SOFEA MK is a social enterprise based in Milton Keynes. It has created a platform to support a wide range of vulnerable young people, providing employability training, alternative education provision, a safe space for young people to be and the option of future employment.
The School Navigator Programme
SOFEA initially secured a Home Office grant for a collaborative programme with four Milton Keynes schools, to assist students at risk of exclusion, ther programme is now being positioned within the Thames Valley under the Dual Impact Collaboration Model (DICM) with police, councils, NHS and criminal justice services.
This dedicated School Navigator process offers coaching and mentoring, the objectives include reducing exclusion risk, fostering community understanding of student behaviours, and providing targeted, person-centred support in a non-judgmental and confidential manner by SOFEA.
The programme works by a school referring a child to the programme after the first instance of temporary suspension, as a means of targeting the support to those who need it most and to provide the support to prevent more permanent exclusion.
Trained youth workers from SOFEA cover the four schools, they create a new relationship with the child, working at an individual level outside of the pressures and structures of the school.
Each child undertakes an initial strengths and weaknesses assessment, working together with their Navigator to explore their behaviours and what may be influencing them. Together, in sessions over the coming weeks held in school, they will work together on the issues they are facing.
The support is primarily focusing on improving a child’s social skills, identifying what may trigger behaviours and how they can develop their own ways to manage difficult behaviour. This often includes exploring issues with their self-esteem, considering the influence of their peers, exploring what they enjoy and how they can focus their energy and interest.
Within Thames Valley the idea now is for a Navigator to work with a young person through a school referral basis for a number of weeks, until together they feel they are ready to continue without the support, with improved behaviour and skills which help to prevent future exclusion.
Businesses can support the programme within the Thames Valley, by contacting SOFEA to discuss areas and planned provisions and where social value can be embedded.