A New Direction

Transcript

Katy Gosset: Gosset: Hello, welcome to One in Five. I’m Katy Gosset. And today’s episode comes to you from Nelson’s Salisbury School. It’s just around dinnertime, and tonight we’re also privy to a sort of homecoming. The students have just returned for the new term, and I’m with the principle Brenda Ellis as she welcomes everyone back.

Brenda Ellis: This is where the girls live, and they have their kitchen in there. This is where they eat, as well.

Brenda Ellis: Hi, girls!

Girls: Hello!

Brenda Ellis: Hello. This is my friend. How was the plane? The plane was good?

Girl: Yes.

Brenda Ellis: How was your holiday?

Girl: I went to Christchurch and on the way I played in the snow.

Brenda Ellis: Was there snow down there? Was that your first time in the snow?

Girl: Mm-hm.

Brenda Ellis: That must have been wonderful, was it?

Girl: Mm-hm.

Brenda Ellis: Oh, I’m pleased for you. So you had a good holiday?

Girl: Yep.

Brenda Ellis: It’s lovely to see you. How was the flight, Bertha?

Woman: Oh, it was great.

Brenda Ellis: Bertha, this is Katy. Katy Gosset: is from Radio New Zealand.

Katy Gosset: Hi, nice to meet you.

Brenda Ellis: And this is her lovely daughter, Chance.

And, Chance, happy about coming back? (Laughs) You’re being a shy girl.

Katy Gosset: The girls usually stay here for about 18 months. In that time Brenda Ellis gets to know them all, and says the school caters for their particular learning needs.

Brenda Ellis: Salisbury is a very unique school. We are a residential special school for girls that have complex learning needs, which can include intellectual disability. Some of the girls have behavioural issues, as well. All of the girls have social and emotional difficulties. And that can mean making friends… having difficulty in forming friendships. I can mean not having had the opportunity or know how to become part of a team, that they have struggled in daily life and living skill development, as well as in the academic schoolwork. So an interesting range of challenges. And the girls are anywhere from the age of 12 through till about 16 years of age when they first enrol.

Katy Gosset: In the kitchen the first night meal is unveiled with some parents staying on to learn about their child’s school experience.

Brenda Ellis: Now, Bertha, let’s hope that the weather stays beautiful for you the whole time your down here. Isn’t it lovely?

Bertha: It’s beautiful down here. It’s raining in Auckland, it’s cold. It’s lovely down here.

Brenda Ellis: What do you think has been good for Chance, from your perspective?

Bertha: I tell you what, she didn’t want to come home. When I picked her up from the airport she said “Mum, if I could have run away from the airport I would have.” She didn’t want to come home from holiday, she wanted to stay.

Brenda Ellis: She wanted to stay in Salisbury? (Laughs) Aw, that means you must be really happy, Chance. Hopefully you’ll get some time to spend tomorrow in her class in kimi mātauranga. I think you’ll be really impressed, Bertha. I hope you will.

Bertha: Nah, her coming here was the best decision I ever made.

Brenda Ellis: That’s lovely to hear.

Bertha: If I had of heard of this place earlier I would have sent her here when she was much younger. I’ve had a lot of problems with her over the last two years. But coming here has been the best thing for her.

Brenda Ellis: It’s so good that you’re finding that it’s meeting her needs.

Brenda Ellis: What’s on the menu first night back?

Man: Schnitzel, Tana’s favourite. We’ve got some chunky potato wedges, cabbage, corn and peas and some garlic bread.

Katy Gosset: Are you the chef?

Man: No, no. I’m previously the chef. (Laughs)

Katy Gosset: There was laughter from the kitchen, then.

Kitchen worker: It’s always exciting when you open up the bain-marie to see what we’re going to eat tonight.         

Brenda Ellis: So, Bertha, how long are you saying?

Bertha: Until February.

Brenda Ellis: Oh, fantastic. Well, we’ll get together and we’ll do some work together around how we can help you to help Chance when you go back.

Bertha: Eh, Chance? Chance?

Brenda Ellis: I can see that little Chancey smile. The karakia would be lovely, thank you.

Man: Would you like to start first?

(All sing in Maori)

Katy Gosset: From there it’s on to a second cottage where the older girls have been reunited after the holidays.

Brenda Ellis: Oh, it’s lovely and warm in here.

Cottage worker: It is, it’s lovely, Brenda.

Brenda Ellis: Hi, girls. Lovely to see you all. Hello, Miss. How are you? Lovely to see you. Can I introduce Katy? Katy is here having a look round and she’s doing a little bit of taping…

Katy Gosset: Hi there.

Brenda Ellis: ..and would love to get to know you a little bit better, I think. Did you have a great holiday, Kerry? Did you have a great time?

Kerry: Yes.

Brenda Ellis: And were you all on time on your flights?

Girls: No.

Brenda Ellis: How are you, Liz?

Katy Gosset: The students here come from across the country, but have formed strong friendships.

Cottage worker: When they arrived some of them were waiting for each other. I saw them coming up the path and they were flying at each other, hugging each other, and it was very touching.

Katy Gosset: They miss each other.

Brenda Ellis: They do.

Katy Gosset: The supportive environment of Salisbury School was threatened three years ago when the education minister Hekia Parata announced plans to close it, saying the girls could instead be enrolled at a boy’s residential school in Christchurch. The school sought a judicial review and the high court ruled that the government’s proposed closure was unlawful. In mid-2013 Ms Parata confirmed that Salisbury School would remain open.

Brenda Ellis: The legal process was an interesting process to go through. The board felt very strongly that there were robust reasons and good research, which indicated that closing Salisbury would mean less choice, if you like, for parents. Halswell Residential College was to become co-ed, and we felt that that then meant that parents didn’t have the option of single-sex residential education for girls such as the girls at Salisbury provide for. So for us that was worth fighting for.

Katy Gosset: She says the focus is now on finding new ways to bring students into the school.

Brenda Ellis: This is a very complex group of young people    with a very high tariff. So we’ve recently had a very positive ERO report. And we’re working with the ministry closely at the moment around core pieces of work involving scoping, exploring, another enrollment process into Salisbury so that there might be two routes in. One is through the intensive wraparound and one we are looking to establish our own enrollment process back in. Because there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect and a difficulty for parents in accessing residential educations. So we’re in the middle of that piece of work at the moment.

Katy Gosset: Brenda Ellis says Salisbury’s most recent ERO report highlights improvements in behaviour management, as well as core literacy and numeracy.

Brenda Ellis: We’re getting great success with improving levels of learning with our girls, so essentially they’re five-plus years at least behind their same-age peers when they come to us in terms of their reading, their literacy and numeracy. And we really make a big difference in their achievement levels by focusing on literacy and numeracy through a lot of our programmes.

Katy Gosset: And she says it was the hope of seeing this kind of progress that drew her to the sector.

Brenda Ellis: I have always felt that I have a sense of wanting to improve outcomes, if you like, for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. I trained as a primary     school teacher and I worked in Otara in South Auckland, and I think my experience there has really coloured everything that I’ve done in education since. So it’s wanting to improve outcomes for those young people that… their life has been a little bit tricky.

Katy Gosset: After this we head down to the dormitory area where the girls get stuck into unpacking. And Sarah-Jane offers to show me her room and her One Direction posters.

Sarah-Jane: This is my room. This is my bed. And then on that wall is some memories of home. Me and my two little sisters, and that’s me and my mum. Most of them are me and my mum. And some friends and family. And then this is my really cool artwork.

Katy Gosset: It’s amazing. And I see that you’ve also got Harry Styles and his crew for company in here. One Direction making quite a prominent appearance. I take it you’re a fan.

Sarah-Jane: (Laughs) Yep. I’ve got a duvet, but it’s in the cupboard.

Katy Gosset: OK. And are these some certificates and things I see over here?

Sarah-Jane: Yeah. These are mostly targets and certificates for the week. These ones are just for the cleaning this room award.

Katy Gosset: Very good. So what have you found the place to be like since you’ve been here?

Sarah-Jane: Actually really fun. Like, for me, being here, yes, I do miss my parents and that, but I guess it’s just all the opportunities that you don’t really get up in, like… For me, I’m at college, but I struggle there with my subjects and that. But for me I can actually learn here and do it and not have any troubles doing it.

Katy Gosset: When you first arrived here today what were you most looking forward to doing or the person you were most looking forward to seeing when you got here?

Sarah-Jane: Um, my friends and just getting back into school and learning and seeing where opportunities might take me further in life.

Katy Gosset: So it was exciting to get back here?

Sarah-Jane: Yeah.

Katy Gosset: Just up the halls, Samara is also setting up her space.

Samara: A bit messy. (Laughs)

Brenda Ellis: Oh, not really. It looks pretty tidy. Tidier than my room.

Katy Gosset: So have you just brought everything in from scratch today?

And what are some of these awards and things around the walls?

Samara: That one is a friendship award.

Katy Gosset: What’s over here?

Samara: Just another award. You stay up late and get $5 pocket money.

Katy Gosset: Ok. How late are you allowed to stay up?

Samara: Probably about ten o’clock.

Katy Gosset: That’s pretty good. What do you do when you stay up?

Samara: Watch TV.

Katy Gosset: Right. So what do you think about Salisbury School?

Samara: It’s good.

Katy Gosset: What do you like about it?

Samara: Basically, maths. I like maths.

Katy Gosset: What about living here?

Samara: Fun.   

Katy Gosset: What sort of things do you do with your friends?

Samara: Hang out at the playground.

         

Brenda Ellis: Where are you going tonight, Samara:?

Samara: Karate.

Brenda Ellis: What are you doing here?

Samara: Kick and hit.

Katy Gosset: Can you chop a wooden block in half?

Samara: (Laughs) No.

Brenda Ellis: Working up to it. (Laughs)

Katy Gosset: Not yet.

Brenda Ellis: That’s the graduation ceremony.

Katy Gosset: And as the girls settle in, Brenda Ellis admits that sometimes students don’t actually want to go home in the holidays.

Brenda Ellis: For a lot of our girls – I would almost confidently say up to 70% – they are girls who have come from disadvantaged home backgrounds, so there might have been levels of domestic abuse and sometimes sexual abuse within their lives before they came here to Salisbury. So Salisbury becomes very much a safe haven. And while that is only a percentage of our girls it’s a significant percentage. And they are able to develop relationships with staff where they feel safe. We provide counselling, we provide medical care. They make friends and they feel a sense of belonging and they don’t want to leave sometimes when the time comes, but we’re very careful with our transition process and we put a lot of emphasis on doing a really good job of transitioning them back into their local communities with as much support as we can. I should have mentioned the work that our residential staff do in terms of daily life and living skills development, too. So we have an independent flat here where the girls learn how go flatting. For the girls who have had disadvantaged backgrounds this shows them there’s another way and that they can aspire to living in a flatting situation where they can have control over their own money and learn how to be safe in the community, and the right types of relationships to develop. So that’s a really important part of what we do, as well.

 

 

 

Katy Gosset: Do you have girls who you’re sorry to see go, you and the other staff? Are there people you miss?

Brenda Ellis: We are always sorry to see the girls go. They live with you in a family kind of a situation, which is what we try and do here, have a community, a whanau type of setting… You can’t not miss them. But our goal is always to improve their life and learning and living outcomes, moving forward. And there are girls who have gone before their time is up because we feel that we’ve helped them as much as we can and that they’re ready to springboard, if you like, into to the next phase of their lives. But, yes, you miss every one of them. But that’s part of residential education. That’s part of education full stop.

Katy Gosset: Do you still remember individuals?

Brenda Ellis: Oh, yes. And our school has been around for a long time, but we still regularly get letters here enquiring after staff who have long left from girls who are now mothers themselves or were here 15 or 20 years ago, and they’re sort of writing in because they still feel a sense of connection to a place where they were happy and they were safe and they were succeeding and learning, in other areas of their lives where they hadn’t felt success before.

Katy Gosset: And an employee for 32 years, Sue Stuart, says the girls have been a big part of her life.

Sue Stuart:  Nothing quite like seeing girls who really have never had good friendships or been able to achieve to do all those things here. And that’s what happens. They get friendships, they achieve, they are not at the back of the class being ignored or bullied or whatever. Yeah, they’ve got everything and they are just so well looked after. It’s a magic place. More magic probably, than the last few years, Brenda, I would… Yeah, I would say that.

Katy Gosset: Because you’ve had lower numbers and are better able to…

Sue Stuart: Our whole ethos has changed here. I think that that has made most probably the biggest impact and that is due credit to Brenda.

Sue Stuart: It’s when you see little wee chickens like this one, when she first came she didn’t know which way was up, but she’s got friends. She was talking about staff one day and she was listing all their great points and she said ‘And you give great hugs, Sue.’

(Both laugh)

Sue Stuart: But, you know, that’s because she is a wee girl and she does miss her family.

Katy Gosset: So how does it make you feel when she says ‘You give great hugs’?

Sue Stuart: I suppose you get to know the girls, you form relationships. And I think relationships are really very important with these girls that you get to know them and they learn to trust you. And it’s that thing that just keeps ticking over. That’s how we get the results we do, we have relationships with these girls. So, yeah, it makes you feel warm inside when they say ‘You give great hugs, Sue’ or ‘You’re funny’. Yeah, all these things that because we are loco parentis for them.

Katy Gosset: It must be hard for you when they go.

Sue Stuart: Oh, yes. (Laughs) We have been known to shed the odd tear. Yeah, certainly. And before we had our two-year term which we had for girls some girls we had, when I was here earlier, we had for eight years. So we were very much part of their life.

Katy Gosset: So they’re like your children?

Sue Stuart: And you’ll hear from them every now and then. Like a girl who is actually quite a troubled young lady, I still hear from her once a year. Photos of the children. She’s had a job. This girl would never have had any of that. She’s got her children. That could have not have happened because she came from such a dysfunctional family. And that’s the skills we taught her. I mean, if you can get anything more rewarding than that I’d like to know what it is. (Laughs) So yeah. Amazing place.

Katy Gosset: The last area that we’re visiting now is the part that effectively sets the students up for life beyond here.

(Knocking)

Woman Hello. Come in.

Brenda Ellis: We are very orderly, aren’t we? Done our dishes, have we, Ashley? Didn’t have any tonight, did you?

Ashley: We did. We had cakes.

Katy Gosset: This is the flatting house where Renon, Bailey and Ashley are learning to live together with the help of Suze Martin.

Suze Martin: We’re actually just starting to sit down. We’re doing good changes this term because we’ve got three girls that work so collaboratively together that we feel that instead of us telling them what to do, they’re moving on to the next stage and that’s seeing what needs to be done and doing it. You’re a lovely wee unit together, aren’t you?

Brenda Ellis: Its super independence, isn’t it?

Suze Martin: Tell Katy what you girls are meant to do in the flats.

Girl: We do all our own cooking, cleaning and… laughs

Suze Martin: Shopping for groceries.

Girl: You should be doing this. You’ve been here the longest.

Katy Gosset: What else do you guys do?

Girl: Thanks for the support, guys.

Suze Martin: A big part of it is that in here they have to resolve conflict by themselves, as well. So they actually need to work together and someone has to spend a bit of time teaching the really good social skills so when they go and move into a flat they know how to do the problems as they arise, rather than having to go to someone else to deal with them for them.

Katy Gosset: Here’s the scenario. So someone hasn’t cleaned the toilet or the toilet needs a clean, how do you decide to whose going to do it?

Girl: We have a job roster thing so every different week we’ll change the jobs. So one person will be on the toilet for a week and if they don’t clean it we’ll let them know they need to clean it.

Katy Gosset: And that works well, that process? You all discuss things fairly and people think ‘Yeah, fair cop. I should be doing that.’

Suze Martin: We’ve had no problems with jobs. As much as possible we let the girls be responsible for being ready on time for things, for getting what they need to do done in that timeframe, and they’re pretty amazing at doing it.

Katy Gosset: So do you guys get to choose what you’re going to cook for dinner?

Suze Martin: And what sort of things have you been making?

Bailey: We all cook different things. Last time Ash cooked potato-top pie, I cooked roast chicken and Renon cooked rice risotto, so we all cooked different things.

Suze Martin: Then they’ll choose their next recipe and we work alongside them and bit by bit they can completely do it by themselves. I’m not very good       at that part, am I?

Girls: No. (Laughs)

Suze Martin: I have to sit and not pick up a spoon or anything, just let them go. It’s really hard. But they do very well.

Katy Gosset: You know what they say. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Do you have to chase her out of the kitchen sometimes and say ‘Be gone!’?

Renon: We have to tell her to go and sit down sometimes.     

Suze Martin: Or you slap my hand with a wooden spoon. You’ve been known to do that a few times, too.

Katy Gosset: Alright. Did I overhear before that some of you guys have been cooking food at home over the holidays? How about you, Ashley? What does your family say?

Ashley: They said that I should do all the cooking at home.

(All laugh)

Suze Martin: And how many people? ‘Cause you’ve got eight at home. So cooking a meal for eight.

Renon: That’s a lot of people.

Katy Gosset: That is a lot of people. It’s a good effort. And do you find, Renon, that you are the wise leader because you’re a bit older? Do you pass on suggestions to the others?

(Girls laugh)

Renon: Um…

Suze Martin: I think you speak up for yourself a lot more than you used to, Renon, that you actually speak up for yourself, which is a huge thing for you to do. It’s very hard. It was very hard for you to start with, wasn’t it, to say when you didn’t like something that was happening? We’re very pleased that you can say to somebody ‘I’m not happy with that. No, I don’t want to.’ I just think these girls do so well, especially for their age. And I don’t think they realise how far they’ve come because when you ask them is it easy or is it hard, it was very hard when you first came. I think you’ve forgotten that, but it was hard to fit everything in. And now you can see the bench from when we had dinner. The dishes are done. And now it is easy. It’s just done because it needs to be done, and they actually can see when things need to be done. And I think that’s quite a big deal for girls age 13 and 16 to be able to do that. I couldn’t at that age.

(Girls laugh)   

Katy Gosset: Alright.

Brenda Ellis: Well, off we go on our travels. Thanks, sweetheart. See you in the morning.

Katy Gosset: Thank you.

Brenda Ellis: Don’t be late for school.

(Women all laugh)

Katy Gosset: Since this programme was recorded some of the girls have moved on, and Brenda Ellis says there are now places available at Salisbury School. She says she’s working collaboratively with the ministry to help more students access what the school has to offer.

Well, that’s One in Five for today. You can find this and out other programmes by searching for One in Five at radionz.co.nz. We’ll be back next week with more on the experiences of disability around Aotearoa.