As Jade takes her seat and starts to get her things out of her bag, there is nothing to set her apart from any other learner in the classroom. But Jade is not like other college students. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but when Jade leaves college every day, she does not return to a loving family home. Instead, she goes back to the town’s YMCA, where she has been living since just after her 17th birthday.

Jade was left to take care of her eight-year-old brother when their mother walked out on them, leaving them with an abusive father. After two years of eating out of cans and wearing unwashed clothes, Jade’s maternal grandparents took her brother to live with them. But there was no room at their house for Jade.

That’s why she lives at the YMCA. And that’s why she sometimes finds studying at college to be a struggle.

It’s hard to know just how many young people in further education find themselves in situations like Jade’s: estranged from family and living alone. Colleges will know about those students who have the support of a social worker, but those who have no support from the local authorities can easily fly under the radar.

But to give some idea of the scale of the problem, it’s estimated that one in five families in the UK has been affected by estrangement and more than 5 million people have decided to cut contact with at least one family member.

And young people of college age are disproportionately affected, according to Susan Mueller, director of higher education at Stand Alone, a charity dedicated to supporting those who are estranged from family members. She says that people are most likely to become estranged from their families between the ages of 16 and 18.

So how might those statistics translate for individual colleges? To take one example: in the 2019-20 academic year, Weston College in Weston-Super-Mare had 50 students who were “looked-after” or estranged.

Meanwhile, at Varndean College, a sixth-form college in Brighton and Hove, there were 18 students who were looked-after and 51 students who were estranged from their parents in that year. East Surrey College started the year with 70 estranged students.

These numbers suggest the problem is significant. It is likely that estranged students will face huge barriers in life - they may be hungry, have younger siblings they feel responsible for, have court cases to attend or have complicated mental health issues as a result of trauma.

These barriers can have a knock-on effect on their education, impacting their attendance, their levels of attention in class and, ultimately, their chances of going on to higher education or employment. But these barriers are not always being recognised by colleges, says Mueller.

“Not everyone is really aware that these things happen and why they happen. Students often say, ‘I’ve been to the college counsellor and they’ve asked, ‘Isn’t it just a falling out?’ Or ‘They are your parents, don’t you think you should patch it up with them?’” she explains.

Not all colleges seem to be getting it right when it comes to providing the right level of help for students like Jade, then. But what can lecturers and leaders in further education do to improve support? And how can they identify those students who need their help in the first place?

According to Paul Phillips, principal and chief executive of Weston College, the problem requires a proactive approach, which has to start before students even enrol.

He sends college staff out into supported housing projects within deprived local communities, where they meet with young people who may be homeless or sofa surfing. They talk to them about the support college can offer them and signpost stable places to live.“The students can be in quite a bad way,” says Phillips. “We become part of the team that’s working with them, but with that key aim of getting them into learning.”

In other cases, a social worker will get in touch to make the college aware of a student who is really struggling at school, but who needs to be able to graduate into college. Staff will then meet the learner in a local library or resource centre and begin to build a relationship with them, starting a conversation about what’s happened to them and how they want to move forwards.

“That can be very complicated and although it’s very costly to the college, 99 per cent of the learners, once they’ve engaged with pastoral support, enrol at the college,” says Phillips. “But it is a complicated jigsaw to get them to a level where they can be ready to invest in their learning in a college environment. They don’t do it, generally, without that personal tutor approach, and a huge amount of pastoral care.”

Donna-Marie Janson, vice-principal at Varndean College, agrees that the personal touch is key. That’s why her college has recently hired a full-time social work liaison officer, who’s dedicated to supporting this group of students and interacting with the external agencies.

As for how they identify which students need help in the first place, Janson says that the best method is to ask the students themselves. On enrolment, students at Varndean fill out a form that explicitly asks them if they’ve had difficult circumstances and then, crucially, who they wish to know this information - it could be the tutor, the head of year or the designated safeguarding lead. This allows the college to spot those students who are estranged but don’t have a social worker, says Janson.

Once the student has been identified, they can be given the pastoral and academic support they need. But what does a package of effective support for estranged students look like?

Janson says that students at her college are given dedicated time with the mental health team, extra support and flexibility around their college work and help with finding somewhere secure to live.

The council’s youth offending team is brought in to support any students who may have to appear at court - and students can ask a member of college staff to attend any hearings, she adds.

As well as providing support for the issues that students are facing in the here and now, colleges will also need to dedicate significant time to encouraging estranged students to look ahead and plan their futures, says Richard Pearce, director of HE at East Surrey College.

He explains that many estranged students come to college with the ability to go on to university - but without first addressing a range of issues, they won’t get there.

Ensuring that teachers understand the barriers these students face and are trained to have these conversations is key, says James Gottshalk, the designated teacher for looked-after children at the college.

“Alot of teachers aren’t actually trained to support care leavers - they are simply trained to support learners. But an estranged or care-experienced learner has a lot more barriers and gates to walk through, and potholes as well. Knowledge is power for a lot of people to provide support for this group of students,” he says.

To help with this, the college has produced a guide for its staff detailing how to support students who are estranged from their families on to higher-level study, with funding from the Sussex Learning Network.

The guide provides information about the financial help that estranged young people are entitled to, the different pathways and qualifications available and, critically, how to foster high aspirations in students who may lack confidence to go on to higher study.

Ongoing support

It’s not just about supporting these young people to apply to higher-level education, however. It’s also about knowing how they can be supported there, says Gottshalk.

“There is a lot more support that is required than just getting [these students] to university. Sometimes they need more support than they did at college, because, of course, now they’re on their own, they’re isolated, but they still experiencing all of the pitfalls to being a young person who is estranged,” he says.

It is not always possible for colleges to provide this level of support, particularly because effective measures can be very costly. College budgets are now stretched more than ever, after many lost huge amounts of funding due to the shutdown of their commercial arms during lockdown.

For Phillips, funding is a real concern. “The only reason I can do what I do is because Weston is a large college that does a fair bit of commercial work, of which the profits can be redistributed,” he explains. “I would really like to know that I can provide a guaranteed service, which is one-to-one, which keeps people in education, and enables that progression for the learner. We will do it, even if it is by the skin of our teeth.”

However, many smaller colleges simply won’t be able to offer the same level of extensive support that students at larger institutions receive. So what can those colleges do for learners who are estranged from their families?

According to Mueller, the real key to helping estranged students is simply to be non-judgemental and ready to listen.

“There’s a lack of understanding of estrangement. Young people want to be believed about the situation they are in - one of the most important things a college can do is to say, ‘I believe you and I will support you,’” she says.

Taking the time to listen and simply let learners like Jade know that they are being believed is something that all colleges should be able to offer, regardless of how big their budget is.

Kate Parker is an FE reporter at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 4 September 2020 issue