Background

1. Background • National Pupil Mobility study (Dobson et al, 2000) • Identification, Referral and Tracking (IRT 2002) • The case of Victoria Climbie (Laming, 2003) • Authority X assumptions re transience/leisure industry so commissioned study on ‘missing children’.

2. International Migration Labour/career cycle Refugees Settlement Students Institutional Movement Exclusions Voluntary transfers Private/State school Special/Mainstream PUPIL MOBILITY IN SCHOOLS Internal Migration Labour/career cycle Life cycle Housing/ Environment Schooling Travellers Individual Movement Children in care Fragmentation of families

3. Relationship between mobility and ‘missing’ • Not all mobile children are ‘missing’ • Missing meant missing from surveillance (data bases, people who work with children, parents/carers) • Child mobility presents problems for surveillance systems – but what sort of problem is child mobility?

4. Local Context- Authority X • High rates of pupil mobility in certain schools (60%) • Impact of pupil mobility on pupil populations, school targets and outcomes for children and young people • Concern to manage ‘transience’ defined locally as a problem of movement of ‘foot-loose’ families/individuals, into and out of Authority X

5. MCR: Missing In • ‘Missing In Children’ were 1 administrative category but review found 3 groups • 1/3 subject of a ‘blanket letter’; • Children whose parents have found a school through their own resources and the LEA EMS has yet to be notified; • ‘Vulnerable children’: those who have problems that mitigate against finding a school place.

6. MCR: Missing Out Movement of children form prompts registration on the Missing Out register. Produces 2 categories • Children who are found • Children who remain ‘missing’

7. MCR/OSR: A Third Group • Children administratively present but who can’t engage or be contacted • a) Children who exclude themselves • b) Children who have been excluded • c) Children educated at home • d) Appeals

8. Stories behind mobilities • Reasons for mobility – categories or narratives • How mobility can be forced or chosen (more frequently forced on children) • Meaning of mobility for children • Loss (friends, support, pets, possessions, familiarity) • Adapting to change (how to cope with newness) • Engagement or disengagement (becoming part of the new setting or opting out/creating another)

9. Phase 2: The sample • 36 families • Consisting of mothers, fathers (2), grand-parents (1), children and young people • Children and young people difficult to access, particularly older teenagers and despite financial incentive- • Many children and young people accessed via educational diversity projects-(history of missing)

10. Methods of data collection • Semi-structured interviews- to elicit the perspective of participants • In particular to explore the factors that participants connected to a child going missing from school • Combination of ‘life course’ and demographic data.

11. Demographic profile • Lone parents 28/36 • State benefits 26/36 • Significantly poor housing conditions 33/36 • History of domestic violence 25/36 • Mental health problems 25/36 • A child in the family has emotional/ behavioural problems/disability 33/36 • 23/36 families have moved into Authority X but less than 1/3 have a history of ‘transience’.

12. Life Course group 1 (14) • Chronic and continuous disengagement- ‘missing from school’ just one small part of a bigger picture of withdrawal • Relate stories of negative events back to birth, childhood- (children and adults) • Sense of having given up, powerlessness, what’s the point?

13. Mother of 5 children: • ‘ I moved to X it was alright, I got a job at a hairdressers at the time and started working there and this is when I took the overdose, but the guy came on to me I was working with.. So I shut myself away after that and literally became a recluse with the kids and the kids had trouble getting to school and that…….’

14. Life course group 2 (18) • Acute and compounding negative life events but negative events are interspersed with better times • Hope • Events are temporary; expectations of re-engaging • Loss • Trauma

15. Mother: • Interviewer: had you been living in town Z quite a long time before you moved here? • Mother: I actually had lived in Town Z for what, well you were born up there weren’t you (to a teenage daughter) • Interviewer: what was it like in town Z? • Mother: not bad actually, but then we ended up on a pretty rough estate, the last two places we lived • Interviewer: did you move around a lot in town Z • Mother: no not really, I lived where she was born until, when we first came back from town X and we had been living in that house for over 5 years, we went into buying it, but when me and my ex split up, I couldn’t afford to keep it up,

16. Life course group 3 (4) • ‘normally engaged’ (Burchardt 2002) • Problems centre at the locus of school home (e.g. dropping off at yr. 11) • Parents experience the child’s absence from school as a problem- i.e. interrupts their own engagement with work/social life • Alternative plans for education are actively sought

17. International Migration Labour/career cycle Refugees Settlement Students Institutional Movement Exclusions Voluntary transfers Private/State school Special/Mainstream PUPIL MOBILITY IN SCHOOLS Internal Migration Labour/career cycle Life cycle Housing/ Environment Schooling Travellers Individual Movement Children in care Fragmentation of families

18. Conclusions • Diversity and range of ‘missing children’ • ‘Transience’ or geographical mobility is only one part of this picture/ families- present diverse mobilities/patterns of dis-engagement with social and physical environment • Danger of framing mobility as a social problem through association with ‘problem’ groups • Mobility v engagement