title: The complexities of children missing from education: a local project to address the health needs of school-aged children.
abstract: The issue of children missing from education has been of concern both nationally and locally for many years. Following a local audit of health visitor and school nurse caseloads, the existence of unallocated child records or children who could not be found came to light. These records were held and managed by the local child health department. Children who did not attend school were not offered a school nursing service, and were monitored solely by the educational welfare service. This paper reports on a project to identify and investigate the whereabouts of these children and to allocate the remaining records to school nursing teams. This would ensure that all children in the local area were visible and that any unmet health needs were assessed and addressed. The project was led by the safeguarding children team and involved forging and developing cross-agency links. The involvement of the school health department, team managers and school nursing teams was integral to its success. The school nursing service was reconfigured taking into account identified need for an inclusive service to all local children.
authors.affiliation: City Health Care Partnership, Hull. jayne.bothaml@chcphull.nhs.uk
authors.forename: Jayne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Botham
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012573:School Nursing; D013334:Students; D006113:United Kingdom