someone, even if it was just one person, who saw my child the way a parent did. Not as a job. Because jobs you can leave, or stop caring about. But if you’ve developed a relationship with a child that goes beyond that of a job, a relationship that can’t be easily case aside because that child's wellbeing has suddenly become tangled up in your own, then you can start really making a difference to their day.

I know it’s asking a lot. But when it comes to the wellbeing of children, especially those who are vulnerable, we should be asking a lot, no?

Inner Child by Lisbeth Parisius

So what I've come to realise in this job is that too much of the support available to Mum is conditional, and by the time she gets to me she probably knows this better than anyone. Sometimes it’s conditional on being in the right borough. Sometimes it’s having the right kind of plan, the right paperwork from your local authority, the right level of funding. What particularly irks me however is when it’s so conditional on her input - on being able to register on time with certain services, making it to appointments, turning up at the right place at the right time, speaking to the right people at the right time. And this despite all the barriers that daily life continues to throw in her way. And if you own your own home and have a steady dependable income, and predictable supplies of food and utilities then you (we) have no idea about half the barriers that she has to contend with when it comes to turning up at the right place and the right time.

And then there are cases where the support is conditional on the child, withdrawn if his behaviour isn’t good enough, or not offered because his behaviour isn't bad enough. Or if he’s not academically capable, or too capable. If he fails to meet the threshold. Or if he has failed to turn up at the right time, or the right place, talk to the right people, say the right things. This despite all the barriers he has had to contend with.

At its most Kafkaesque, I find that the support she needs for her child is conditional on the very conditions whose absence have necessitated the support in the first place. I refer a student to a professional because neither they nor the parents have been able to engage with anything the school is offering. “The mother suffers from depression,” I explain. “She rarely makes it out of the house, and in her low spells will contrive reasons for avoiding all social contact”. My referral is accepted. She fails, predictably, to attend appointments. I’m told to suggest that she attends a clinic for parents that’s a 25min bus ride away. I sigh. Some months later I get a letter saying the child has been discharged following a lack of engagement with their services.

The youth support worker closes the case after finding that his messages were going unanswered, unread. And one by one, the professionals who could have possibly helped fall away. Because looking after her child is not their job.

Some well-intentioned, charitable people are running some kind of intervention at my school that I know this kid would really benefit from. I manage to persuade them to give him a place, even if technically he doesn’t meet the criteria they’ve laid out. Before long he is essentially self-discharging, because the costs to him of investing himself in something new, something uncertain, are too great and the risks too high. It is easier to reject them than to be rejected later on. And he could be won round, with persistence, through earning his trust. But they haven’t really got the time for that, and besides it’s not really in their remit.

I really don’t want to be hard on professionals, or external agencies, or any of the organisations who are trying to help. They are stretched, they are under pressure and under-resourced and I know they would love to do more if they could and they’re trying and God knows they wouldn’t even be working in this field if they didn’t care a great deal. But this Mum is in my office and she’s just frustrated with it all. Because she keeps getting stuck in this game where no-one’s explained the rules and it feels like new ones keep being invented to stop her moving forward and she's just getting tired of feeling like the dice are always loaded against her kid; tired of feeling like there are too many snakes in this game, and not enough ladders.

Stalemate #2 by Tijana Titin

So I sit there, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I suspect that part of it lies in finding a place for her child where he can feel the unconditional acceptance that, had he experienced it from infancy and throughout, may have negated the need for me to get involved myself all these years later. What she needs is an offer of support that doesn't make even more demands on her, and which won't just be withdrawn if things aren't working out. It's a surprisingly rare offer.

So we’re starting a new SEN unit in our school. We’ve been given part of an old corridor that’s no longer being used and we’re taking the opportunity to establish some core values and principles as we move forward as a department. Our underlying aim for this unit is to provide a space where all children can feel like they belong, and where they will find the unconditional acceptance necessary for them to have the chance to thrive. Not accepting poor behaviour, of course. Setting firm, consistent boundaries and so on. But at the end of the day, accepting the child for the student they are, not rejecting them because they're not the student we might want them to be. Modelling what it really means to show forgiveness. Knowing that this is not just a job, but that it is so much more, so much better than that. Being willing, at the end of the day, to sweep up the havoc they have wreaked, fix the windows, put the lids back on the glues, wipe away the ink and the tears. And, like every parent has to do, turn up the next morning, ready to go through it all again.