what is an emergency only guardianship service?
We are often asked if we offer an 'emergency only' guardianship service. We imagine, in these instances, that the overseas parent has just been told by their UK boarding school that they will need to appoint an educational guardian for their child for the duration of their studies. This news and additional cost may come as a surprise and they don't really understand what a guardian is or does. If they live in Europe, relatively close to the UK, they may think they don't need a guardian. They then seek out a low-cost solution and think that if they ask for an Emergency Only service this will tick the box and be a cheaper option. They think that this will be enough. Maybe this is because they haven't thought about all of the things that can happen during an academic year. They don't know all of the times a school guardian may be required.
why 'emergency only' just does not stack up
Bright World Guardianships' Senior Management team has conducted careful feasibility studies around the concept of offering emergency-only guardianship in the sense that we would do absolutely nothing for the child unless they, the school. or their parents asked us to.
We deduced that this could only work if
- the child was impeccably behaved during the year
- settled in on their own and felt no homesickness
- didn't use a host family for exeats or holiday times and never needed one
- made their own way and back to and from airports safely and without mishap
- their flights were always on time and never cancelled
- they had no reason to need an independent listener to share concerns with
If we could absolutely guarantee that all the above were true, then technically it would be possible for a low fee to be paid and for us to actually NEVER contact them. However, it is clearly impossible to guarantee this and so we still strongly feel this is NOT a good formula. This is a risky path to take that could never ensure that the welfare of the child is properly and fully promoted. We are, therefore, not willing to offer this service.
every child deserves and needs the same high standard of guardianship
Bright World is proud of the work that we do. So many things happen during the academic year and often during holiday times when schools are closed and we are the ONLY lifeline available to parents.
Our experience means that we genuinely know that our services are beneficial and crucial at times for ALL students. We cannot allow some students to be on a 'lower level' of guardianship than others as this would mean compromising safeguarding standards as a result.
We consider all our students to be deserving of a high minimum level of services that is covered by our very competitive service fee and we expect the parents who choose Bright World to feel the same and value what we do.
what emergencies happen during the school year?
When we are asked for an 'emergency only' package we wonder if parents have considered what that could mean and why it would necessarily mean a low cost option. Emergency services are a huge part of what we do for ALL students under our care at Bright World. We need to always be ready to react to incidents that occur on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. We need to have safe and well-organised solutions to offer 24/7.
Offering this emergency service reliably and professionally takes a solid and well managed infrastructure. It needs reliable staff who are on hand to assist around the clock. Here are just some of the instances where the Bright World team are here to help when you need us most:
cancelled flights - we cancel and rebook travel arrangements at the 'drop of a hat' 24/7 to save wasted time and money
changed flight times - we have avoided scores of missed flights, saved parents thousands of pounds and kept students anxiety free with fast, on the spot re-routing of drivers to get students to the boarding gate on time
no show of privately arranged drivers - sometimes not everyone is as reliable as they may promise. We have stepped in on countless occasions to offer a travel and escort service to students who would otherwise be stranded at the airport
student arrives at school too early and it is closed - if our students make their own arrangements sometimes they don't think about or check school opening times. We often have to step in at all hours to arrange a host family for the day or a night in these instances.
unexpected exeat weekend or school closure - schools will sometimes introduce a closure unexpectedly. If our students cannot go home then we always step in and find somewhere safe for them to stay at the drop of a hat.
suspensions - children can be asked to leave school if they have behaved badly. This can even be if they are caught vaping on school grounds as an example. Parents are guardians are told to remove the child within hours at short notice. We are always there with a solution usually within minutes rather than hours.
our pro-active approach to guardianship
The Bright World guardianship programme, rather than simply offering the services above when asked in an emergency, takes a more pro-active approach. We think this is vital to offer independent support when it comes to safeguarding overseas students studying in the uk.
Just some examples of our pro-active approach include:
- Settling in visits from our Local Coordinator with reports back to parents and liaison with school on any teething issues.
- After students have stayed with a Bright World host family we meet with them and conduct a Care Plan. These reports offer overseas parents a valuable insight into their child's well being. They also crucially allow students to air any concerns.
- Easy online student and host family feedback forms carefully monitored during and after each host family stay
- Attendance at Parents' evenings offering students a vital independent mentor to support them in their academic feedback sessions
one fee, one level (with built in flexibility)
Our termly service fee of £720 including VAT is competitive and reasonably-priced and satisfies the minimum standards required by schools and by AEGIS, our accrediting body. It basically offers all services that an Emergency Only package would offer with the addition of our pro-active work as mentioned above.
For those needing more services such as regular host families and airport transfers and excorted check in and boarding, we then offer a variable refundable deposit according to parents' needs in terms of host family accommodation and travel services which are optional extras. This allows financial flexibility for parents whilst allowing us to remain robust when it comes to safeguarding our students
We are confident that parents who may not predict that they need the support of a guardian will be happy they chose Bright World if they do need to call on us.
from James Foster, our Commercial Director
"We just couldn't make a reduced service level stack up to the requirements that schools demand via their guardianship policies. A lower cost emergency-only package would not meet the high standards we set ourselves as an organisation in terms of safeguarding the students under our care."
