This study brings together people from the (usually siloed) fields of out-of-home-care and education, and uses multiple research methods to examine school attendance for students in care. This approach will help us generate the rich evidence required to understand and address the complexity of the issues and diversity of experiences amongst different education and care providers as well as within the cohort of students in care.
Our approach draws on Community Based Research. This aligns well with our conceptual focus on equity and rights. It also supports the ethical imperative for constructive, nuanced and genuinely collaborative research with students, and with Indigenous communities. Community Based Research design recommends the use of multiple methods. Our project has four main methods to help us meet our aim:
To produce new knowledge about why children and young people in care experience significant absences from school and what can be done to improve their attendance by schools, carers, education systems, and out-of-home-care systems.
Policy Analysis
Australian federal, state and territory governments have joined in several high-level policy commitments to improve the education of students in care, including in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, National Standards for out-of-home-care; and Safe and Supported: The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2021–2031. In addition, school attendance is a closing the gap priority for Indigenous students. States, territories, education systems, and not-for-profit organizations also have relevant policies.
Our analysis will produce knowledge about the ways policies shape possibilities to improve school attendance for students in care.
Attendance Reviews
Students in care may miss out on class through different types of absence. This includes not only authorised and unauthorised absences, but also disciplinary absences (such as suspensions) and part-time enrolment. Some of these types of absence do not consistently get recorded through standard measures of attendance. This makes it hard to know the full extent to which children in care miss out on class. We will work with partner organisations to gain more systematic and comprehensive data about attendance, the extent of absences, and the reasons for absences.
Student Voice
Children and young people have the right to have a say on issues that affect them. We will use two methods for participatory, rights-based engagement with children and young people in care to hear about their own experiences of and views about school attendance and absence. First, students in care in Year 3-7 will be invited to take part in face-to-face child-centred workshops. Second, students in care in Year 7-12 will be invited to take part in small online focus groups. Some workshops and focus groups may be dedicated for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students only, based on advice from our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reference group and our partner organisations.
Promising Case Studies
Using a strengths-based and solutions-focused approach will help us develop a toolkit with strategies for improving attendance for students in care. Based on findings from the methods above as well as insights from our partner organisations we will identify schools where students in care have positive experiences of support for their attendance. These sites will form case studies to identify fruitful supports for school attendance for students in care that schools, out-of-home-care agencies and education and child protection systems can act on.
This project has been partially funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council Linkage Scheme (LP2201001130). It will run from late 2023-2026.