Girvan Academy's support includes breakfast, resources for learning through the Preparation Stations, personal care items, help with uniforms, a prom dress project, food parcels and Christmas parcels. Depute Head Teacher Alex Scott described how the rebrand started with the breakfast club:
“We decided to change the name from Breakfast Club to the Breakfast Station because we thought Breakfast Club gives the impression that it’s for a small cohort of targeted people, and that might have a stigma attached. We wanted to make sure that everyone felt able to access it and remove any connotation that it was just for “poor families”. We wanted it to just be seen as a normal part of the school, so it is located right in the middle of the school’s main social area, is open to anyone and is manned by school staff and local youth workers.
We have a busy uptake each morning by all sorts of young people each day. We don’t know who has or has not had breakfast at home, nor if not why not, we just want to catch as many young people as possible who would benefit from breakfast in the morning."
Girvan Academy staff at the school's breakfast club
After the consultation it was clear that the name ‘hygiene packs’ needed attention too. Alex says:
“The focus group of young people came back and said ‘no that's a horrible name’ so now we talk about self-care packs. We did a big promotion across the whole school recently about the self-care initiative - why we're doing it, how you can access it, what should be in the packs. We were upfront with young people and asked them through class surveys what self care products should be available. This again normalised this project as just a support the school offers, in fact some pupils volunteered to purchase products and keep the stock up to date.
The project is managed by a School Assistant. We have been very sensitive about how pupils access the self-care packs however so that there is no feeling of shame or embarrassment. We do this via QR codes and then packs are discreetly delivered to the young people by pastoral care staff.”
Banner advertising Girvan Academy's self care initiative
Alex reflects on what they’ve done at Girvan Academy:
“We have done a lot of work about cost of the school day with our school staff. There has been very clear support and a strong culture of understanding of our school’s social context, which has resulted in a high number of staff volunteering to assist in our various initiatives. All this is fine and admirable, however if we are not reaching the families and young people who need assistance it is not achieving its goal.
We quickly realised that labelling our various initiatives using the word poverty could have a counter effect and put young people and families off from reaching out for support. People may be financially struggling however they are perhaps reluctant to label themselves as being in poverty or identifying themselves to school staff. We have good relationships with families so feel we can often offer targeted supports to certain families, however we don’t know all families’ circumstances and so we wanted to make our offer as universal and as accessible as possible, reducing any barriers and removing any stigma.
I think the universal approach is fantastic because you are catching people that aren't on anybody's radar, and who might potentially be struggling but won’t put their hand up and identify themselves. We also talk a lot about how circumstances can change, sometimes quite suddenly, and we’ve seen a lot of that over the last few years.”
The school has introduced an umbrella term for the support they offer, called the Family Support Initiative, which Alex describes as a ‘levelling term’.
“It just takes away any labelling, any awkwardness. People know why we're doing it, we're not hiding the facts it is about supporting those in financial difficulties, but it's just a softer name. We publicise this branding through social media and have banners which are displayed prominently around the school. We refer to it regularly and this means that the community sees and understands what the school's doing. Its shows that in the school we are aware of the situation some families are in, and that we want to help.
“Community” is one of our school values, and we feel the various projects under our Supporting Families Initiative is us putting this school value into action”.
Girvan Academy's prep station
