Hello!
I'm working with School Refusers in Sweden and I'm the manager of a small operation specialized in getting students back to school. I'm writing here since we are in constant development and I look for something similar in nearby countries.

I have been running this small municipal group in a county just outside Stockholm since 2009 and managed to work out a model that works and brings this group of kids back to a life with education and a much more brighter future than they had before they met us. We are mainly working with kids in the age 13-15 which have been away from school for 1-6 years. When the home school feels that they have done everything in their power and when there is nothing more to try we are contacted by the principal and starts to work together. We have a small group for education where we work with at the most eight students at the same time and where our plan is that the student shall go back to their home school as soon as possible. It usually takes ½-1 year before they have an opportunity to go back and meanwhile we work with both the standard subjects as in regular school but a big part lies in working with self confidence, well being and self awarness.

I would be really happy if someone could give me contact information to similar groups in England for future exchange of knowlege regarding school refusers.

/Jorgen

Dear Jorgen,

It sounds like you are doing a really good job and have a good program for students. I am not sure if there is something similar in the UK but perhaps someone else on the forum can give you advice on this.

Are there many groups like yours in Sweden or is your group the only one? It seems that much of our problem with our children who have school refusal is that there is just no help like yours available. Often they are not recognised as having this anxiety and needing to build or re-build their self esteem and confidence and so they are forced to try and attend school or they just drop out of school. Parents do what they can.
If you have any further advice for us as parents, that would also be good.
I wish you well in your work - it is very valuable. Is school refusal anxiety a big issue in Sweden? Do you find that the school refusal usually starts when they reach high school or does it often also start at primary school? Is there anything that you have found triggers this in these children? Have they said why they find it hard to go to school?
Is it just school or do they also have difficulties with social anxiety as well? Sorry for so many questions!
All the best,
Linda

Hi Jorgen

It's a real boost to know that there is positive support available for school refusers and I hope that the successes your group have can be used by education systems outside of Sweden to learn from and build their own support teams (in time).

I haven't heard of any groups like yours which are school refuser specific. Red Balloon Learner Centres provide care and education for severely bullied children who become unable to attend mainstream lessons. There are six short stay schools around the uk which offer education as well as emotional recovery for these children who then re-integrate in mainstream school again after 12-18 months. Perhaps their program runs along similar lines to your own and it may be worth getting in touch with them.

Mr Bob Sproson is the Director of Education there, I have been in communication with him about my own daughter who became a school refuser due to longterm bullying during grades 7 and 8. He has been very supportive and helpful.

Here is the link to their contact page of their website. http://www.redballoonlearner.co.uk/contact.htm

Like Linda I have lots of questions about the program you are part of and I wonder if you could share any advice or suggestions with us here of what you have found to be successful in helping school refusers rebuild confidence and self-esteem.

Congratulations on the pioneering work you are a part of and I hope to hear of more and more groups like this being made available by educational authorities around the globe.

Kind regards, Clarity

Jorgen,

You ask about England - but I live in Scotland, where we have a different education system.

I am not aware of any parallels to the organisation that you work for, but my local council has a facility for secondary school children who are out of main stream education for many reasons. As far as I am aware, my daughter was the only school refuser in her year attending at the time she did.

The following is an extract from the 'prospectus':

The Support Service is committed to raising attainment and promoting social inclusion. It is our belief that children and young people will only maximise their potential when their social and emotional needs are met.

The service provides early intervention to children and young people aged 3-18, experiencing additional support needs of a social, emotional and/or behavioural nature, in early years’ establishments, primary and secondary schools. These interventions include: staff development;advice and consultation and direct input to support children, young people and their families to fully engage with learning and personal development opportunities.

The Support Service is a partner of the ASN Outreach Service and accepts support requests from education establishments (across the Council area) through the staged intervention process. The service is led by a head of establishment and, assisted by administration support, consists of principal teachers, team leader of inclusion support and a team of teaching staff, inclusion support workers and support for learning assistants.

Our three off-site bases {Primary, S1-3, S3-5] are an alternative provision for a small number of children and young people at Stage 4 of Staged Intervention who are experiencing significant difficulties in sustaining a mainstream education placement. Collaborative working with mainstream education staff, partner agencies and families supports a shared view of planned transitions to mainstream school and/or positive post 16 destinations.

If you want to know more, please get in touch by email.

Simon

Thanx for the feedback and input.
I will check out the the names given.

In Sweden it has been a growing problem the last years but still there is a huge lack of knowledge regarding this kind of problem which is the reason I'm looking at an english forum.

There is some more countys that have spent time and money in building similar organisations working like ours. There has been some that I've heard of that has shut down and there is new coming up. We are often contacted when a county tries to find a way to work with School Refusers and at the moment I only know one more that looks like ours and that has been active for a couple of years.

We have our group in a county with about 35.000 citizents and as I wrote earlier we are primary working with kids 13-15 years of age. We have though worked with younger childrens at some occations but I personally think mixing those ages in the work is not the best way to go. We have around 8-10 kids a year that we take under our wings and I would say that in our county there is 10-15 that are in the need of help with this specific problem.

When I started up I did a small research and one problem is that no one in the county actually knew how big the problem was. I found out that the county in 2009 had 20 school refusers in the age 13-15 and another 20 in the age 16-19.

Our model is built on individual adoption where we adapt our way to work to the specific individual but all the time we have set up the guidlines to fit in our way of work. We also have to involve the techers of the home school and get them to understand the problem since else there is a big risk that the students that leaves us goes back to be locked in at home after a month or two again.

We meet all kinds of youths both the ones high performing with high grades and thoose that has minor learning difficulties. We have those that have had a very active social life earlier and thoose that don't. If I would say it in short words we meet all kinds of kids.

It's hard to say when it usually starts but it usually escalates when changing school. In Sweden you usually go year 1-3 in a small class with one single teacher, years 4-6 in the same way and in grade 7-9 there is a more subject specific teaching with different teachers for almost every subject. When the students reach grade 7 many is lost and have a hard time to find their place in this big organistation and if you have had difficulties before they escalate in grade 7. NOT FOR EVERYONE but for some.
We have discovered that some of our students have had diagnoses within the autism spectra and then we can adopt the way back to school in an easier way since there is special groups for working with kids with that kind of diagnose.

It's very important to understand that there is no one way simple sollution that fits everyone I'm totally convinced that this is the main problem when polititians and officials try to find the way to work. Sometimes you can blame the family and some times you cant, sometimes you can blame the school and some times you can't. During my years I've never been able to blame the kid! There is always something above his or her head that they cant prepossess.

I read on the forum about some that had been bullied and we have met this in our work to. It's always harder to be a school refuser in a class or group where every one respects eachother and where the group dynamics is good. When the teacher works with the group in a positive way there is always a lot to gain. 10 years ago I came in contact with a 14 year old boy that has started to fell out of school. I was not his teacher at the time but started to work with a group of his mates that really raised hell in school and in their spare time. This boy was attending school very sporadic and had periods when he did not put his feets in the school for halv a year, BUT he was active after school time. The solution here was to use his friends to bring him back not knowing about it themselfes. We started activities in the afternoons after school where the boy could join without seing the school, transfering this to school time where this boy attended thoose specific days and so on...

I think that this forum shows that there are parents in consern and I suppose I have to start one just like this here in sweden even if this is not my profession I think it could help all you fighting so hard feeling that there is no accurate help to recieve.

(Pardon my english, feeling like a 10 year old expressing myself).

Linda -> Two more things just as a tip for you as a parent.
1. Never give up, there will be a change and look at it as a long term signed off adult, it takes training and time. You cant expect a kid to go back full time just from one day to another.

2. Don't make it comfortable to be at home. There should not be nice and comfortable to stay at home. I've met parents that comes home at lunch time every day to se to that their children get a good meal for lunch. This just makes it legit to stay at home, and it's not. The longer someone stays at home the more depress they will become and I've until now never met anyone that have stayed home for more than two years without being depressed.

Dear Jorgen,

Thank you so much for your insight and thoughtfulness for students and parents going through this. And your English, by the way, is excellent. I don't think you'd find many or any others on the forum who could write so fluently in another language on here!

I found it interesting reading your story and about the different backgrounds of the kids. It seems that we see that on this forum. There is no one child the same and no one formula that works.
I really appreciate the tips you gave for me. I think sometimes that the psychologists want the child to go back to school too quickly and that makes everyone even more stressed. I find that pushing my son to go every day has not helped his self esteem at all but the psychologist says that he has to go every day so that he will build up his self esteem. I am not convinced we are doing the right thing or getting the right help.

In regard to not having the home too comfortable. I can see that would and is an issue. For me and probably for many parents on here - the problem is the computer. Do we ban it altogether if they are home - or do we allow them to go on the computer and have some interaction on-line so that they are not completely isolated. But then it becomes addictive. My son and I seem to end up fighting about computer usage. I think he uses it to forget about his anxiety but this means that he is not working through the anxiety and helping himself move forward. So I see problems and think deep down I probably have to ensure that he uses the computer a lot less. In regards to other comfort - it is more the safety of home that seems to be important too - not just comfort. He often wants to draw the curtains so that no one who comes to the door might see him. I worry about this very much. Lucky for me he is still mostly going to school - often with pushing but sometimes he just goes and other times he just cannot face it.
I think perhaps if he had stopped going to school altogether we might have in fact been able to get better support and work on building his self esteem before re introducing him to the school environment. It may come to this.

Like in Sweden - in the UK (and in Australia where I am) our students also change school at 12 or 13 in Year/Grade 7 and they have different subjects with different teachers. It is, as you say, a big change.
There also seems to suddenly be a lot more expectations, a lot of homework and getting up in front of the class to give talks, group projects, research projects and a lot of work that involves confidence. This means that those like my son who are still attempting to go to school, still fall behind because they find the work very hard to face even though they are bright. He also seems afraid of failure. Do you find some of the students you work with are also afraid of failure? Or do you find in the small supportive environment that they are more able to complete the work and not worry as much if they are wrong?

I hope you are able to set up a site like this in Sweden. Talk to Simon if you want advice - he set up this site and we are so thankful. It saved me and so many others from despair because we did not know what was happening to our sons/daughters and there is often very little help available. Just talking to other parents who know exactly what we are going through as well as offering advice is very very helpful.

You are doing a wonderful job and congratulations on the work you do - I wish there were more people like yourself helping young people in all countries.
Take care,
Linda

Hi Linda and everyone else!
My name is Louise and I am working with Jörgen. I am like him interested to know more about what is beeing done for theese children in other countries. It is striking how similar it is with both childrens and parents behavor from what I have red on this site. But most of all how little doctors, teachers, psychiatrists know about how to help.
I think this site and forum is great and we are definitely setting it up in Sweden.
Linda, you ask if the students we work with are afraid of failure and if they dont worry as much if they are wrong and more able to complete work in the small supportive environment.
I would say that in most cases that is exactly how it is. Some children are overachievers and some are not, but we see this in both "groups". I think it is a self esteem question. You allready feel bad and by doing something were you have to achieve something the risk of failing and feeling worse makes you dont want to do it at all. In some cases you dont want the attention that failure can bring. Some are afraid of doing things right and good aswell. When you are afraid of theese things you tend to feel anxious about having to speek up and explain why you did good or bad or whatever. You simply dont want the "wrong" kind of attention. Most of theese children just want to be normal and by failing (or succeeding) you stick out.
So, when we work with our students, in our small environment, they do get things done and the more supportive we are the less they are afraid of failing or succeeding. It goes hand in hand - support and self esteem.

Thank you Jorgen and Louise for sharing your experiences of supporting school refusers. It is great that you are both inspired to set up a support forum for parents and carers in Sweden too The more sound support, resources and information that are available on the net, the better and the quicker awareness of this growing problem will spread, as will awareness of methods that work and ones that don't.

My daughter has become SR after longterm bullying but since finding this forum recently, I now understand that there are a myriad of reasons that can trigger the development of SR. From what you share also, it seems clear that every child presenting SR behaviours is unique and that support has to be adapted to 'fit' what's best for them.

From my experience of trying to support my daughter, I have found authenticity, good intentions, a willingness to understand and adapt, patience, honesty and humility (especially when having advocated something that was not helpful) empathy and compassion are the foundation stones for supporting her, as well as developing an intuitive knowing of when to push and when to step back.

It's a tall order and it's not just the continued development of these qualities in myself but any professional that has had even small successes with her have had elements of these fundamental values. The ones that don't at least try to understand or show some kind of validation seem to exacerbate the problem further and her SR behaviours intensify when she feels pushed or misunderstood.

It is a tightrope walk for parents in this position and I am so thankful to anyone who is involved in working to support sufferers and their families. I hope more teams like yours start up and also share and connect with eachother.

Hi, I thought it was very interesting when you speak of failure. My daughter (13 and been SR for 2 years now) really doesn't like criticism, getting things wrong in lessons, losing at eg. badminton, etc. It would be interesting to know if this is a common experience in other children/teens in this situation.

Hi Barbara!
What you describe is very common. When loosing the school rutine you usually loose the believe in your own abilities and that leads to the things you describe. I quess that you have tried everything and the school at least say that they have done the same and she is still a SR and I suppose that your daughter feels like that is a big failure since she has tried but not been able to go back.

I must also say that it is very common that students also is afraid of the oposite. Many are also afraid of success since succsess gets them alot of positive attention and they are afraid that it will turn into the negative attention as soon as they make another failure.

Dear Jorgen and Louise,

You are the first who have been able to explain this sense of failure or success to me. I have not been able to put my finger on it completely before and the 'experts' seems to know what I am explaining. I could not work out why my son, who is quite intelligent, should not want to do or complete work. I would have understood if he had problems with his work (which he now does in some subjects because he has missed so much school) but when this first started - he was a bright kid with a bright future.

Your concept of fear of failure and fear of success because both stand out also relates to other things he does and doesn't do and a lot of avoidance behaviour in regard to activities inside or outside school.

Not finishing work was something I always saw (and still do) as..."if I don't finish the work then I cannot be blamed for being either a failure or a success". So this again fits into this whole idea.

To me the whole psychology of anxiety in children needs to be approached like you are both doing. It needs to be approached as a self esteem issue - broken down into smaller individual parts - and worked on for that child. The way the psychologists approach anxiety (specifically School Refusal) in children is based on how adults are able to eventually deal with fear and not necessarily a self esteem issue. This is where the whole concept of 'School Phobia' and 'School Refusal' to me is wrong. The refusal to go to school is a symptom of the disorder - and we as parents know this but we do not seem to be making any in roads in getting through to the experts on human behaviour. By forcing our children to go to school we are not dealing with the issues that caused the problem.
We can still try and get our kids to go to school - but we should at the same time be receiving help to increase their self esteem and to build up step by step a solid bridge to walk on rather than the rickety suspension bridge they currently wobble along.
Thanks again - your insight Jorgen and Louise is much appreciated.
Linda