Elective Home Education

<p>Kent County Council (the Council) is the largest local authority in England covering an area of 3,500 square kilometres. It has an annual expenditure of over &pound;1bn on goods and services and a population of 1.6m. The Council provides a wide range of personal and strategic services on behalf of its residents, operating in partnership with the NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group, 12 district councils, and 289 parish/town councils. The Council consists of four directorates: &bull; Adult Social Core and Health &bull; Children, Young People and Education &bull; Growth, Environment and Transport &bull; Strategic and Corporate Services Supporting outcomes in relation to this are: The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected children and young people, and it is recognised nationally and internationally that children and young people have sacrificed more than most over the course of the pandemic. It is therefore vital that we support this cohort of the Kent population to reconnect with the things they have missed over the past year. Reconnect is an ambitious whole County collaboration of initiatives to engage, inspire and reconnect children and young people to everything they have missed during the pandemic. The programme will focus on the following five themes: &bull; Learning missed. &bull; Health and happiness &bull; Friends, family and community &bull; Sports, activities and the outdoors &bull; Economic wellbeing. Reconnect will run from April 2021 to the end of August 2022 and will be available to all children in Kent, from the age of 2 to 19 years old (or 24 years old if they have special educational needs and/or disabilities). The programme&rsquo;s activities and support will meet different levels of need and will be in addition to, rather than instead of, existing services. Although the programme will be KCC-led, it will involve district and parish councils, schools and settings, sports and leisure clubs, community groups, charities, businesses, Kent Police, Kent Fire &amp; Rescue Service and individuals. KCC will act as the co-ordination centre for the programme, providing resources and mechanisms for receiving pledges, offers of support, and contributions. Responsibility for delivering activities and initiatives for children and young people will sit with local Delivery Teams. The programme will be funded via a variety of routes: KCC, external grants, partner organisations, public donations and charitable sources. Ultimately, Reconnect is about bringing individuals and organisations within communities together, harnessing their collective energy and ambitions and working in collaborative ways to begin to solve complex issues for children and young people in Kent. There are currently 700 young people who were Electively Home Educated (Core Plus database) up to Year 11 who are either Not in Education, Employment of Training (NEET) or have a &ldquo;Not Known&rdquo; status. In addition to this number there are approximately 400 young people who are academic age Year 13 who it was not possible to contact last year. This was primarily because there were no current phone numbers recorded on Client Caseload Information Systems (CCIS) or other Kent County Council databases. It is a concern that this cohort may become NEET. Kent County Council are looking to procure a service to provide additional strategies that sit outside the current contract, that meets the below objectives: &bull; Carry out outreach work &ndash; visit home addresses to find out the young people&rsquo;s Education, Employment or training status. We are not expecting you to find all these young people. Based on experience, a strike rate of 30% would be reasonable. &bull; Provide an initial triage interview to assess the needs of any NEET young people identified. &bull; Provide intensive support for young people identified as NEET. &bull; Carry out a short research project of the reasons behind non engagement with the Local Authority and how post 16 transition services can better engage with Electively Home Educated learners and families pre and post 16 Key Details The outreach work can be carried out over several months. Activity should start within 4 weeks of contract award. Activity must be completed by the end of August 2022. This can be agreed in the initiation meeting. It is likely that a significant number of NEETs are identified from this group (generally 10% of &ldquo;not known&rdquo; are NEET but this cohort is likely to be considerably higher due to their needs), this will temporarily generate additional support needs beyond the current capacity of existing services. An estimated 55 days will be allocated to provide a triage interview and relevant programmes to support the young people. These are likely to be intensive re-engagement activities, mentoring, and light touch educational activities to start young people back on the journey to Education, Employment or Training. We are open to suggestions from the successful provider. The research would be largely informal and focus on asking: &bull; How did you become NEET? Staff should explore with links to EHE in a brief conversation. &bull; How can the services available support you and your family better? Some conversations may take place on the doorstep, others may happen by phone or in follow up sessions as appropriate, once initial contact is made. A simple summary of results will be produced for the NEET Support Service and the Participation lead who will carry out further analysis of the conclusions. Supplier Responsibilities Allocation of days and cost by task. We estimate the following allocation of time/costs but this is subject to change and open to negotiation: &bull; 75 working days - unannounced home visits/completing simple questionnaire. We expect an average of 20 visits per working day (This is open to negotiation). &bull; 5 days for research project &ndash; input/collation of results and writing report. &bull; 55 days for triage and agreed support for young people identified in the process. These are likely to be intensive re-engagement activities, mentoring, and light touch educational activities to start young people back on the journey to EET. We are open to suggestions from the successful provider &bull; Provider Management Costs/overheads. &bull; Provider transport costs.</p>