The Pathfinder was founded by Rob McCabe in 2016, but the seeds of the idea were sown in 2012.
After many years of working as an Education Social Worker in Birmingham’s Youth Offending Service, Rob had noticed concerning trends in the outcomes of the young people, particularly the disproportionately high numbers of young people known to children’s services or the criminal justice system in certain schools in Birmingham.
In 2012, working with Lindsworth School, an SEMH (social, emotional and mental health) special school in South Birmingham, he collated and cross-referenced data to look into this more deeply, and released an internal report to Birmingham City Council focussed on criminal justice involvement of children at the school, and associated costs. On the basis of this he was redeployed into the school to work more closely with them.
Rob continued to drill down into the data, and in 2014, he released a second report, this time detailing case studies from the school, looking at adverse childhood experiences and negative life trajectories; and drawing some conclusions about contributing factors, in particular siloed statutory systems, discontinuity between agencies, multiple professionals working with each family and disconnected working practices
High numbers of social workers were involved historically with each case, meaning that families were experiencing a ‘revolving door’ of repeated re-referrals over many years, often with different social workers being allocated.
This ‘revolving door’ experience can lead to justified mistrust of services; it can also lead to re-traumatisation as families retell their difficult case histories (‘assessment fatigue’); and it does not allow for a deep enough relationship to make lasting change.
The second report had also made some tentative recommendations for practice that could potentially address the systemic failings it discussed. Following this, Rob explored various practice models in conversation with close colleagues and allies, including the idea of a specialist school that would be grounded in principles of nurture, and would build on and develop on the skills and expertise of pastoral and support staff.
At that time, Rob was joined by joined by Sarah Mason, a school nurse, who was in the next door office at the school . Between them, they had many years experience in schools, children’s social care and the youth justice system, and they shared a common perspective on the families they were working with.
They began sharing notes on cases, and seeing the potential for a more holistic approach when the information held separately by health, education and social services was brought together.
They began to visit families together, and to ask open-ended questions about what they needed. The insights from this work led into the idea of a ‘tripartite model’ (education, social work and health), which became a precursor to the Pathfinder’s ecosystem model.
Inspired by the work that Sarah and Rob were doing with families, these initial ideas were crystallised and refined into the Pathfinder model designed to work in schools, repurposing existing school-based (and funded) workers into Pathfinder Family Support Workers.
In 2016, the Pathfinder began work in six special schools, largely relying on the commitment of head teachers and a small amount of external grant. As the approach developed and showed early evidence of improved outcomes, seven mainstream schools joined in 2017. Lankelly Chase Foundation came alongside and was a supporter for many years, providing critically important flexible resourcing for different aspects of the Pathfinder’s development, including its rapid evaluation.
While the Pathfinder was still relatively small in terms of participating schools, the approach attracted national interest and was used as a case study for good practice in a DWP Green Paper in 2017 and as an example of emerging best practice in the Addressing Adversity Journal published by Young Minds in 2018.
Birmingham Children’s Trust had been supportive throughout as Rob’s employer, allowing him the time and space to develop the Pathfinder.
The last few years has seen us test, learn and explore new ways we can effectively knit together existing statutory services and embed a model of early help/early intervention within schools and communities that improves mutual support and accountability at every level.
New funders have offered support, including the JABBS Foundation for Women and Girls, the national youth homelessness charity Centrepoint and the National Lottery. The JABBS Foundation has also funded a comprehensive mixed-methods evaluation of the Pathfinder which is being undertaken by the University of Birmingham.
The Pathfinder has steadily spread, mainly through word of mouth between schools, and we are currently working with 30 primary and secondary schools.