ABSTRACT
Christine Salter describes the work undertaken in Bexley to address the needs of a group of school refusers, often referred to as the ‘disappeared’. These are pupils who regularly fall between two services, and in her chapter she demonstrates how this can be avoided by developing trans-agency work across education and mental health. The title of the service, Total Support for Learning Service, is particularly revealing, reflecting the principle of one agency working inside, rather than alongside, another. The work she describes is project-based, preventative and community-based, demonstrating many of the features of a well-developed service. She uses individual pupil case studies to demonstrate effectiveness. Evaluation is a strong component of this work and, as a result, we learn many important lessons about effective planning.
