Keyworking

The Role of the Keyworker

The keyworker is the significant adult for the student and their family during their time at Breckenbrough. The role of the keyworker is to provide students with the necessary support mechanisms in order for them to feel empowered and challenged to succeed across the 24-hour curriculum. The keyworker plays an essential role inworking alongside our students to realise the requirements of the eight specific objectives of the school’s statement of principles and practice. The keyworker is also central to supporting the school in realising and delivering our Quaker ethos of conflict resolution, ensuring a non-judgemental approach towards all our students.

A keyworker strives to develop and maintain a positive relationship with a student through structured sessions and personal interaction on a daily basis, thus providing a continuity of support, which we know to be essential to the progression of all our students. This continuity of staff interaction is a key supportive element of our
work, particularly in regard to emotional support, but also the need for the students to see the same people in their daily interactions to lessen anxiety that may come through change.

Each keyworker has direct responsibility for working with a student, providing them with reassurance to feel safe and cared for and building relationships with them and their parents or carers to promote good partnership working on all aspects of development.

All keyworkers at Breckenbrough are:

• Committed to their role.
• Good communicators facilitating information sharing between all stakeholders.
• Open, sensitive and compassionate, particularly during periods of transition.
• Tactful – never forgetting that families are a student’s key care givers.
• Able to prioritise to make the time to regularly communicate with a student and their family.
• Advocates and role models as a significant adult in school.

The Requirements for Keyworking with students:
• Supporting a student to become familiar with the setting and to feel safe and secure in the school environment.
• Maintaining accurate and up to date knowledge of all aspects of the student, including the EHCP, individual safeguarding plans and professional’s reports.
• Ensuring records of development and progress are shared with the family and other professionals as necessary, through the completion of key QoL documentation.
• Completing QoL documentation – termly surveys, target setting, annual review reports and weekly keyworking notes.
• Meeting with the student every week and collaborating with them on target setting each term.
• Liaising and communicating with staff on behalf of the student.

The Requirements for Keyworking with families:
• Communicating with the family to make sure the needs of the student are being met appropriately, including weekly communication.
• Maintaining accurate and up to date knowledge of the student’s home life and family dynamics.
• Supporting the family in the completion of QoL documentation, specifically termly surveys.
• Ensuring the family are up to date with events in school (eg. Timetable changes, trips, events).
• Liaising and communicating with staff on behalf of the family