15-year-old Tash had always felt like she came second to the needs of her older brother. He was often in trouble with the police and created major problems at school, which meant that her parents were almost completely consumed with dealing with his issues – leaving them little time and energy for Tash.

So she began playing up at school as well – acting angrily, talking back to teachers and regularly skipping class. Her self-esteem sunk very low and her schoolwork became incredibly poor.

Thankfully there was an east to west Relational Support Worker (RSW) working in the school who heard about Tash’s situation and negotiated with her tutor to be the key person at registration that Tash caught up with first thing in the morning.

It turned out that simply having a friendly ear to offload on about her home life made a huge difference, and her behavior began changing immediately. Our RSW was able to help her put her family relationships in perspective, and also to use their time each morning to mentally leave her home life behind and get some head space to think about how she was going to approach school that day.

Over the course of a term Tash’s attendance improved dramatically and she was a lot more settled in all of her classes. The support of her RSW helped Tash to bring her grades up to the point where she not only did well in her GCSEs but secured the place she wanted at a local college to study childcare, which she’s really enjoying.

* All children's names and photos have been changed to protect their identity

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