Close Watch on truants

Close Watch on truants

here’s a firm knock on the front door. You open it. A police officer stands before you, a letter in hand and explains how your child is a frequent truant, that you are responsible and that a number of agencies are prepared to help.

The uniform, the letter, the stern voice – it all has an impact and reinforces the seriousness of the situation. 

In fact, that police visit is often the moment of change in a comprehensive inter-agency truancy programme called Rock On (Reduce Our Community Kids Offending Now).

It was started by Hamilton police in 2003 and has spread to other regions because it works: many young people on the programme are returning to regular school participation, and the underlying causes of their truancy are often addressed and remedied.

The programme hinges on agencies sharing information through a fixed process. It kicks in when a signed-up school decides a student is not responding to standard measures.

The school can then refer the student to their local Rock On initiative and the case is handled at monthly meetings, usually coordinated by a police officer and attended by school staff and local representatives of the Ministry of Education, Child, Youth and Family (CYF), Truancy Services and Youth Mental Health services.

The ministry’s Central North student support manager Jackie Talbot says Rock On does not require special funding but is simply a better way for everyone to do their jobs.

“It’s about being accountable for our work. We used to work in isolation. It’s about moving out of your silos and working together to support schools.”

Agencies share information on the student and their family, and all actions are planned and reviewed together. That means more information comes to light and appropriate responses are planned, be it mental health support, drug counselling for parents, assistance with transport or uniform costs and so on.

The causes of persistent truancy are complex. Motivation to start the programme was quite straightforward by comparison. 

The initiative began in 2003 when Inspector Karen Henrikson, then a senior sergeant in Hamilton, publicly voiced concerns about the number of teenagers involved in burglaries. 

“It came about due to the increase in youth crime during school hours and frustrations among my staff that they were dealing with these youths.”

That prompted a meeting with other agencies. Participants soon discovered the same students were named in each agency’s books but there was no coordinated response. “We thought we could do this better,” says Jackie.

All involved quickly realised they could be more effective by working closely together. “This was not going to create more work but less. We’re not chasing our own tails. We can achieve a lot in a coordinated response.”

In the early years of the initiative, Karen was sometimes the officer to visit families in the first step in the process. The visit reminds parents of their legal responsibility to ensure attendance but also informs them that help is available. While effective, the offer is not always taken at first, she says. 

“There’s a variety of receptions. One: ‘Thank goodness. I haven’t been able to do anything about it. They don’t listen to me, I need help’ through to ‘not talking to you’, door slammed in your face.

“But we don’t go away, we drop the letter and talk to them through the door, and we’ll inform the other agencies. The way to stop us visiting is to ensure their child is in school.”

When needed, a case proceeds to a Family Group Conference, a formal meeting run by CYF staff like care and protection coordinator Eugene Bourke, who has been involved since Rock On’s early days. 

He says truancy conferences have become more frequent through Rock On (in 2008 about one in six cases in Waikato went to FGCs).

Eugene says extended family members are invited, information is shared by agencies and the family can ask questions. There have been previous opportunities for this, but the formal structure and the presence of all the agencies involved helps, says Eugene. The desired result is the family agrees on a plan of action to re-engage their child in education.

“There needs to be consensus. Everyone needs to agree on the plan that is put in place. I can’t think of one where there wasn’t an agreement; almost all parents desire schooling for their children.”

And most understand by then that it is not simply a punitive process – agencies are there to help, but with the proviso that ultimately prosecution by Police can provide a “sting in the tail” of the process. 

Every Rock On group follows an escalating process:

After referral, police hand-deliver a letter and talk to the family about Rock On.

An informal family hui is held at school.

Then the school sends another letter, referring the matter to a Family Group Conference. The FGC is held and an action plan is created.

If attendance is still poor, the school advises the family of court action and Police prosecute the parents. Every Rock On case is taken this far if necessary.

When attendance does improve, the young person goes on a monitoring list for three months to prevent relapse.

There was a girl in Hamilton who simply refused to go to school, was dabbling in drugs and alcohol and being picked up at night by police. Her mum and dad wouldn’t stand up to her, and Jackie Talbot remembers them as the first parents prosecuted through the Rock On programme.

The mother was crying in Jackie’s Ministry of Education office on the morning of the case, but there was no reprieve. The parents were fined and that finally hit home for the daughter that someone could and would set boundaries on her behaviour.

“The girl couldn’t believe we had done it,” Jackie says. “She moved to her aunty up north and went to another school.”

Jackie says it is a great feeling when a student gets off the Rock On list because they have re-engaged with school. And she says the programme shows that those working in the system care.

“We do address the causes of truancy; it’s not just about trying to get them to prosecution level.”

Last year, 474 Waikato students were at various points in the programme and only 11 families needed to be taken as far as prosecution.

“It’s working brilliantly. We’ve had a drop in our non-attending kids, we’ve had a drop in truancy and in daylight burglaries in the area where Rock On operates,” says Jackie.

Inspector Karen Henrikson is equally clear that the programme is a success.

“The reason Police have continued with it is it did achieve our ultimate aim of reducing daytime offending.”

Other districts have signed on and there are now about 50 groups in action around New Zealand. Most work with one secondary school and its feeder schools, using guidelines developed in Hamilton.

Schools must also be a willing partner and continue their own responses to truancy. Rock On covers persistent cases where the school needs extra support.