Unexpected visit about our Student Daughter?

agrinnall

Dunroamin wrote: »

I think most parents of teenagers have heard of Connexions which usually aren't government agencies.

You might be right, but clearly the OP hadn't heard of it so I thought a bit more information than you supplied might be of help.

Florasaurus

I've had the same thing, so has my sister, except we get it over the phone. I'm not sure if you've heard of Conexxions, but they're a kind of help centre for people under 25(?). I think it's if you've ever visited them for anything, they keep you on file and from time to time they'll ring you just to make sure that their file on you is up to date so that if you ever come in again, they know what your situation is

I wouldn't worry about it, it's completely normal

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Not sure Connexions is exactly "normal" as I haven't ever heard of it before - I would have guessed it was probably a train company if asked !

Careers advisers and child social workers will have heard of it, but as most youngsters make it to 16-19 and even adulthood without contact with either of those, I would disagree with the suggestion that most have heard of it. It simply is not at all normal of course for officials with such a vague brief to be knocking unsolicited on anyone's door. If it was official, it is just a symptom of the clueless managements which sent them. Now if it was a regular member of a functioning local community like say a district nurse from the 60s or 70s directly employed by the local authority and not by say Serco, or G4S or some other third party agency, then it might be normal to get a friendly recognisable knock on the door. But in 2013, in pairs, unannounced ? That's just unwanted prying at best.

What is of course completely normal in 2013 might be the collection / "maintaining" / "creating" / "owning" terrabytes of irrelevant personal data. It has got so bad that most of us do not answer our own phones with our names any more for fear that all we have done is earned someone some money for simply confirming that the name is linked to the number called!

Of course if some kind of street-walker manpower is employed, the recording of hours and numbers of "support visits conducted" in collecting data is valid "support activity" in order to continue to claim justification for receipt of a significant wedge of public funding budget.

In this case it is appears to be for some long ago abdicated decentralised piece of the education budget. It looks like it was originally one of those half-baked initiatives in the noughties for which the Department of Education were infamous. After they each failed, as civil servants never fail, it was all just restructured.

Education Department wheezes often achieved very little at enormous cost but of course enabled a bunch of highly paid civil servants to claim they were in charge of something new which warranted even higher pay as they drew closer to retirement.

In other words, I am guessing it is a total waste of public funds, and should have been knocked on the head in 2005 instead of being decentralised over some phased arrangement into the unaccountable hands of a select few job-for-life-pretending-to-be-something-important-before-cushy-retirement "senior" project administration directors attached to each of the local authorities.

... Well at least, after a bit of Googling, and finally coming across this, which contains this nugget

The key objectives for Connexions were considered to be working with disaffected young people, particularly those not in education and training, and - linked to this - encouraging young people to stay on in education or training and providing impartial advice and guidance."

, and then considering what on earth that might have to do with the knock on our normal OP's door (that's the one where disaffected kids never lived), this was my most cynical take on it !

PS I wouldn't be surprised if one took a picture of the other with a copy of the day's Guardian newspaper in front of your door to show their bosses and auditors that they were there!

manhattan

Thanks for the info.

We just thought it may be some Uni grant/loan spot check.

Will get her to ask for ID in the future.

Lokolo

I am 25 and I've heard of Connexions! I know everyone in my school and local area would have. We had a Connexions branch and they came into our school every year!

Although I had no use for them, I know of others that had used them.

BargainMad_3

Whilst it appears strange (and is) you can rest assured that this actually IS the normal behaviour of Connexions !

Others have mentioned that this kind of activity is to justify their existence. I am afraid that sums it up !

They build "client" lists (potential students) and then monitor/measure their destinations. Home visits provide a nice excuse for a trip out (all expenses paid of course) and they have to be in "pairs" because they are dealing with impressionable adults. They are wasting hard earned taxpayers' money so they might as well double up.

Of course they have burnt through BILLIONS of pounds of said taxpayers money but no doubt they have people producing glossy slides and brochures telling us how well they are doing.

GwylimT

Connexions didn't visit my son but they did contact him while at university and still contact him near the university holidays to give advice about job hunting etc and relevant information about work experience roles that are relevant to his study.

BargainMad_3

GwylimT wrote: »

Connexions didn't visit my son but they did contact him while at university and still contact him near the university holidays to give advice about job hunting etc and relevant information about work experience roles that are relevant to his study.

Another example of their nannying, justifying their own job existence.

Thousands of connexions advisers making thousands of calls to thousands of clients. And costing the taxpayer about £0.5 billion per year since 1999.

Add it all up......

savingforarainyday

This may answer why? Connexions was a service funded by/within the local authority. They had the duty to follow and know exactyly where all young people of school age up to the age on 19.

The connexions service was then ended and became the local careers service, the duty to follow up the outcome of young people leaving education ended with it.

This duty has now been re-instated this year. My son received a letter which he ignored asking what he was doing now, and then this was followed up with a couple of phone calls. He told them he was starting uni in September, so won't hear from them again.

Lokolo

BargainMad wrote: »

Whilst it appears strange (and is) you can rest assured that this actually IS the normal behaviour of Connexions !

Others have mentioned that this kind of activity is to justify their existence. I am afraid that sums it up !

They build "client" lists (potential students) and then monitor/measure their destinations. Home visits provide a nice excuse for a trip out (all expenses paid of course) and they have to be in "pairs" because they are dealing with impressionable adults. They are wasting hard earned taxpayers' money so they might as well double up.

Of course they have burnt through BILLIONS of pounds of said taxpayers money but no doubt they have people producing glossy slides and brochures telling us how well they are doing.

Is that meant to be haven't?

To be quite honest, if Connexions is one of your biggest gripes on tax payers money then you have problems.

The fact over 1 million young people are NEET, does show the problem. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24745612