Catch Up Literacy ‘first’ for foster carer

Compass Children’s Services links with Catch Up, a not-for-profit charity that has developed literacy and numeracy interventions. In 2005/6, the two organisations worked together on an innovative idea – to train foster carers to deliver the Catch Up Literacy intervention in the home setting.
In 2006, the results of the Compass/Catch Up Literacy Intervention Pilot for Looked After Children were published. The Directors of Compass Children’s Services were so impressed with the outcomes for the children and young people who were involved in the pilot study, that a decision was made to positively encourage all Compass foster carers to train to deliver Catch Up Literacy.
Compass is aware that Catch Up addresses the problem of underachievement that has its roots in literacy and numeracy difficulties. Catch Up enables schools and others to provide the support that struggling learners so desperately need, with interventions that are both inexpensive and effective, and that have long-lasting impact. Catch Up Literacy is a structured one-to-one intervention for struggling learners (rather than for beginning learners), targeting the needs of the individual and centred on 15 minute sessions delivered twice a week, encouraging learning through success.
The impact of the Catch Up interventions is profound and long-lasting. Rigorous academic research has shown that the Catch Up Literacy intervention helps struggling learners to achieve more than double the progress of typically developing children - all the more impressive as struggling learners usually make far less progress than typical children. Compass wanted to be able to make this sort of difference for the Looked After Children in their care.
To achieve the aim of all carers being able to deliver Catch Up, training is delivered at least once a year.  The training is delivered by a Catch Up Approved Trainer and includes all the guidance and proformas needed to deliver the intervention.
The person who manages the Catch Up intervention for Compass actively encourages Catch Up trained carers to apply for accreditation through the Open College Network, Eastern Region (part of the National Open College Network).
Steve Wilde, a Compass foster carer, was trained to take part in the Compass/Catch Up pilot in 2005. Since this time, he has used Catch Up Literacy sporadically with children and young people in his care.
In September 2009, Steve agreed to work with a Year 11 young person, educated through an Individual Education Package, for the whole of the academic year. Steve’s contribution to the package was for one day a week with the specific aim of working with the young person to enable him to achieve Level 1 of the literacy element of the Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALAN) qualification.  To achieve Level 1 was regarded as a high target as, at the start of the academic year, the young person was functioning at Entry Level. Catch Up Literacy, albeit with a flexible approach, was an integral part of Steve’s input, i.e. a 15 minute session at the beginning of the day and a 15 minute session at the end of the day. The time between the sessions was used for experiential education project work, e.g. the restoration of a bicycle. The programme was monitored by the Education Service Manager of Compass and a Catch Up consultant also employed by the agency. A supply of appropriate books was made available from the Compass collection of Catch Up Literacy levelled books and was complemented by the Catch Up Literacy digital games.
The young person involved had not previously engaged with either school or alternative education but in the home setting with one-to-one work he flourished, to the extent that he achieved his aim, the Level 1 ALAN qualification.
At the end of each day with Steve, the young person was asked to give an evaluation of the work covered; typical of his comments was: “I thought I did well on the spelling test” and the comment, “The book was really good” was endorsed by the carer, who wrote in his evaluation of that day, “The book ‘Alien Files’ was again a big hit, Mark* really seemed to enjoy reading, carrying on without stopping!”
This was an excellent intervention entirely meeting the needs of the young person and giving a sense of fulfilment to the carer.
Steve’s summary was:
“I was delighted when asked by Compass if I could put my Catch Up skills to use to assist a young person who not only had some Literacy difficulties, but also found school itself very daunting. Little did I know that this would be the start of a journey for both myself and my pupil as together we worked our way through the months, getting to grips with the books we selected to read and to practise his handwriting skills.
Listening to someone read a passage from a book as they gained confidence gave me great pleasure and pride in my pupil. With the help and support of Andy at Compass we selected the most appropriate books for my pupil to read, this was most important, as to start on a more difficult level would have only delayed his progress and confidence. Using the Catch Up system we were able to assess his ability with the high frequency words charts.
Catch Up was fundamental to the success of my work with Mark and we thoroughly enjoyed using it together.” 
During the time of the intervention, Steve was encouraged by the Catch Up manager to complete the OCN accreditation and successfully completed all three Units of the qualification – the first foster carer in England to achieve this.
Compass is extremely proud of Steve and proud to be associated with Catch Up and the Open College Network, Eastern Region, all working together to meet the needs of young people struggling with literacy.
*Not his real name