How can adopted children be safeguarded in the Facebook age?

When birth parents contact their children using social networking it may not be predatory, but it’s not in the children’s best interests

Concerns about Facebook threats to adopted children are being raised again as children adopted because of abuse and neglect are still being contacted out of the blue by their birth parents.

The decision to remove a child is, in my experience, not taken lightly, but made with the aim of changing a child’s likely developmental trajectory for the better in the midst of deeply sad family circumstances. Children are often fostered, with varying levels of contact with their birth family. For a child to be adopted with a no-contact order suggests there has been a high level of abuse and a demonstrable lack of ability to change.

The laws around removal of a child are based on the principle elucidated in the Munro review that “the family is usually the best place for bringing up children and young people, but difficult judgments are sometimes needed in balancing the right of a child to be with their birth family with their right to protection from abuse and neglect”. This principle is backed up by research literature on attachment: the specific relationship between caregiver and child, which is important for a child’s social and emotional development and normally, should be maintained, not disrupted. However, in situations where the child is abused or neglected, their attachment to that caregiver often becomes disturbed, with severe and far-reaching consequences for the child’s present state and later wellbeing.

Leaving a child for too long in an abusive home situation has dire effects. A prospective longitudinal study commissioned by the previous government highlighted that if sufficient change in parental behaviours is going to occur this usually happens before an infant is six months old. Despite this knowledge, the study showed that children are often left in the home for much longer, vulnerable to continuing abuse and demonstrating more evident developmental and behavioural difficulties “often whilst professionals waited fruitlessly for parents to change”.

The adoptive family environment is hopefully in itself a therapeutic intervention, providing children with consistent, loving caregiving and an example of interpersonal relationships which prioritise their needs. Childhood for children seems to stretch on for ever, but in reality these children have a relatively brief window of opportunity to develop in a safe and supportive environment. Unprompted, unplanned contact intrudes into this safety.

It is understandable that a parent would want to contact their child. Abusive parents often do not set out to be abusive, may themselves be subject to significant personal adversity and indeed often find it hard to even acknowledge the harm they have done. But contact needs to be established with the needs of the child as paramount, not the needs of a parent. The difficulty with unscreened internet contact is that there is no other adult checking the communication. Most straightforwardly, communication might be predatory. More common and more complex, the communication might be well-meaning but ill thought through, leaving the child vulnerable to confusing and overwhelming emotions. Unsolicited contact is likely to prompt guilt and self-recrimination in the child, because children tend to blame themselves for abuse and family separation.

I don’t know what the answer is to safeguard adopted children on Facebook, but the issue flags up the need for the law and clinical practice to keep pace. Contact has a massive potential impact on a child’s chances of overcoming some of the most adverse circumstances that are possible. In these cases the standard prototype of parent-child relationship cannot be relied on. The ideas most of us have of “parenting” do not apply in the same way. The meaning of contact from the birth parent needs to be carefully explored with each individual child and re-evaluated as they grow and change in order to even stand a chance of getting it right. And those explorations should now probably also consider planning for the potential of internet interaction.

Source: Guardian News Online

Thousands of restraint victims could seek compensation

Children who were unlawfully restrained in privately-run child prisons over a 10-year period could pursue compensation claims, according to a high court judge.

The number of potential claimants could reach thousands, experts have warned.

Passing judgement this week on a judicial review case brought by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), Mr Justice Foskett said the government was under no legal obligation to identify potential victims and notify them of their right to seek compensation – as CRAE had argued.

However, he pointed out that victims could come forward themselves.

“It probably requires just one former detainee, looking back at his or her experience in a [secure training centre] and having conducted the necessary preliminary inquiries, to pursue a well-publicised claim and others will be alerted to the potential of pursuing matters,” he said.

The judge said it was highly likely that large numbers of children were unlawfully restrained in privately-run secure training centres (STCs) for at least a decade between 1998 and 2008.

“I do not think that there is any true or realistic alternative to the conclusion that probably up until July 2008 (and possibly, though unlikely, for another two years thereafter) there was widespread unlawful use of restraint within the STC system and many children and young persons were subjected to such restraint,” he wrote in the judgement.

Restraint techniques involved included the controversial, and subsequently banned, nose distraction technique used on 14-year-old Adam Rickwood hours before his suicide in 2004.

Rickwood’s death at Hassockfield STC and the 2004 death, following restraint, ofGareth Myatt, 15, at Rainsbrook STC led to the discovery of information about unlawful restraint.

The judge said statutory agencies had failed to take appropriate action to stop the unlawful treatment, also criticising the Youth Justice Board (YJB) for its “apparent active promotion” of the methods, due to “confused thinking” until 2007.

He said the “fullest explanation” had not yet emerged as to why widespread unlawful restraint went unchecked for so long, and why there were apparently so few complaints from victims.

Mark Scott, a solicitor for CRAE, said he hoped the judgment would encourage children who were subject to unlawful restraints by STC staff to “come forward and seek redress”.

Carolyne Willow, CRAE’s national co-ordinator, said there could be “potentially thousands of former detainees of STCs being entitled to claim compensation for unlawful restraint. The violations went unchecked for at least a decade so the scale of claims could be enormous.”

But she warned victims would need to know they may have a claim. “Without action by the government we firmly believe former detainees will remain ignorant of their entitlement to seek justice. Unlawful restraint was so endemic that children detained at the time would have seen it as normal and legitimate. The professionals around them certainly did,” she said.

Source: CYP Now

Kent council ploughs ahead with controversial youth service plans

Kent County Council will pursue its plans to commission youth services out to local groups, despite an ongoing campaign against reductions in funding for the youth service.

The council will continue to provide some youth services, which will be supplemented by additional youth work offered by other organisations.

The approach aims to save the council nearly £1m.

The council first announced its plans to change the way activities for young people are delivered in July 2011. It then launched a countrywide consultation with 700 people between August and October 2011, where most replies came from young people aged 13 to 15.

Cabinet member for communities Mike Hill said the consultation established that “high-quality youth work changes lives and strengthens communities, something we are trying to work towards”.

However, there are ongoing concerns about the proposed plans. Around 55 per cent of the respondents were against the establishment of youth hubs in Kent. Many respondents were also concerned about accessibility to new services.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams added his support to the campaign against youth cuts last October.  He said: “It is so crucial to reserve decent youth services at the moment given the strains young people face.”

Up to 64 jobs could go if the plans go ahead, with the new structure taking effect from January 2013.

Source: CYP Now

Harrow commits to EYFS improvement despite cuts

Harrow council has pledged to improve Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) results as a matter of priority under plans to redesign children’s centre provision

The London borough is cutting its children’s centre budget by £1.2m, but following consultation with parents and children’s services staff, the authority has decided to keep all of its 16 centres open, but reduce some of their hours.

Under the proposed “hub and spoke” model, the council will keep four centres open throughout the day. These centres will then be designated a number of satellite centres which will open when certain classes and activities take place.

Services will only be commissioned if they have proven positive results for children in the hope that this will boost attainment levels of young children.

“The feedback has helped us to come up with a solution that I believe with see our centre’s flourish and improve even further.”

Of the 525 people who responded to the council’s consultation in the summer, 45 per cent said the children’s centres help them make more friends and 44 per cent said they had a better understanding of how to support their child. Seventy seven per cent of parents responding to the consultation said the expertise of staff was what they valued most about the centres.

The four “hub” centres were chosen because of their location, size and the type of services they currently deliver.

Small youth charities to bear the brunt of funding cuts

Increasing numbers of small youth charities will face funding problems similar to the Stephen Lawrence Centre unless they learn to adapt to the economic environment, it has been warned.

And it is feared more small charities will face a struggle to survive amid a squeeze on grant funding and donations from the public.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) said the charity sector overall will be £911m down in annual funding by 2015/16.

Daniel Fluskey, NCVO policy officer, said charities are exploring different funding options but larger, more established organisations have a distinct advantage.

Options available to charities include re-focusing services to deliver less as well as attempting to secure other forms of funding such as loans or social investment.

“There is some potential for benefit [by pursuing alternative funding] but these things are small steps that might help a bit, but they are not going to be able to rejuvenate the sector to compensate for the amount of money being lost.

“There is not a magic solution that means in two years we are going to be back where we were. The sector is going to change quite a lot.”

One charity that closed late last year, Gay and Lesbian Youth in Calderdale (GALYIC), had been running a youth group and support services for 12 years.

Jan Bridget, the former service manager said she feared that if smaller charities close down work with oppressed minority groups could disappear. “There’s a belief that because we have got all this equality legislation now, services like ours may not be necessary.

“I’m delighted with the Equality Act, and the suicide prevention strategy and substance misuse strategy have started taking us on board.

“That is all excellent but other policies, such as giving control to local government, are only fine if local government is aware of the issues.”

She added that many small charities will face the prospect of either having to become a social enterprise or create a partnership with a larger charity.

Teachers blast crackdown on struggling staff

The government’s latest guidelines for dealing with underperforming teachers have been met with fierce opposition from teaching unions.

Under the new arrangements, which come into force in September, head teachers will have the power to dismiss poorly performing teachers in a term, significantly reducing the current year-long process.

Schools will also have more freedom over managing their teachers through simpler regulations, such as the removal of the three-hour limit on observing teachers in the classroom.

Announcing the changes today (13 January), Education Secretary Michael Gove said the reforms would make it easier for schools “to identify and address the training and professional development teachers need to fulfill their potential, and to help their pupils to do the same”.

“What we do need if we are to raise performance, rather than grab headlines, is to improve continuing professional development and methods of supporting teachers,” she added.

Voice also slammed the guidelines, with the union’s general secretary Philip Parkin claiming that the new arrangements would encourage some head teachers “to bully people out of their jobs”.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Head Teachers welcomed the shake-up to teacher appraisal.

General secretary Russell Hobby said: “Clearer systems of performance management are one way to build up the professional reputation of teachers. For those who are clearly unsuited to teaching, it is in everyone’s interests that, after a fair process, they should be helped to pursue their career elsewhere.”

Source: CYP Now

Lincolnshire academies accused of discrimination

Lincolnshire County Council is to investigate claims that some local academies are “subtly dissuading” parents of children with special education needs (SEN) from applying for a place at their school

Steve Williams, chairman of the council’s children and young people scrutiny committee, said the authority had received anecdotal evidence of such practices.

Allegations made to the council include a claim that parents attending academy open evenings have been told they might be better off applying to a different school, after disclosing that their child had SEN.

As a result, the committee has decided to carry out a review of admissions policies and exclusions across all local schools, with a particular focus on how children with SEN are supported, to establish the extent of any problem.

“We have no firm evidence of discrimination against schools but due to anecdotal evidence we need to see what the situation is across schools in the county,” Williams said.

“The review will enable us to get a clear picture of admissions and exclusions in the county and identify any problem areas that need addressing.”

He added that a review is timely, given the increasing number of academies in the local area and the new school admissions code, which comes into force in February.

Parents are being asked to come forward and give evidence to the review, which is expected to run from March until October.

Last year Lincolnshire County Council took the unprecedented step of urging all schools in its area to convert to academy status under a single trust in a bid to protect its smallest primaries from closure.

There are currently 40 academies in the area, the majority of which are secondary schools, as well as 28 secondary, 264 primary and 21 special schools still maintained by the local authority.

Source: CYP Now