Supporting children and young people Supporting UK schools
Thank you to all our supporters over the years
Our founder, Dr Gordon Bailey, was invited by the Head Teacher of a Lancashire secondary school in the late ‘50's to provide practical help and encouragement to his pupils. Gordon visited the school for one day each week for four years before relinquishing his paid employment and beginning to undertake the work full-time. Between 1962 and 1988 Gordon worked in a number of schools in various parts of England.
In the mid-'80's Gordon was encouraged to consider training others to fulfil similar roles. It was agreed that the charity Schools Outreach, originally established in 1973 to provide funding to support Gordon's work with pupils, could be used to fund the recruitment, training, and employment of full-time, school-based pastoral care specialists (PCS). 1988 saw the start of our first training programme.
Schools Outreach, at the request of schools, and in co-operation with other childcare agencies, local communities, local authorities, and churches, recruits, trains and employs pupil pastoral care specialists for placement into primary or secondary schools.
Our recruitment procedures are exceedingly thorough and careful and we refuse to settle for second best when making provision for children and young people. Our initial training is full-time and residential and appropriate to the pastoral needs of pupils.
The specialists offer unconditional friendship, support, encouragement, and practical help to individual pupils and, when requested to do so, their families. The PCS fulfils a non-authoritarian role. A system is set up by the specialist and the school in the early stages of the placement where pupils can be referred by members of the teaching staff, or where possible self-refer.
Specialists may also identify pupils in need of pastoral care. The long-term presence in a school of a PCS enables them to become a positive contributor within the school and its local community.
Our ideal is one specialist to each school, though in the primary sector, two schools may share a PCS between them.
To date pastoral care specialists have been placed into primary and secondary schools in 24 counties of England and Wales.