A multidisciplinary approach to educational disadvantage and early school leaving (ESL) brings together professionals from within and beyond the school, including psychologists, social workers and health professionals. Multidisciplinary teams have the potential to offer a range of services to support young people at risk of educational disadvantage and ESL. This includes, for example, focus on children’s language development, mental health support, emotional support, bullying prevention skills, outreach to marginalised families and support for development of parenting skills.

Creating and supporting multidisciplinary teams requires a strategic approach. It is essential that the multidisciplinary team develop a coherent approach to address the learner’s complex needs. Rather than each member of the team working separately to address their own priorities, this requires all to have a shared understanding of the outcomes they want to achieve for each learner, and to determine how they can bring their combined expertise together.

Research highlights key conditions for the effective internal functioning of multidisciplinary teams. These conditions include, for example, appropriate leadership strategies, inclusive communicative skills, and conflict resolution skills. The development of shared strategies and sufficient time and space to implement these are also vitally important. Working as part of a multi-agency team, professionals may also need to share their resources and information about the learners they are working with so that they can benefit from ‘joined-up’ support. This may require teams to create new information sharing agreements and shared budgets for some interventions.  Research suggests that targeted intervention for learners at risk of ESL will be more effective if carried out by multidisciplinary teams in schools and/or by bringing external professionals into schools, and with the involvement of all those interacting with the learners, be they family members, siblings or volunteers, etc.

Multidisciplinary teams will be required to engage in interventions at different levels and across the individual, group, class, school, family and community. Careful consideration of the composition and ethos of the team is required, with a cultural affinity with marginalised families. Depending on the situation, there may be a need to establish a completely new multidisciplinary team, or it may be appropriate to build teams within existing community structures, organisations and locations, depending on country and local area context.

Find out more:

• Downes, P., Multi/Interdisciplinary Teams for Early School Leaving Prevention: Developing a European Strategy Informed by International Evidence and Research, NESET Research Paper, 2011.

When many different stakeholders are involved in developing and implementing a strategy to address early school leaving, it may be necessary to create formalised structures to support their work. All stakeholders need to have a common understanding of the challenges they are seeking to address and share a common goal and approach. Support structures and coordinating mechanisms should also be in place to ensure dialogue and a reciprocal flow of information between the school and a wider set of stakeholders, as well as with the relevant public authorities. Effective stakeholder networks must involve an appropriate set of stakeholders, who understand the local circumstances and context and who are able to intervene locally in the problems which are putting learners at risk of early school leaving. A wide range of stakeholders and professionals who could contribute to the network should be identified; they should be invited and involved from the start of the process.

The following factors are essential for developing effective stakeholder networks:

• Clarity among all stakeholders regarding their needs, interests and expectations. Schools also have to define their needs, challenges and strengths.
• Formal or informalagreements between stakeholders and schools specifying roles and responsibilities of each partner.
• A common strategy/action plan, based on clear and shared targets. The strategy/plan should be focused on the needs of the learner, and be based on a truly multi-agency approach, whilst respecting the differing perspectives and missions of each stakeholder.
• Effective communication
• Monitoringand evaluation mechanisms, allowing for continuous feedback, adaptation and change of involvement as appropriate. Guidance/indicators should be developed to facilitate self-evaluation where appropriate.
• An ability to develop relationshipsover time, acknowledging the importance of mutual respect and the expertise that each partner can bring.
• Active consultation with those learners and families intended to benefit from a multi-agency approach about how they might be supported more effectively.

Awareness and understanding of the world of work is integral to education and is best achieved through businesses and schools working in partnership. Such partnerships produce significant benefits for all involved: most importantly, they benefit young people’s awareness and experience of the world of work, their understanding of job demands and employer expectations, and the relevance of schooling to employer needs.

Businesses have an important role to play in supporting career choices and in enriching the learning experience for young people. Building partnerships between businesses and schools at a local level can help to:

• increase the flexibility and timing of work experience opportunities so that more quality placements can be arranged throughout the school year and can be integrated throughout education;
• ensure closer links between curricular content and school-based learning opportunities and ‘real world’ business needs;
• provide up-to-date information about careers in their sectors and raise the profile of careers;
• facilitate school-to-work transition;
• help learners to develop appropriately high aspirations about the careers they can access and to understand the skills and qualifications they need to access these.

There are many different ways in which local employers and businesses can support local schools, including:

• helping schools to develop relevant curricular materials;
• career talks in schools;
• site visits;
• short-term traineeships and work experience;
• fundraising, sponsorship and donating equipment and;
• support for extracurricular activities and extended learning.

There are benefits for all the parties involved when businesses and schools work together. Young people can gain a valuable and realistic insight into the world of work and understand how they can build transferable knowledge, skills and competences. This experience can raise learner’s aspirations and motivation, improve self-confidence, help them stay in education and thus improve their life chances.

Businesses and schools are able to get a better understanding of their expectations of learners, and make the learning experience authentic. They can also get new ideas and views from the learners about their work and processes.

It is, however, important for businesses and schools to understand and overcome respective challenges they may face when working in partnership. These may include time and resource constraints, and the need to communicate information around the areas of regulation, health and safety.

Building effective relationships between schools and the community at large can have an important effect on the quality of learning.  These relationships may also change the community and structural factors that promote educational inequality. Libraries, youth and sports clubs, local NGOs and other community organisations which gather learners and their families around a wide range of recreational activities and support access to learning opportunities and wider services, can develop partnerships to reinforce the bonds between schools, families and learners. This may be particularly helpful for parents and families from disadvantaged backgrounds or for those parents who have had negative experiences of school in the past.

These types of partnerships require a more holistic understanding of how schools, families, communities and civic society can work together to improve life outcomes for young people, nurture their self-esteem and their confidence. It also requires an improved understanding of how schools can impact on the wider community to influence the family and social contexts within which children and young people learn.

Schools that have benefited from investment in community libraries, sports centres and other shared facilities may have the capacity to promote extended-hours access to their premises for members of the wider community. Opening up school facilities outside of school hours for outreach and extra-curricular activities can be highly advantageous. It encourages community empowerment and helps to bridge the gap between schools and parents, particularly those who are unfamiliar with the school system.

Research shows that those schools which are most effective in building strong relationships with their local communities have well-developed community engagement strategies with clear aims, which can be sustained over time, and which recognise community assets. For example, schools may deliberately plan out-of-school activities to create pathways to employment for adults, or to promote healthy lifestyles, and actively support community members’ participation.

Find out more:

• Department for Education, United Kingdom, Extended Schools and Services: Research into the impact of a range of extra-curricular services and activities for children, young people and the wider community, online platform.
• Flint, N., Schools, communities and social capital: Building blocks in the 'Big Society’, National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services, 2012.
• Ice, M.,Thapa, A., Cohen, J., ‘Recognizing Community Voice and a Youth-led School-Community Partnership in the School Climate Improvement Process’,  School Community Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2015, pp. 9-28.