A charity supporting mental health amongst Orthodox girls and young women has been awarded £150,000 from grant giving John Lyon’s Charity for a new school avoidance programme.
Persistent absence, emotional based school avoidance or school refusal is a growing and serious issue. In the latest school year, 19.5% of children in state primaries, and 27.8% in state secondaries — a total of 1.6 million children – were marked persistently absent (missing 10% of classes).
Noa Girls chief executive Naomi Lerer told Jewish News: “Persistent absence from school can have a profound negative impact on the student as well as repercussions such as loss of ability to work for a parent. The longer children are out of school the harder, academically, but also mentally and socially, it can be to re-engage”.
Naomi Lerer, Child and Adolsecent Pyschotherapist, and CEO of Noa Girls
The programme empowers those with emotionally based school avoidance to maintain and build their school attendance and ultimately their academic success.
Whilst causes for school refusal include learning difficulties, bullying, anxiety, depression and other mood disorders, Lerer adds that it is crucial to “address both the cause and the behaviours without judgement, and with “a consistent and joined up approach with the schools”.
Alongside providing practical and emotional tools to those who are, or are at risk of becoming, school refusers, the programme works with schools to educate, support and skill-up staff.
Methods to encourage school inclusion and engagement include reduced timetables, emotional support, alternative learning levels and settings and safe spaces. The programme also supports parents in guiding their children, particularly when they fear the implications of forcing a child to attend school who feels unsafe or is severely unhappy.
Noa Girls believes “tackling head-on what has become a silent pandemic in schools, will not just alleviate girls’ current challenge but will reroute their educational trajectory and life path.”
