A guide to developing trust with home-educating parents

Background

Elective home education is becoming an increasingly popular choice for parents who are seeking a more suitable approach for their child’s education than is provided by a state-funded or independent school. While many parents opt to home educate as soon as their child reaches compulsory school age, others are deregistering their children from school due to dissatisfaction with their children’s experiences of education. Given that they may have had negative experiences with local authority support, it is important for professionals to consider the needs of these parents to maintain a positive working relationship.

The role of trust

I felt like you put your child’s wellbeing in these people’s hands and they didn’t do what I felt they were supposed to do… That was the start of me being like, ‘I’m not sure I trust these people to do the right thing’ - Research participant

In my doctoral research into parental experiences of deregistering children from school to enter into home education, parents described how they lost trust in the local authority’s ability to support their children due to a lack of response to their children’s needs when they were in school. This ultimately led them to home education. They reflected on how the loss of trust continues to influence their current perspective of the local authority and noted that it is still sometimes reinforced by challenging interactions with local authority professionals.

So how did these parents feel that local authority professionals could improve their practice?

Be transparent and neutral in published communications

Even before direct contact with families, parents identified that professionals should consider how they communicate in published materials, including on their website. Parents were not confident that they understood the role of the local authority in home education nor the local authority’s perception of parents’ responsibilities. These aspects of home education are often described in general terms. However, parents thought that concrete examples, such as different ways that parents can evidence their child’s progress, would increase transparency and support parents to feel less anxious about upcoming interactions with the local authority. It is also key to reflect on the language used in these communications. Parents often found websites to be lacking in neutrality; they noted that wording such as “most children go to school” was unhelpful and marginalising.

Understand the diversity of practices within home education

In both indirect and direct communications, parents commented on the importance of local authority professionals sharing their understanding and acceptance of the diverse range of practices that home-educating families engage in. Parents felt that professionals lacked knowledge in less adult-directed or structured approaches, such as unschooling. In conversations, for example, some parents noted that professionals offered their uninvited preference for more traditional approaches. One parent suggested that publishing information on examples of a range of pedagogies on the local authority website could indicate the commitment of service to appreciating the diversity of parents’ perspectives.

Promote consistency across the service

It is notable that challenges, such as a lack of understanding identified above, often depended on the individual professional who they interacted with. Although each professional will join the team with their own background and experience, perhaps in school-based education services, service managers must ensure that all are embodying an empathetic and unbiased approach when working with home-educating parents. One parent also described the professionals responsible for supporting home-educating parents in her local authority as anonymous and felt that sharing information about the team members, including contact details, would help to increase familiarity with professionals as a starting point for a relationship.

Collaborate with parents

Finally, local authorities seek to make their models of service delivery as responsive as possible to citizens’ needs. Given that the needs of home-education communities vary across local authorities, professionals should seek the views of their local home-educating parents to tailor their offer of support. For smaller scale projects, it may be useful to develop relationships with experienced home educators who provide peer support; these parents may be a useful point of liaison.

Conclusion

It is important to recognise that many parents in the study reported positive interactions with local authority professionals that they had engaged with since becoming home educators. However, they did not feel that this was universal within their communities. When parents who have previously experienced challenges with support from the local authority become home educators, professionals have an opportunity to reshape their perspective.

Points for reflection

• How is your view of home education conveyed through your direct and indirect communications?
• How do you involve home-educating parents in developing your offer of support?
• How can you build trust with the parents you work with?

It may be helpful to use a simple model of reflection, such as ‘What? So what? Now what?’, to structure your thinking.