Keeping the child at the centre

"An ambitious plan to ensure children across North Ayrshire get the best possible start has been launched. Called “Getting it Right For You”, the far-reaching strategy will be implemented over the next four years to improve children’s services and is a North Ayrshire first. It is based on the life of a child, covering the early years, primary and secondary school and contains a range of `promises`."

"The plan is the strategic response to the Children Count survey – one of the most powerful pieces of work carried out in developing children’s services in North Ayrshire. Almost 8000 young people and 630 families with young children took part in the survey which was designed by the Dartington Social Research Unit – a pioneering independent charity using data and evidence to influence policy to improve children’s outcomes."

Read more at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/north-ayrshire-council-launch-ambitious-8208071#IW4aKvFGu72owBkf.99

All very positive until you look at some of the promises which have resulted from the Children Count survey:

• your mum will have a named midwife who will look after both of you

• if your mum smokes, drinks alcohol or takes substances when she is pregnant with you, we will offer her a programme to help her to stop

• we will help your mum if she wants to breastfeed, as this is best for you

• we will support your dad and family members as they will be of great support to you and your mum

• you will have a named person (health visitor) who will be there for you and your family

• we will help your mum and dad learn what is important to be a supportive and confident parent.

In other words, there is little confidence in the quality of parenting in North Ayrshire and for the next eighteen years the Named Person will  keep a firm grip of mum and dad.

It`s called keeping the child at the centre. If ever a policy was designed to build a wedge between parents and their children, this is it.

Transforming children`s services conference Perth march 2016

 

John Swinney MSP, speaking at the `transforming children`s services conference` explains the thinking behind the data driven `learning journey` that is GIRFEC.
 

It means professionals working in collaboration, planning and designing early interventions and preventative services so that problems within families are nipped in the bud now, reducing the expenditure of more serious developments in the future. Since nobody can say what will happen in the future, that has got to be an act of faith.

Regardless, Mr Swinney feels that progress has been too slow and urges service providers to get on with it.
 

Knowing that the child is at the centre - for who does not support children`s wellbeing? - practitioners should have the confidence to break out of their silos, join together, and deal aggressively with objections from people and organisations who would set up barriers to this unified endeavour.

=================================

 

A unified endeavour that must deal with objectors aggressively; but that has got to include parents. Scary.

 

Researching GIRFEC

Francesca Kimberley - "Love Is Like Wings" Aberlour charity single

 

Aberlour is a children`s charity which claims to be there for young people and families across Scotland, helping transform lives for the better. It supports children and families through challenges like:

living with a disability

growing up in and leaving care

the impact of drugs and alcohol on families

It is also very much in favour of GIRFEC and the Named Person scheme and was one of the major charities which urged the Supreme Court to throw out the appeal against the Named Person legislation. 

More recently, Aberlour has signed an agreement with the newly created Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection at Stirling University.

The centre "undertakes original research and engages in a range of educational and knowledge exchange activities focused on enhancing the lives of children who are vulnerable to compromised development because of a range of personal, familial and social adversities"

I think it is worrying when charities collaborate with research institutions in this way, especially when they put forward such strong political views as they did regarding the Named Person scheme.

In addition, the term `compromised development` does not refer to any particular difficulty or specific set of circumstances. Taking such a broad sweep of the effects of a range of personal, familial and social adversities could bias the research in favour of the GIRFEC ideology by smoothing out individual differences.

Nevertheless, Brigid Daniel, who is Director of the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection has said:  

"I am delighted to be working closely with Aberlour and very much appreciate their support and involvement, along with other organisations, in the Seamless Services` research project which is researching the effectiveness of Scotland`s framework for child wellbeing Getting it Right for Every Child." http://www.stir.ac.uk/social-sciences/news/news-archive/2016/promotingthewellbeingandprotectionofchildreninscotlandandbeyond/

Already there are indications that much of the GIRFEC ideology is taken as a given:

"With policies such as Getting it right for every child, The Early Years Framework, National Parenting Strategy, Curriculum for Excellence and Better Health: Better Care, Scotland is in a potentially strong position to improve the lives of children. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 has now enshrined the concept of wellbeing in statute, within the overarching framework of the SHANARRI Wellbeing indicators. Central to the Act is the aspiration that children’s wellbeing is promoted, supported and safeguarded and that they receive seamless services, provided as far as possible by practitioners in education and health services who will assume the role of named persons’ for children.."

"These policies are being implemented against the background of the full scale reorganisation to integrate health and social care services across Scotland. There is, therefore, a unique opportunity in Scotland for in-depth critical analysis of the impact of these developments as they unfold in a changing and challenging real – world context."

https://www.stir.ac.uk/scholarships/social-science/to-critically-examine-the-impact-of-scotlands-framework-for-childrens-services-upon-the-wellbeing-of-children-in-scotland.html

Sometimes it is difficult to get a handle on things in order to express discomfiture with this type of project but then along comes an article which crystallises the problem.

John Wallace writing in Third Force News has said: "Named person is the one thing that keeps me awake at night."

 

"People living with a rare disease and their families amount to 300,000 in Scotland according to the Scottish Government and they face significant social and daily life challenges which affect their autonomy, their dignity and their fundamental human rights."

"Integrated care provision and coordination between medical, social and local support services, via multidisciplinary care pathways and innovative care solutions, is a crucial game changer to tackle the unmet social needs of people living with rare diseases and none of this was even considered in coming up with the named person legislation. Nobody asked anyone in the rare disease community or indeed the disability or carer community."
 

"Families of children with rare diseases represent a motivated group striving to find what is best for their loved one, make the time and find the energy to sift through thousands of pieces of information to find that one pearl, no matter how small. They dedicate their lives to researching their children’s condition."

"This dedication, in turn, can mean that even as they turn to medical professionals for help, it is those same professionals that in fact look to the parents for guidance..."

"We go out of our way to enable everyone dealing with my son to work together, whether that be professors, consultants, GP, rheumatology nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and all the other medical professionals and the educational professionals in school." 

"I am the named person and I can do it better than his headteacher or anyone else because I live with it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year I don’t take school holidays nor weekends off. I am with my son whenever and wherever he needs me."

Read more at

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/blogs/i-am-my-sons-named-person-and-i-can-do-it-better-than-anyone 

Collaborative endeavours and research projects which ignore this

challenging real – world context will skew results.

Review of child protection: is a joined up approach best ?

"In April 2004 the Scottish Executive published a consultation pack entitled `Getting it right for every child` as part of the first phase of the review of the Children's Hearings system."

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2004/10/20021/44106

Out of that grew the Named Person.

Child Protection Improvement Programme

"On 25 February 2016 the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Angela Constance, made a statement to Parliament announcing a programme of action on child protection." This would include consideration of the "impact of changes of legislation and practice in the Children’s Hearings System."

As part of her statement she said:

"We have also modernised our unique children’s hearings system through legislation that was passed in 2011, and we have invested in professional development for social workers and all those who work with vulnerable children and families."

Recommendations will be made by the end of 2016.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/protecting/child-protection

Later in the year it was announced that as part of the Child Protection Improvement Programme: "an independent child protection review chaired by former Crown agent Catherine Dyer is to be commissioned in Scotland."

"This followed the conviction of a mother and her partner for the murder of her two-year-old son, Liam Fee."

"National outcry erupted over why the social work department allowed his case to slip through the system and failed to act upon concerns for the safety and welfare of the boy."

"Deputy First Minister John Swinney announced the appointment of Ms Dyer at a summit held in Perth."

"Mr Swinney said: `An essential part of the child protection improvement programme is a review of policy, practice, services and structures so that we can identify strengths, achievements and priorities for change`."

"`We will look at child protection committees, initial case reviews, significant case reviews and the child protection register to ensure that they work together to create a holistic, coherent and responsive child protection system that optimises outcomes for children`."

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/06/08/catherine-dyer-to-chair-child-protection-review/

Given what we know about Alan Small`s involvement in GIRFEC`s  implementation, i.e. named persons,  and his later appointment to Fife`s child protection committee, how much of a coherent and holistic response to a child protection review should we really be looking for ?

Perhaps a less joined up, less coherent approach, would be more reassuring.

Child protection warnings ignored in Fife

"MULTIPLE warnings about staff absence and other child protection dangers in Fife were repeatedly overlooked in the months before the murder of Liam Fee."

"Senior figures from Fife Council, NHS Fife, Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and children's charities were all made aware of the long-standing concerns."

"Yet, despite being the potential for `severe consequences` being made abundantly clear, the matter was simply batted back and forth between various panels for more than a year before the two-year-old's death."

"During the murder trial that horrified Scotland, Fife's child protection team manager Karen Pedder admitted Liam had `fallen off the radar` after his social worker went off sick on April 1, 2013."

"Just a few weeks later, on June 26, 2013, the Child Protection Committee discussed an `amber alert for child protection` that had been triggered by a `staff absence`..."

"The amber alert was also discussed by the Fife Chief Officer's Public Safety Group on the same day at the council headquarters in nearby Glenrothes."

"John Myles, the chairman of the CPC, again told the meeting it had been triggered by a `staff absence` and added: `This was a recording issue not an information sharing issue`."

"Ken Greer, chairman of Children in Fife, even warned `that it was important to remember that the cumulative effect of staff absence does impact on service provision`."

"Among those present were Fife Council chief executive Steve Grimmond, Police Scotland commander Garry McEwan and NHS Fife chief executive John Wilson."

"The alert was also flagged up to the Fife Partnership Board on August 28, 2013, when Scottish Government head of resilience Michael Kellet was in attendance."

"At a further meeting of the CPC on October 9, 2013, Fife's nursing director Dr Scott McLean said `that he had spoken to the Lead within Police Scotland and the Social Work lead and our arrangements around Child Protection are deemed safe`."

"However, the alert remained in place until December 2013, just three months before Liam was killed by a blow that ruptured his heart on March 22, 2014."

"In a terrible year for children in Fife, Mikaeel Kular, three, was beaten to death by his mother and his body dumped in woods in Kirkcaldy in January and Madison Horn, two, was murdered by her babysitter in Kelty in April."

"Incredibly, however, the minutes from 2014 show these three tragedies were never even considered by the Child Protection Committee."

"Instead, most of the time was spent discussing the Scottish Government's Girfec - or 'Getting it right for every child' - approach, including the Named Person for every under-18."

"Meanwhile, further evidences shows that yet another expert panel - NHS Fife's Clinical Governance Committee - was aware of child protection problems from at least December 2012."

"In April 2013, the committee members were told: `There is a risk the Child Protection systems and processes are not routinely updated, widely understood, used or adhered to by NHS Fife staff, potentially placing children at risk in Fife`."

"Chillingly, the papers also warned `the consequences of an incident occuring would be severe so the risk remains high`."

"In February 2014, just a few weeks before Liam's murder, Fife's lead child protection nurse revealed the `impact` of red tape created by the Girfec reforms."

"Fiona Lornie said: `Inter-agency Referral Discussions (IRDs) continue to have a significant impact on the workload of the Child Protection Nursing team despite an internal review and changes to processes. Whilst this is an important function of the team it also causes a delay in development of the Child Protection service`."

"Dr Gordon Macdonald, Parliamentary Officer for CARE for Scotland, said social work departments had borne the brunt of council spending cuts in recent years..."

"They have created a huge amount of extra work without resourcing it properly and the danger of making the haystack so big is that you don't catch the needle."

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/676898/warnings-regarding-child-protection-Fife-overlooked-before-Liam-Fee?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium

Employers expected to spy on young workers

"Bosses in Scotland will be expected to spy on young adults at work after being drafted in to police the Named Person scheme. Employers are set to join taxi drivers among the ranks of those monitoring young people and reporting conversations back to their `state guardians`."

"The chilling move, part of the SNP`s controversial Named Person plan, has been attacked by business leaders."

"School leavers aged between 16 and 18 no longer have a Named Person at school but still fall within the scheme. Thirteen local authorities say bosses who hire these young adults can, or should, pass on their `concerns` to their Named Person."

"In an Orwellian statement, some said this is because every single person in Scotland has a responsibility or `duty` to report to the state guardians. The move follows revelations that more than 600 taxi drivers in the Borders who take young people to school have been instructed to pass on information about their welfare."

"David Watt, Scottish director of business group the Institute of Directors, said: `I am very concerned about this. Young people in Scotland aged 16 to 18 are allowed to vote and die for their country so, to a large extent, are adults. We don`t want any more red tape, also we don`t want to be seen as interfering in a young person`s life."

"`We understand the necessity of a duty of care for employees and would raise concerns if anyone was being mistreated or abused. However, I don`t think it should ever get to the point where an employer could be seen as to blame for not reporting concerns.`.."

"A spokesman for Scottish Borders Council said: `If a young person requires the services of a Named Person and they are currently employed by a company or organisation, then the Named Person would be working with the employer to best meet the needs of the young person.`.."

"Not all councils said that an employer had to contact a Named Person,, only that they could do so. Those who said employers could report concerns include Angus, Midlothian, North Ayrshire, Orkney, South Lanarkshire, Moray, Edinburgh and Falkirk councils."

"Several said that anyone could report concerns to a Named Person - or even that it was everyone`s duty to do so."

"Julie Muir, senior manager at East Ayrshire Council, said `If an employer has a concern over the welfare of an employee under the age of 18, which cannot be resolved by speaking personally with them, then flagging up that concern with their Named Person would be an appropriate course of action.`.."

A" Government spokesman said: `The local authority of residence will be required to make a Named Person available to those under 18 years who have left school and they will notify these individuals of how they can contact the services..."

 

"New Education Secretary John Swinney has said there will be no climbdown over state snoopers."

"He told a Sunday newspaper: `The health and wellbeing of children is at the heart of the Named Person discussion.`"

http://www.pressreader.com/

Nursery teachers to be replaced by pre-school officers

"A council has defended plans to cut costs by replacing teachers with `pre-school officers` in its nurseries, in the face of criticism from a union. An Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) petition has gathered hundreds of signatures against the move. It said Dumfries and Galloway Council had unilaterally decided on a cheaper alternative to qualified teachers."

"A spokesman for the authority said it was required by law to develop more `flexible` provision. The proposals were put forward as part of a string of plans to reduce spending across the council."

"A report estimated the authority could eventually cut spending by nearly £240,000 by transferring nursery teachers to primaries and replacing them with the pre-school officers. It proposed a pilot project starting in August at 10 schools which could then be rolled out across the region. However, it recognised that there could be a perception that `provision was being diminished`."

"The Dumfries and Galloway EIS petition said it was `outraged` at the move by the council."

"`At a stroke they decided that Dumfries and Galloway parents need childcare rather than nursery education, ignoring the clear benefits pre-school children derive from the structured educational provision provided by nursery teachers' input,` it said."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-36266663

Consistency is not their strong point. What happened to GIRFEC and the importance of the early years?  

Creating divisions in the family or pushing the boundaries ?

　

 

"[A] group of school children from Glasgow, Clackmannanshire and East Lothian gathered at Children’s 1st’s office in Edinburgh to present films they had made about family rules, discipline and punishment in the home. The films, supported by a grant from the Big Lottery Awards for All fund, were developed by the Children’s Parliament in partnership with Children 1st. The children involved hope that they will initiate conversations within families about home life."

"[They] presented the films to a group of key professionals and organisations including representatives from the Scottish Government, local authorities and health boards and charities such as Barnardo’s Scotland and Parenting Across Scotland."

http://www.children1st.org.uk/what-we-do/news/2016/february/scottish-children-speak-out-on-family-rules-and-discipline-in-the-home/

Children do not have the maturity to understand when they are being manipulated by adults with ulterior motives.

It does not work that way with parents.

In the Scottish garden, Named Persons will be `head gardeners`

"Parents will have their status in the family downgraded by the Scottish Government’s controversial "state guardian" plan, campaigners have claimed."

"They said documents suggested that children in schools across Scotland had been told their new "named person" should be regarded as the `head gardener` while mothers and fathers are merely `gardeners`."

"The No To Named Person (NO2NP) group said the comparison was made when the legislation was being considered in 2012 by the Children’s Parliament, which describes itself as Scotland’s `centre of excellence for children’s participation and engagement`."

"It spoke to more than 100 children in different schools to help them try to understand the legislation, which will see a named person appointed for one million young people under the age of 18 from August."

"Children were encouraged to imagine Scotland as a garden, with each child a plant growing in it."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/28/new-row-over-named-person-as-campaigners-claim-parental-role-to/ 

 

A plant appears at the beginning of the following video which is too big to capture. (See youtube link below picture] As the video scrolls up the plant, it can be seen that each leaf has one of the SHANARRI wellbeing indicators on it. At the top of the plant is the flower which consists of a circle with petals around it. The meaning of that becomes clear.

 

https://w;ww.youtube.com/watch?v=hnE4YesZwhY 

It`s moving away from the previous notion of the silos that we worked in to the spiral diagram that represents Getting it Right for Every Child; which is the child at the centre, with those services [PETALS] that they need wrapped as closely around them as possible, drawing the help they need through positive relationships that exist, rather than passing them on from one agency to another.  

And I thought, that was all there was to it; one joined up Enabling State with a stranglehold on children, until recently. Because if that was not bad enough, what has been happening is even more sinister.
 

I had recognised that children are instructed in school about GIRFEC and the plant analogy is often used. Beyond the convenience of pinning SHANARRI indicators on leaves (sometimes branches of a tree) I had not seen the full significance.

We have approached this incrementally, one step at a time; introducing practitioners to the concepts, raising their awareness, getting health to design the paperwork so that they are part of the solution and then incrementally beginning to use that in practice. So we have tried to manage it in a way that`s manageable for practitioners and not overwhelming.

An eco-approach - let`s not even go there with the symbolism. One step at a time, indeed ! They have also managed Scottish children (via the Children`s Parliament) by getting children to see themselves as plants and the Named Person as the chief gardener - and never a word about that to parents. All incrementally managed just fine as August approaches.

 

Have a look at another video: Children's Parliament: Having Our Say... 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdpZLPnHYLw

 

 Children were given the opportunity to have their say at a fun event with the Children`s Parliament.

 

A girl, given her voice, says this: "Family is the most important thing to me and to other people as well."  It echoes with the other children.

But these children and their parents are being undermined by a one party communitarian state which would put Named Persons in charge, with all the trappings of the joined up apparatus around that.

This government wants parents to be the last people to cotton on to this. They know that day is coming; they just want it all stitched up before that day comes.

The roots of CSE

It`s already in Scotland as part of Health and Wellbeing:

There is a long list of people and organisations at the end of the Joining the dots document who were part of the discussions about GIRFEC. Cathy McCulloch and Dr Colin Morrison, co-directors of the Scottish Children`s Parliament are there, as expected.

What is less well known is that Cathy McCulloch and Dr Colin Morrison are partners of TASC (Scotland) Ltd, founded by them in 1992.

This is what they say about TASC:

"TASC provides a range of services including social research and service evaluation. We have a real interest in people - how they experience their lives and what their hopes, dreams and ambitions are for their families and communities. We work with policy makers and service providers to help ensure the needs and interests of service users are recognised and met."

Some of their work has included:

"Learning Together: A Review of sex and relationship education resources for parents and carers NHS Health Scotland (2009-10)"

"An evaluation of Feel Think Do Sexual Abuse Prevention Programme (2009) for NHS Forth Valley. Feel Think Do is a sexual abuse prevention programme for P6 pupils. It is designed to be delivered over 8 sessions and uses a DVD of dramatised scenarios. Children can also work on their own learning logs."

"Parental Feedback on School-based Sexual Health and Relationships Education in Glasgow for Glasgow City Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Young People’s Sexual Health Steering Group (2011)."

Chapter 1 for under 5s

http://www.tascagency.co.uk/parents-and-carers.html

In Scotland, CSE tends to be called Sexual Health and Relationships Education. It starts early and never stops all through the school years. Because `health and wellbeing` is spread throughout Curriculum for Excellence, it is impossible for parents to disengage their children from Sexual Health and Relationships Education entirely. All very cunningly planned. No-one in the role of Named Person has ever said some of this might not be appropriate for very young children.

At the heart of GIRFEC are little businesses working in partnership with government which provide `services` to children and families to address `problems` that never used to exist. I`m sure they`ll dream up a few more.

Joining the dots at UK Column

 

UK Column 22 April 2016 [continued from previous post, and going through an excellent piece of work by David Scott.]

 

Speaking to David Scott, Mike Robinson says, "David, we`re starting off with GIRFEC here."

On screen appears a letter to Sally Ann Kelly, Chief Executive of Barnardo`s from the Local Government and Communities Directorate, Third Sector Unit.

"And this is a grant? £750,000 is it?" 

"Yes, just under 3/4 of a million pounds and that`s gone to Barnardo`s and a few other charities and they`re running a system of integrating the third sector with the general GIRFEC framework... So this is the system of looking after children in families, through education, in healthcare, that permeates every aspect of the Scottish Government."

"We`re now seeing the third sector, the charitable sector, brought into that fully in detail. So they`re involved in the planning of new developments - they`re involved in every aspect of it - there is in functional terms no difference between the government and these charities."

Mike Robinson asks: "And this is the gentleman who`s done this; is that correct?"

"This is Gareth Allen of the Scottish Government.  He`s all over this. If you google, you`ll find a lot by him encouraging charities to come on board and talking to charities and you can even look at his slide show presentation which explains exactly how it`s all done and how wonderful it`s going to be in the new Scotland. Now the letter there, that award letter was written to the, then, head of Barnardo`s Sally Ann Kelly... Martin Crewe is now head of Barnardo`s... She`s moved on to another charity and this is also a charity dealing with children in Scotland, receiving Scottish Government grants, backing the Named Person scheme wholeheartedly overall for the state snooper scheme... And they are entirely in the pocket of Government. And this lady is running the show there and I`m sure she has lots of contacts which will ensure the Aberlour Trust here will see a great deal of financial support from the government."

Brian Gerrish interrupts: "David I`m fascinated by that website because again we`ve got this look. The website is very childish but, of course, it`s not designed to be read by children. It`s designed to be read by adults and so we`ve got this inversion going on; silly, childish writing about a very serious subject to do with children."

"Yes and little piggy bank for the donate button. It`s all very jolly and as though it`s child friendly but you`re quite right. It`s not there to be read by children."

Mike Robinson puts another document on screen. Funding for the Getting it Right for Every child GIRFEC third sector national project.  "And you wanted to highlight this:"

"This project will work with CPPs to develop an approach to GIRFEC in which there is full recognition and contribution of the Third Sector."
"There are three aims which include:"
"... to embed the role of the Third Sector in GIRFEC at local and national level..."
"To conduct a three year project in which the Public Social Partnership will work with the Community Planning Partners to reinforce and embed the role of the Third Sector in the implementation of GIRFEC."

"Right. What that means, because it`s a bit, you know, central government gobbledygook; what that means is that there`s going to be a whole series of things called Community Planning Partnerships. They will then enter into formal written agreements with central government. They will involve, not only local authorities and police.. NHS and other services but they will also involve... integrated... third sector charities ...Barnardo`s and Aberlour. So they will have a seat at the table. They will form these written agreements with central government. They will then apply government policy, including [the] Named Person, data gathering and complete state surveillance of the family."

"Now the effect of this is that there is nowhere to go. If you then go to any major children`s charity in Scotland with any sort of problem - and those of us who follow the Hollie Greig case know the sort of problems those might be - then you`re dealing with the Scottish Government. You`re dealing with the state; you`re dealing with the great big singular entity that is the Scottish model of government. But it`s not just that there are no functional departments within the government ...almost the entire third sector ... has been rolled into government as well."

Gerrish responds: "This is the third sector or the Third Way which, of course, Tony Blair was absolutely boasting about back in 2001/2002 - if I`ve got my dates right. So unaccountable people in the NGOs` quasi-government systems. Now it`s all being rolled in together. This is Big Society...It`s communitarianism is the closest description I think we can get to it."

Mike Robinson continues: "Well David, tell us about Joining the dots."

"Right, so Joining the dots is the core document that underpins GIRFEC. This is the Named Person and all of these things. So this is the defining document. Now you will be pleased to hear it was an independent document; it was an independent report, so that`s ok and it was headed by a former Labour MSP but she clearly didn`t write it. The person who seems to have written it is, in fact, this lady, Laura Meagher. [James Hutton Institute] Now she`s a very interesting lady... She came to Scotland ... from America, and she came to Scotland at a very interesting time, 1999.  And this is not the first time I`ve found this. When you look at the people who are actually generating the ideas, they all arrive in Scotland in 1999. Why? Because we`re getting a new parliament."

"What happened was people came from all round the globe - globalists if you like - to influence the policies of that new parliament because it was a clean slate. So where Scotland thinks it received a degree of independence, what`s actually happened is we`ve got globalists, think tanks and people influencing the policy behind the scenes and the change from Westminster to the Holyrood parliament simply opened up a new opportunity for these people to control what we actually do. And we`re seeing the policy of the Scottish parliament actually being set by people such as Laura Meagher."

 "And we`ve got a number of other people involved in producing this document. One is the Centre for Confidence and well-being.  Now the Centre for Confidence and well-being is meant to be Scottish because Scots are meant to lack self confidence, ok? I don`t know if you noticed that; that`s the allegation.... [It] is in fact Common Purpose sitting on a thistle because all of the people seem to have huge Common Purpose links, including Mr Alf Young here. Very friendly looking chap. I like the smile ...and what`s his background?"

Mike Robinson says: "Well from 2007 he chaired the Glasgow Advisory board for Common Purpose."

"Yes... so what you`ve got is the import of the ideas from America [and] the UN via American universities. That`s brought in. We`ve got Common Purpose providing the organisational infrastructure to actually get everything set up and ... then we have assorted charities and quite a few PR companies ... Charities give cover and the appearance of it being from the people and the PR companies get the message out. And that`s what we`ve got. That`s the origin of GIRFEC. That`s the origin of the Named Person. It did not come from Scotland. It did not come from our politicians. It came from elsewhere."

The ideas also came via Westminster: See http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/thinking-about-future.html

Knowledge devalued and a reversal of roles

From the USA:

"If SETRA passes in its current form, the federal government will be empowered to expand psychological profiling of our children. Parents must understand this threat so they can mobilize to stop it."

"SETRA is a proposed reauthorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act, which created bureaucracies and funding for education research (the results of which are routinely ignored if they contradict the dogma of the progressive education establishment). But SETRA would go beyond merely wasting money and plunge the government into an area it has no constitutional, statutory, or moral right to invade: the psychological makeup of children."

"Section 132 of SETRA expands authorized research to include `research on social and emotional learning [SEL] . . . .` SEL is defined as `the process through which children . . . acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.`"

"SEL is all the rage in public education. The idea is that imparting academic knowledge is passe’ because if a student wants to know something, he can Google it (seriously – this is a common theme in education circles). Instead, the theory goes, schools should focus more on `non-cognitive` skills to jumpstart education – helping students develop government-approved thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors that will supposedly make them more productive workers."

"In other words, the school will do what the parents should be doing (encourage development of these non-cognitive traits), while the parents do what the school should be doing..."

http://beta.townhall.com/columnists/emmettmcgroarty/2016/04/15/why-does-your-congressman-want-to-psychologically-profile-your-children-n2148674

The same thing is happening in Scotland with Curriculum for Excellence, GIRFEC and the Named Person scheme.

Day four of seven days

From the land which is going to Get it Right for Every Child until they are eighteen:

"We used to live happily in Fife, Scotland with Tianze, but in May 2014 when Tianze was 16 years old ,he was moved to a hospital in Middlesbrough, England, over 200 miles away from home to have an assessment. It was only supposed to be for maximum 6 week assessment?" [Two years later he is still in the system.]

Read about Tianze https://theatuscandal.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/imagining-home/

What is the explanation ?

 

As reported recently in the Islington Gazette in connection with the mother whose autistic son is now trapped in an assessment and treatment unit (ATU) in Colchester, the NHS England spokesman gave the standard response: `Every case is different and patients` needs are often extremely complex...`

In other words, it is as if to say, do not criticise us because we are well meaning people facing extraordinary challenges.

So it was liberating to read Chris Hatton`s blogpost who is an academic at the Centre for Disability Research, Lancaster University:

"While ‘complexity’ seems to be a term to ward off questioning (it’s too complicated for the likes of you to understand), it seems to me more like an admission from professionals that they don’t really understand what’s happening in terms of professionally-derived frameworks for understanding ‘behaviour’ – these frameworks alone are clearly inadequate for helping people."

"And for all the complexities that may be on show (I think it’s a fair bet that putting anyone, me included, into an inpatient unit would result in some complexity of behaviour), people in inpatient units and families seem to talk about what people want out of life in ways that don’t seem terribly complicated to me - a nice place to live, being with people you love and who love you, having a meaning to your life, and so on."

A clear exposition from an academic and well worth a read.
http://chrishatton.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-complexity-complex.html

Great inter-country collaboration

"Residents of Vetlanda, a small Swedish town of 13,050 people, woke up to see a Nazi flag flying outside the town hall on Wednesday morning. The swastika banner is thought to have been a silent homage to Adolf Hitler, born on that day in 1889."

https://www.rt.com/news/340487-vetlanda-nazi-flag-hitler/

It figures.

Early permanence: the partner policy of GIRFEC

We`ve had warnings in the Scottish Daily Mail that parents who reject Named Persons could face a visit from a social worker but dig back through the documents and the early warnings were there that social workers were going to get more involved.

For instance, from the Education and Culture Committee, November 2013, we have How could decision-making processes be improved?

The committee`s view is that GIRFEC principles make the difference to outcomes - whatever that means to real families in practice - but do admit that this can lead to earlier and more frequent interventions that result in more children coming into care. In other words, they are well aware of the implications.

As a way to address these issues the committee believes that  GIRFEC should have a partner policy: early permanence.

`Permanence` is a term that covers legal orders which fix children firmly in a `forever family` with no way back. That could be `reunification with the family` of concern, kinship care or adoption which is the preferred arrangement since once that is done no judge in the land will undo it. Another way to look at this is to see that procedures have to be managed `early` because adopters for older children are thin on the ground.

If you want early interventions such as these, joining pieces of low level wellbeing concerns together in a report, that has the result of amplifying potential problems, in theory at least, is one of the best ways to go about it. So is parallel planning.

Parallel planning

"We want to promote parallel planning, where local authorities start to plan for potential permanence at the same time as working with families towards reunification. This does not prejudge the outcome but it does mean that if reunification is not possible a plan is already in place to help ensure the child has a permanent home as quickly as possible."

 Parallel planning originated in America as many of these schemes do. What happens is that a potential adopter becomes the foster carer of the baby/child  while the team that wraps around the birth family decides whether or not the child should be returned to their care. Parents in this situation haven`t a hope of that happening. The bottom line is to say: the child has settled well with the foster carer; it would not be in the child`s best interest to return it to what may be a precarious situation. It`s a rigged system. 

The committee also say:

"Both early intervention and early permanence are needed to meet our aims of reducing the number of children on long term supervision requirements and increasing the numbers finding secure legal permanence. Focusing on these two areas in the years ahead, and through the shared actions set out in this response, will lead to a system of intervention and substitute care that wraps around the child and is effective, affordable and swift."

Since more children are going to be taken into care, processing the cases faster, looks like the answer. It is understandable that cash strapped local authorities want to reduce the amount of time they spend working with families, that is, the amount of time they spend with children on long term supervision requirements. But that thinking looks more like an attempt to improve the situation for the system [reducing costs] rather than improving it for families. Given that many cases will begin with low level wellbeing concerns the amount of false positives are bound to increase. Rushing these cases through the system, with no way back, will be an injustice for many families. That does not worry Aileen Campbell.

 "In oral evidence, the Minister described ‘tangible progress’ in terms of adoptions from care doubling; and large increases in the proportion of younger children becoming looked after." [That is, on supervision requirements which must be processed swiftly.]

What does Promoting adoption positively actually mean in these circumstances?

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EducationandCultureCommittee/Inquiries/Scot_Govt_inquiry_response.pdf