Safety Concerns Regarding NCS The Challenge

I was employed as a Learning and Behaviour Specialist for NCS: The Challenge back in 2018/2019. My understanding of the role, based on what was discussed at interview, was that I’d be providing support to group facilitators and other staff around learning needs and behavioural issues, something my background in mental health positioned me quite well for.

The post began with a group meeting specifically for learning and behaviour specialists. We attended an induction, which covered what the National Citizenship Service was, who The Challenge were, and what our role would be. Most of the latter focused on our use of the IT system, which we could use to request resources for children who were in need of additional support. The culture was very much one where clinical terms were avoided. We were discouraged from talking about neurodiversity or mental health in specific terms, such as autism or psychosis, even if we were working with children with a recognised learning need or neuroatypicality.

My first day in the office began with a light hazing. I was given a t-shirt, told to leave the office, and go to a nearby building so that I could help new arrivals with their luggage. This was obviously nothing to do with my role, but I didn’t mind. I met some parents and found myself repeatedly explaining that I couldn’t answer their questions because my role was totally different from the one I was doing and was based at the main office, a location totally different from the one I was in. It was at this point that I started to get the sense that the provision was poorly managed.

I then returned to the office to be told that I had no computer access because my DBS check hadn’t come back yet. I was told to find other things to do. So I spent the first few days making resources that would help me perform my duties when the DBS came in, such as a Gantt chart that gave me oversight of all the various waves (which describe stages of the provision or project timeline). I was also occasionally sent to meet students who were showing signs of restlessness or other behavioural difficulty. Before long, I was asked to join another manager in a small room so that he could brief me on something. He proceeded to explain that one of the facilitators was asking for additional support workers for two children in the group. I was encouraged to deny these requests. I explained that I’d be doing my job as I saw fit and ignoring whatever clandestine attempt at persuasion the present meeting was. This put me on management’s radar as a potential problem, I suspect, as my colleagues’ attitudes changed quite soon after this meeting.

I spent the next couple of weeks meeting facilitators and students, dealing with minor behavioural disturbances, and so on. I continued to make resources, such as information sheets for colleagues on neurodiversity and mental health. My methods were not well received. My official suggestion in the case of the child who was showing lack of engagement and low mood because his friends were in another group was to simply move him. Apparently there was no possible way to do this. I explained this to the child in question and received a standing ovation from his friends at the next assembly, which was quite funny.

There was also a child who displayed some signs of autism spectrum disorder but had no diagnosis. He was highly intelligent but struggled socially. He also curled his hands back on his wrists and rocked in his chair, which may or may not have been indicative of ASD. I wrote my report and recommendation that he be allocated a support worker, additionally because he was being bullied for his social communication difficulties by some older and physically larger peers. The group’s facilitator was a trainee clinical psychologist who appeared to be struggling with quite severe anxiety symptoms (she avoided me at every opportunity and ran away in tears when I tried to engage her in conversation about the students and their needs). She was very against the idea of discussing the students in terms of neurodiversity or pathology, and so I found myself struggling quite a bit to get my work done.

I also joined one of the groups on a visit to a local church, where they were due to volunteer by collecting up all the rubbish that littered the churchyard, including used heroin needles. The children were supplied with no PPE for this. The vicar, a suspiciously cheerful man who insisted on playing icebreaker games intended for toddlers with what were effectively teenagers struck me as somewhat out of touch. He was also quite hostile when asked (by one of the students) if the sandwiches his parishoners provided were halal.

A few days later, I met a colleague from the office who actually seemed to share my concern for the students, the wider mismanagement, and the difficulties I faced in trying to just do my job. She agreed that the entire provision was unsafe, and so she was going to resign. I decided to join her. We spent the day working together, visitng different groups and doing our best to undo some of the damage that was being done.

One thing that struck me was how inexperienced the facilitators were. These were effectively first year undergraduates placed in charge of groups of about thirty teenagers. Safeguarding was next to nonexistent. I had to supervise and explain to one boy that it wasn’t appropriate for him to be groping his (I presume) girlfriend, who appeared to be at once condoning and terrified of the behaviour. Children shared mixed dorms, and safety issues like kitchen fires were quite common. For students who were experiencing quite severe mental health difficulties, there was no direct plug in to CAMHS or similar clinical support. Self harm and suicidality weren’t as much managed as they were held in stasis.

I finally went in to my manager and explained that I no longer wished to be part of the programme. I had no computer access, and my methods were clearly at odds with the established processes that NCS have for managing behaviour. The methods used by other learning and behaviour specialists varied, but most focused on authoritarianism. One learnign and behaviour specialist was more focused on the colour of his lanyard than anything. He was very upset that he’d not been provided with a black lanyard, like in previous years. This was a grown man.

Another thing that struck me as odd was how cult-like the sessions were. Children seemed to be being indoctrinated into a system of black and white thinking (if you saw someone committing a crime would you be a bystander or stop the crime? - no grey area, no report the crime, no call the police, they had to choose one or the other). Classes were also taught specific clapping rhythms that they had to perform at the start and end of each session. The whole thing seemed very odd and psychologically unhealthy to me, not to mention unsafe.

Suffice to say, my kids won’t be doing NCS any time soon, whether managed by The Challenge or some other provider working for the NCS Trust.