What Does the 'Success Rate' of School Non-Attendance Support Actually Count? Before Looking at the Numbers, I Want to Verify the Denominator and the Meaning of 'Success'

'Over 90% success rate in returning to school'

'Many children return to school in a short period'

'Supported numerous families to date'

When researching school non-attendance, you may come across phrases like these.

For parents whose children have stopped going to school and who do not know what the future holds, a high success rate can be a great source of hope.

If so many families have succeeded, perhaps our family can change too.

Even if our approach until now has been wrong, perhaps it is not too late if we are taught the right method.

I think it is only natural to feel that way.

I cannot simply criticize parents who are moved by high numbers as being

'deceived by advertisements.'

No one tells you what you should do.

Even if you consult with the school, you are told to wait and see for a while.

Medical institutions cannot be booked immediately.

You cannot talk to your child about their future path.

Only time passes by.

At such times, a number like a 'success rate' looks like a signpost placed in a chaotic world.

However, it is better to calmly verify where that signpost is pointing.

Before discussing whether the success rate is high or low,

we must first clarify what exactly is being measured.

What exactly is being counted in that success rate?

I would like to start by thinking about that.

A success rate cannot be interpreted by the numerator alone

A success rate is calculated by dividing the number of successful cases by the total number of subjects.

It is not a difficult concept.

Even so, in advertisements and performance reports, only the number or percentage of successes catches the eye, and the denominator is often hard to see.

For example, suppose there were one hundred inquiries.

Of those, sixty families proceeded to a detailed consultation.

Forty families were judged to be eligible for support.

Thirty families actually signed a contract.

Twenty families completed the program to the end.

Of those, eighteen children returned to school.

If the twenty families who completed the program are used as the denominator, the success rate is ninety percent.

However, if the one hundred families who initially inquired are used as the denominator, it is eighteen percent.

In both cases, the calculation itself is not wrong.

However, the content being conveyed is completely different.

Are only the families who received support being counted?

Are families who dropped out along the way included?

Are children who were judged during the initial consultation to be a poor fit for the method included?

How are children treated who were recommended to another institution due to severe anxiety, physical or mental health issues, bullying, or developmental characteristics?

When reading numbers, you need to look not only at the number of people who succeeded, but also at who was not included in the denominator from the start.

Children who could not receive support disappear from the numbers

Each type of support has its own target audience.

No single method can accommodate every child.

Some children start moving forward by reviewing their lifestyle habits and family interactions.

On the other hand, there are children who need responses to bullying, children who need medical support, children with significant learning difficulties, and children who need the school environment itself to change.

Narrowing the target is not a bad thing in itself.

Not forcing oneself to take on conditions outside one's expertise and connecting them to appropriate institutions is actually a sincere judgment.

The problem is that the success rate calculated after narrowing the target

appears as if it is a 'number that applies to all children who do not attend school'.

It looks like that.

Children who meet certain conditions were selected, and high results were achieved among them.

What we can understand from that is

only the 'possibility of a certain effect for children who meet the conditions'.

It does not mean that the same method can be used for all children who do not attend school.

In fact, even in domestic studies that encourage early return to school, not all families who received the proposal participated, and the intervention group consisted of cases where parents accepted the method. Furthermore, the researchers themselves state that careful judgment is necessary when strong physical or mental problems or bullying are confirmed.

The fact that 'there are children who did well'

and

'it works just as well for everyone'

are different things.

There is a significant gap between that conclusion.

Is it a 'success' if they attend school for one day?

The next thing I want to verify is the definition of success.

They were able to wake up in the morning.

They were able to put on their uniform.

They were able to leave the house.

They were able to go as far as the school gate.

They were able to spend time in the infirmary or a separate room.

They were able to attend class for just one hour.

They were able to spend one day in the classroom.

They continued attending school for one week.

Absences decreased significantly over one school term.

These are all important changes.

If a child who couldn't leave the house until yesterday was able to go to the school gate, there is no need to treat that step as insignificant.

However, the success rate changes depending on what point you call 'successful return to school'.

Is it a success if they attend even once?

Is it also a success if they are in a state where they can attend a few days a week?

Does it include time spent in a separate room rather than the classroom?

How many weeks or months must it continue to be considered a success?

If they start staying home again, does it remain a success?

The terms 'returning to school,' 're-enrollment,' and 'resolution' do not have a single, unified meaning.

Even in the world of research, there are multiple definitions for difficulty in attending school or absenteeism, and different metrics are used, such as attendance rates, number of days absent, and time spent participating in class.

Therefore, when you see a high success rate,

you should ask,

'What criteria are used to count something as a success?'

This is not a malicious question.

It is a necessary question to correctly understand the numbers.

Being able to attend school and having reduced distress are not the same thing.

They have become able to go to school.

This is a visible change.

Attendance days can be recorded.

Tardiness and early departures can also be counted.

On the other hand, the anxiety, fatigue, and resignation inside a child are difficult to see.

Are they going to school every morning while carrying intense tension?

Are they just waiting for time to pass in the classroom?

Are they so exhausted after returning home that they cannot move for hours?

Even if they want to rest again, have they become unable to say so because they are afraid of disappointing their parents?

Increased attendance is important.

However, one cannot judge the child's entire state based on that alone.

Reviews that organize research on school non-attendance support also note that school attendance has been the most frequently measured outcome. On the other hand, it is organized that it is also necessary to measure anxiety, fear, depression, self-efficacy, and overall life functioning.

Even in recent meta-analyses of cognitive-behavioral interventions, while some improvement in attendance is observed, analyses that include a control group sometimes show that the effects on anxiety and depression are not clear.

This is not to say that support is meaningless.

It is to say that the numbers showing improved attendance alone do not tell us whether the child's distress has also improved.

Are we counting what happens 'after returning to school'?

When considering the success rate of support for school non-attendance, the observation period is also important.

At the time the support ended, the child was attending school every day.

But what was the situation one month later?

What was it like after one semester?

What was it like after the environment changed due to moving up a grade or entering a new school?

When they started staying home again, were they able to ask for help on their own?

At that time, were the family members able to respond differently than before?

The meaning of the numbers changes depending on whether you only look at the state at the end of support or whether you check what happens afterward.

In support aimed at resuming school attendance in the short term, changes are often easier to see immediately after starting.

However, the child's life continues even after the support period ends.

The next periodic exam will come.

There will be class reassignments.

Friendship dynamics will change.

The time to decide on a career path will come.

They may experience distress again at those times.

There is no need to call the fact that they stayed home again a failure of the initial support.

This is because a child's recovery does not proceed in a straight line.

However, one cannot accept a figure that does not track the 'aftermath' as a long-term resolution rate.

Is it the success rate at the end of support?

Is it the success rate after three months?

Is it the percentage that continues even after one year?

Ideally, an observation period should also be included next to the numbers.

How are families who quit midway counted?

Even after starting support, there are families who quit midway.

They could no longer afford the costs.

They could no longer agree with the methods.

The child's condition worsened.

The parents could not agree on the approach.

They moved to a different support organization.

The relationship with the support provider did not go well.

The reasons for quitting midway vary by family.

If such families are excluded from the denominator of the success rate, the number will be higher.

Of course, there may be cases where contact is lost and the subsequent situation cannot be confirmed.

Tracking everything is not easy.

Even so,

Is it a success rate only for families who continued to the end?

Is it the success rate of all families who started the support?

How are families who dropped out along the way treated?

It is better to clarify this difference.

In educational and medical research, excluding those who drop out can lead to an overestimation of effectiveness, so who is included in the analysis is considered important.

I think it is appropriate to apply the same perspective when looking at the track record of private support services.

Do not look only at success stories.

Look at how families for whom it did not work out are treated.

The attitude of that support service can sometimes be seen there.

Without a comparison group, the effectiveness of a method cannot be known.

Seventy percent of children who received a certain type of support returned to school.

Hearing only that, it feels as if seventy percent were able to return because of that method.

However, there might have been children who could have returned due to the passage of time, the school's response, a change in grade level, or the child's own recovery, even without receiving that support.

They might have improved to the same degree even if they had received different support.

Multiple interventions are often carried out simultaneously, and it is sometimes impossible to know which one had an effect.

The way parents spoke to the child changed.

The homeroom teacher showed consideration.

A separate room was provided.

A friend came to pick them up.

Medication was adjusted.

The delay in learning was compensated for.

The individual began to consider pursuing further education.

When a child begins to take action, the reason is not necessarily just one.

That is why research involves setting up comparison groups, measuring states before and after support, and using multiple indicators.

Results without a comparison group are not meaningless.

The fact that there are children who actually changed has value.

However, what can be said from that is only,

'There were children who changed after receiving this support.'

That is all.

'Only this method caused the change'

'This method is the most superior'

cannot be claimed.

In fact, past studies have reported cases where, even if the attendance rate of children who received a certain support improved, no clear superiority was confirmed compared to other educational support.

Having numbers and being able to prove causality from those numbers are two different things.

Parental satisfaction is also important, but it is not a panacea.

As a track record of support,

'Many users are satisfied'

'Highly rated by parents'

is sometimes shown.

Parental satisfaction is important.

They were able to have someone listen to them.

Conflicts within the home have decreased.

We have gained a perspective on the future.

We have learned how to communicate with the school.

These are important outcomes of support.

However, the fact that parents are satisfied and the fact that the child's own condition has improved are not necessarily the same thing.

The parents felt relieved.

Household rules have been established.

The child has stopped arguing back.

The child has started going to school.

How does the child themselves feel about that?

Do they feel that their opinions were heard?

Do they feel that they had no choice but to obey the adults?

In support where the child is not met and the situation is heard only from the parents, this is particularly difficult to see.

There is no need to doubt the parents' evaluation.

The changes visible to the parents are also real.

However, success as seen by the parents is not necessarily the same as success as seen by the child.

Rather than making one or the other the correct answer, it is necessary to look at both.

If they do not return to school, is it a failure?

If we think of the success of school non-attendance support only as 'returning to the original school,' children who chose a different path appear to be failures.

They did not return to their enrolled school.

However, they transferred to another school.

They became able to attend an education support center.

They decided to advance to a correspondence high school.

They resumed learning online.

They regained connections with the outside world through part-time jobs or community activities.

They began their stalled studies little by little.

They became able to explain their own condition in words.

Are these changes not included in success?

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology still maintains that regarding support for school non-attendance, it is necessary to aim not just for the result of 'attending school,' but for children to proactively grasp their own path and become socially independent. Furthermore, it requests that not only the children but also the schools examine the factors that make it difficult to fit in and strive for improvement.

School has value.

There is much to be gained at school, not just in classes, but also through relationships with friends, school events, the rhythm of daily life, and encounters with teachers.

There are children who are better off returning if they can.

I do not take returning to school lightly.

However, one cannot call a child's support a failure simply because they did not return to their current school.

There are children who have regained the act of learning itself, rather than where they learn.

There are children who have begun to think about their own path, rather than one decided by adults.

If only the rate of return to the original school is used as the success rate, the growth of such children disappears from the numbers.

Providing numbers is not bad

Showing a success rate itself is not bad.

For parents, materials to choose support are necessary.

What kind of children have you supported in the past, and what changes have occurred?

How much does it cost, and how long does it take?

In what cases would you recommend another institution?

Disclosing such information is also the responsibility of those providing support.

If you provide no numbers at all,

and only write things like,

'We stand by each individual' or 'We believe in the child's potential,'

the actual situation remains unclear.

The problem is not the existence of numbers.

It is making it seem as if the value of support is determined solely by numbers.

I believe that a success rate requires at least the following explanations:

Who was included in the denominator?

How was success defined?

For how long was the status verified?

How were families who quit midway treated?

Who verified the results?

Did you also look at states other than school attendance?

If the conditions for the numbers are clear, parents can consider them in the context of their own families.

If you do not explain the conditions and only highlight high numbers, the numbers become a tool for persuasion rather than information.

Things to verify when looking at success rates

When considering a support provider, you should feel free to ask questions.

Who is included in the denominator of that success rate?

Is it all the families who inquired?

Is it the families who signed a contract?

Is it only the families who stayed until the end?

What kind of state constitutes success?

Is it when they attend school even once?

Is it when they continue to attend for a certain period?

Does it include attending in a separate room or transferring schools?

Do you check on their status even after the support has ended?

Are families who quit halfway through included in the numbers?

Do you also check on the child's own anxiety and fatigue?

If they choose a path that does not involve returning to school, is that considered a failure?

Support providers that can answer these questions specifically at least understand their own limitations.

Conversely,

If you are told, 'You won't succeed because you worry about the details,'

'The child won't change unless the parent trusts us completely,'

or 'There are so many successful people, there is no need to doubt,'

then it is okay to pause and reconsider.

Since this involves your child's life, parents have the right to ask questions.

What I want to see is not the success rate, but what happens 'after a failure'

When looking at support providers, I want to know not just about their high success rates, but how they handle situations when things don't go well.

Do they re-evaluate their methods when a child cannot attend school as planned?

Do they re-assess the child's condition?

Do they connect the child with another specialist?

Do they blame the parents for a lack of effort?

To a child who has started staying home again,

do they say,

'You've gone back to square one'?

Or do they say,

'Let's think together about what didn't work'?

In education, nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

Every child is different.

Even if you say the same thing, how they receive it will differ.

There are times when what a child could do yesterday, they cannot do today.

A method that worked once is not guaranteed to work forever.

That is why I trust someone who can change their approach after a failure more than someone who claims to have a method that never fails.

Instead of forcing a child to fit a single method, I change the method to fit the child in front of me.

I believe that is where the work of education lies.

Even if you take a break from school, you don't have to lose your learning

When a child is unable to attend school for an extended period, parents become anxious.

They worry that their child will fall behind in their studies.

They worry that their future options will narrow.

They worry that their child will lose their connection to society.

Those concerns are real.

I do not intend to say that 'doing nothing is fine'.

It is better to address academic delays at an early stage.

It is also better to establish a rhythm of daily life while observing the individual's condition.

It is also better not to sever ties with schools and support organizations.

However, being unable to go to school is not the same as being unable to learn.

Academic delays can be filled in one by one.

Before returning to the current grade's curriculum, you just need to check where they stopped.

On days when they cannot open a textbook, just reading a short sentence is fine.

If they cannot sit at a desk, you can start with conversation.

Returning to their current school is one path.

Learning in a different environment is another path.

I believe what is important is that adults do not set a ceiling on a child's potential prematurely.

Just because they cannot move now does not mean they will not be able to move in the future.

Just because they are behind in their studies now does not mean they will remain behind forever.

What is needed is not to force them back into the mold of a successful person as quickly as possible.

It is about finding the strength that remains within the child and connecting with it once again.

What we truly want to count

When looking at the success rate of school non-attendance support, I want to consider this at the end.

What is it that we truly want to count?

Is it the number of days they went to school?

Is it the number of times they were able to wake up in the morning?

Is it the amount of time they were able to stay in the classroom?

All of these are important.

However, isn't what we really want to know what lies beyond that?

Has the child become able to sleep with peace of mind?

Has the child become able to put their own state into words?

Has the child become able to rely on someone when they are in trouble?

Has the child become able to think that they can start over even if they fail?

Has the child been able to avoid giving up on learning entirely?

Has the child become able to think about their own future as their own concern?

Things like these do not easily become numbers.

Just because they don't, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be counted.

To continue to carefully observe things that are difficult to quantify.

I believe that is the work of education and support.

Having a high success rate is not a bad thing.

However, we must not pretend that the children outside those numbers do not exist from the very beginning.

Before looking at the success rate, look at the denominator.

Look at the definition of success.

Look at what happens afterward.

And finally, verify whether the child themselves is at the center of those numbers.

The value of support for school non-attendance is not determined solely by large numbers.

How do we face the one person who has slipped through the cracks of the statistics?

I believe that is where the true nature of that support is revealed.