Frances Rickford talks to Louisa Day, president of the National Association of Social Workers in Education, about the government’s strategy for truancy and the role of those working to improve school attendance.

Louisa Day is a specialist education welfare officer in Carlisle in north west England, working with ethnic minority and traveller children and young people. Since April, she has also been president of the National Association of Social Workers in Education (Naswe), a professional association that has both a long history and ambitious plans for the future.

With just under 500 members, Naswe represents a minority of education social workers and education welfare officers but numbers are on the rise, says Day.

Naswe is certainly well established even though all its officers are volunteers. Day explains: "The Education Act of 1880 made it compulsory for all school boards and school attendance committees, as they were called then, to adopt bylaws making school attendance compulsory for children aged between five and 12."

These bodies appointed school attendance officers who in 1884 formed their own professional association.

"We were originally employed in a punitive capacity but quickly developed the welfare aspect of the role as obstructions to accessing education became apparent - issues like clothing, meals and neglect.

"I think this is why we are so reluctant to go back to a largely punitive role again."

Naswe has welcomed the government’s interest in and focus on improving school attendance and behaviour, but is concerned that education social workers are not turned into what Day calls "traffic wardens for education attendance".

Under measures in the Antisocial Behaviour Bill, education social workers among others will have powers to impose fixed penalty notices on the parents of persistent truants. Although Day believes some will use their new powers, the association passed a resolution at its recent national conference condemning the introduction of fixed penalty notices. She explains: "Truancy is the symptom of a much bigger and more complex issue. Improving school attendance means more focus on reducing deprivation instead of punishing parents."

Naswe is already attracting Connexions personal advisers and learning mentors into its ranks and hopes to recruit more. The three groups have been brought together under the umbrella of new national occupational standards and a qualifications framework for delivering support services for children, young people and their families. Under the framework, which is still being developed, common, shared and specialist functions of each of the three groups have been mapped, and some new functions have been proposed. Naswe has been closely involved in the process and Day says: "We will at last have national standards for what we do, including training standards and a flexible qualifications framework. Until now there has been almost no national input into the profession, and we do feel understaffed, undervalued and underfunded, so we are very excited."

Naswe is a professional association rather than a trade union but has close links with public sector union Unison. Naswe’s main activity is organising professional development and training opportunities for its members but it hopes to become a more influential force in relation to policy in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as well as England.

"One thing which may have a big impact on our members is the children’s green paper. We’ve been expecting it to say something about the children’s sector workforce, and our fears have been that the agenda for our service would be punitive.

"We are a child-centred service - our motto is For Every Child, A Chance. We are there to ensure children and young people in difficulties get access to educational opportunities and we do not want to be traffic wardens for attendance. We are for more skilled than that."