School-Home Support
Improving the life chances of children, getting them back into school and ready to learn
We very much value the support of the Pears Foundation, particularly in providing unrestricted funding which we are able to use towards our core costs. As one of our key partners they understand what we do and the context in which we are working, meaning they are also able to help us by at times anticipating our funding needs and where we may need extra support. While holding us to account they don't make us jump through complicated hoops to secure or renew funding - meaning we can concentrate on delivery of services to families in need. Thank you Pears!Jaine Stannard, Chief Executive
Investment in core functions is essential for any organisation to be resilient, responsive and to grow. We have supported School-Home Support with unrestricted core funding since 2012,so that they can continue to provide the best possible interventions to help children learn and thrive.Kari Holtung, Programme Director
Partner since: 2012
Funding invested: £915,000
- Core: Unrestricted funding; Covid-19 welfare fund,
- Project: Summer holiday project 2019
Pears Foundation supports children who face extra barriers to learning.
Children with serious challenges at home don’t go into the classroom on a level playing field with their peers. That is if they attend at all – across England, one in nine children and young people are persistently absent from school, missing weeks, months and even years of their education, severely affecting their future life chances. And it’s not just their future that is at risk: children not in school are more vulnerable to becoming involved in dangerous behaviours like gang activity, drugs or alcohol.
School-Home Support (SHS) provides personalised support to bring children back to school, ready to learn. This means tackling deep seated challenges for the whole family that create barriers to learning. Partnering with families, schools, local authorities and communities, SHS’s expert practitioners help address complex problems from issues with housing to concerns about money, or support with family relationships.
The aim is not only to help families out of the immediate crisis, but to build more resilient and self-reliant families who feel ready to reconnect with the school community, ensuring their children’s education is prioritised.
From their base in London and Kent, SHS have expanded to Bradford, Blackpool, Manchester and Liverpool and will shortly also add Sheffield and Birmingham.
As part of our work to reduce barriers to participation, Pears Foundation has provided core funding for School-Home Support since 2012, giving the charity much needed additional capacity during a period when austerity measures have presented challenges for schools and for children’s wellbeing. These were further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic during which SHS’s practitioners supported some of the country’s most vulnerable families, from arranging for emergency food parcels to conducting welfare checks to supporting parents with home schooling, behaviour management and their own mental health challenges.
We also support Literacy Pirates, which runs after-school reading clubs, StreetGames’ Fit and Fed programme, which addresses holiday hunger and physical inactivity, and Child Poverty Action Group.