T ÉCNICAS DE B IOLOGÍA M OLECULAR 1 A ISLAMIENTO DE ÁCIDOS NUCLEICOS

All four pastoral leads seemed to place great importance on home-school relationships. However, the process of initiating, developing and maintaining these relationships was experienced as a precarious one. The following extract from Katie seemed to demonstrate the experience of perceiving relationships with parents as precarious as they may swiftly fall apart. Katie described her experience of

telephoning a parent who experiences mental health needs involving hallucinations, in an effort to support a pupil on a day when the pupil’s levels of anxiety were posing a barrier to her accessing learning:

... the child saw, had seen this and she thinks that maybe that’s why. And I was just thinking, (pause) “Why, why would you, put your child in the position where they would see this and then be anxious about you the whole day?” I mean, I’m probably really speaking out of turn, I’m not, I’m not trying to be critical of other people. (Katie, lines 396-407)

Katie acknowledged the mother’s mental health needs, however, this does not seem to alter her view that the mother’s actions were insensitive to the needs of her child, seemingly leaving Katie experiencing an inner conflict. Katie’s use of the phrase “just thinking” implies that she did not share her perceptions with the parent. Given the importance placed upon the home-school relationship by all the participants, Katie seems to feel unwilling to challenge the parent would be too much of a risk, for fear of being perceived “out of turn” or “critical” and as such damage the relationship. For James the source of internal conflict with parents seemed to stem from his perception that they were not sensitive to the needs of their child, a thought he also chose not to share with the parent:

...I’d phone and they’d make appointments, and they’d always talk to me on the phone, it wasn’t an issue, “Oh, I’ll come in, I’ll come in”, etc. And, and they didn’t. And I was thinking, “What, what, what is this going on? I can’t believe that they’re not interested in the care of…” [...] “Their, you know”, student and, and I got really quite angry about it. (James, lines 1179-1193)

James’ feelings of anger seemed to be exacerbated by repeated failed attempts to get the parent to attend a meeting in the school. When the parent attended, James

appeared to experience a conflict between his feelings of frustration and empathy:

...the very next day the lady came in. And I remember meeting her in reception, and you could just see the effect when she walked through the door of, it was almost like, she’d obviously regressed to being when she was at school. School had not been good for her, she said. (James, lines 1206-1215)

Empathy was also a component of Katie, Anne and Susan’s conflicted interactions with parents:

... it’s just trying to do whatever to support the child, to support the family. You know, they’re-, it’s obviously a really difficult thing for them... (Katie, lines 440-445)

Both Anne and Susan expressed empathy when contacting parents to share information about the identification of pupil mental health needs in school:

Erm, well parents, you feel sorry for them, don’t you? [...] Because actually, for some things, we might have alarmed them, because they might not have known anything had been going on. [...] So, that in itself, you know, is quite difficult. (Anne, lines 681-695)

...there isn't any easy way to say some of these things you just have to say them. You know, obviously you have to be, empathetic and sympathetic and erm, you know supportive erm but I think you also have to be very clear about what you are saying, what is the issue... (Susan, lines 902-911)

Anne and Susan seemed to experience these interactions with parents as challenging. The source of the challenge appeared to be the delicate balance between trying to convey information sensitively, while simultaneously facilitating a clear

As the home-school relationships develop around supporting pupil mental health needs, actual and potential conflicts emerge. Anne experienced conflict as a recipient of parental blame for the lack of external agency support:

...weeks down the line, the parents have phoned to say, “Well, I haven’t heard anything.” And you’re like, “No, n-nor have I.” [...] they sort of feel that it’s us, to blame. [...] Because we were, we are the ones that have initiated it, I suppose. (Anne, lines 641-656)

Susan appeared to experience parents becoming too dependent on her for support. For Susan, it was necessary to manage the situation carefully by encouraging parents to deal with their experience of the situation more independently, while maintaining a positive perception of school to aid collaboration in the best interests of the pupil:

...sometimes you do have to manage that because we’re actually not here to support parents we are here to support students. (Susan, lines 971-975)

Parental attitudes towards pupil mental health needs appeared to be a further

contributing factor to the experience of relationships with parents as being precarious. Negative parental attitudes towards the concept of mental health, including stigma, were expressed at a societal level and during interactions with parents by three of the four pastoral leads. In the following extracts, James talks about his experience working in collaboration with other agencies within the local community to support adults, particularly parents with mental health needs:

...we can’t call it a drop-in centre for mental health awareness, we’re trying to call it well-being, or something, because obviously, the thing that... because of the stigma attached to mental health... (James, lines 1046-1052)

...people assume that mental health means, that you’re mad. (James, 1079-1081)

Susan and Katie seem to echo James’ experience of parents expressing a stigma towards mental health:

...sometimes it is parents’ own misunderstanding or concern about a stigma being attached to their student or, you know, it going on their record and following them into university so erm. You know sometimes parents maybe have different attitudes towards periods of ill mental health, different issues, different worries that they have, so that can sometimes be a bit of a block... (Susan, lines 409-422)

...trying to explain to him that maybe his son needed a little bit of extra support with the transition and it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of... (Katie, lines 1347-1351)

Susan’s use of the phrase “a block” and Katie’s reference to parents’ potential to feel “ashamed” suggest that the negative views around mental health held by some parents are experienced as a barrier to the pupil accessing the appropriate support.

The experience of managing difference appeared to be a delicate process when trying to support pupil mental health needs. Katie expressed a view that it is necessary to manage such differences of opinions carefully so as not to lose parent communication altogether:

Supporting, but at the same time respecting the parents’ views and not trying to say, “Well, you’re doing it wrong.” Or, “Your way’s not helping this child.” You know, it’s trying to (pause) do the softly, softly approach [...] if you put your views across and say, “Well actually, I don’t think you should be doing that,” they back away completely. (Lines 1360-1373)

Factors such as managing the impact of parental mental health, difficult conversations with parents, and parental stigma towards mental health, appear to be experienced as challenging to navigate and result in the pastoral leads internalising their views and opinions in favour of preserving home-school relationships.