There are an awful lot of very eloquent bloggers speaking about the review in blogland. Here are links to a few of them; keep following those links – and if you are not an HEer, keeping substituting “home education” with something that relates to your life and see how it sits on your tongue. It’s important – we know, as a community, we stand in danger of sounding like we are objecting to something ‘very reasonable’ and we know that plenty of people think ‘if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide’. We really, really believe this is the thin edge of a wedge that will affect every person in this country.
Please remember that we believe, very strongly, that we are not just fighting for the right to be a home educator, we believe we are fighting for the right to parent as we see fit, to be the primary carer for our children, rather than the state giving us permission to do so.
Please remember that this review was begun with the very words “could be used as a cover for child abuse” at it’s launch. That there was no evidence, no compelling concerns and that the NSPCC, who provided the jumping off point, have had to make some rather embarrassing and humiliating withdrawals and apologies, not least to the Victoria Climbe society, who made the point loud and clear that she was NOT home educated, even though her name was being used to justify the commencement of the review.
“Cover for child abuse” is not a good way to begin a review into EDUCATIONAL PROVISION.
If we are unhappy about that assertion, perhaps you can understand why we are unhappy about this.
That designated local authority officers should:
– have the right of access to the home;
and also this
have the right to speak with each child alone if deemed appropriate or, if a child is particularly vulnerable or has particular communication needs, in the company of a trusted person who is not the home educator or the parent/carer.
In so doing, officers will be able to satisfy themselves that the child is safe and well.
And if you think that is nothing to worry about (nothing to fear, nothing to hide) then perhaps this comment, made by Ed Balls in parliament and referring to the protection of children who may be involved in abuse, should terrify you as much as it does us.
“We will revise that statutory guidance later in the year to make it absolutely clear that if at any point the parents refuse to allow the child to be seen alone, the local authority has powers under that Act to apply for an emergency protection order to require parents to comply with any request to produce the child. The Act authorises the removal of a child in those circumstances if necessary.”
Looked at logically; they’ve started from a stand point of possible child abuse in a small community, rather leaving aside the fact that the under 5’s in general are also often at home with just their parents but no one seems to feel the need to burst in on them to assess them. Then they’ve said that they will be allowed access to our children, without suspicion of our wrong doing, to ensure that wrong doing isn’t taking place. And then – wow! – nicely set up is that if they are there, demanding an unconstitutional right to see children without a warrant or suggestion of a crime having, or being about to take place, they can remove our children if we refuse. And that isn’t just us, by the way, that is EVERYONE who will be covered by that.
It might be worth pointing out again at this moment that the review was carried out by the person who carried out the review into the care and death of Baby P in relation to the Social Services case. At which point you might find this interesting reading; given it is written by some people with a vested interest in HE, for the sake of balance, you might want to do some googling to make sure you are happy you believe it. If you do, for the sake of your own sanity, i suggest you don’t put “Islington” and “Jersey” and Social Services” into google in the same search bar. What i found when i did made me cry.
In conversation (one might say i ranted!) with a relative at the weekend, it was mentioned to me again that a “friend who works in social services says she knows that HE is used to cover up neglect but that she can’t do anything.” Pfft.
I’ll say it again – there are ALREADY powers in place to issue a School Attendance Order to the parents of any child if HE is deemed to be failing and Social Services ALREADY have the power to investigate any allegation of abuse and follow it up with care plans or child removal if deemed necessary. Those powers – i might suggest those DUTIES – are already firmly established in law and practise. It didn’t work for Victoria Climbe, Khyra Ishaq or Baby P though, to the eternal shame of this country, who were ALL known to Social Services, who would ALL have fallen outside the scope of the proposed HE legislation and who were ALL failed by Social Services.
And now to those links
Spiked Online (a non HEing perspective)
There are also an astonishing number of positive and supportive articles and blog posts on major national newspaper websites, which i won’t link to now but might do later – however looking at The Times and The Telegraph will get you started.
Lastly, because it provided me with a long and entertaining evening, i can wholly recommend the comments string to this article written by Mr Ed “we accept this review in full” Balls. The home educators begin to kick in towards the end, but the entire string of 327 comments produces, i think, not one response that is supportive of him.
Edited to add :
Three Degrees of Freedom – Some People – Breath-taking.
Sometimes It’s Peaceful (how did i forget that?!?!?!?)
words fail me on this one. Which is a nuisance really as I would like a few words with my MP about it all…..
It’s got me blogging again, anyway 🙂 It’s all a conspiracy…. 😉
Damn, have left out a link to the Start Here blog – must add that later. Also, please feel free to add any other good ones to the comments, and i’ll bump them up later.
Gill at http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com ? Lots of good posts in the run up to the review, and daresay she’ll keep on chiming in with her thoughts.
Am loving you blogging again, though wish it was for a more cheerful reason!
I’m not sure I understand the Balls quotation.
Was he saying that, in the case of children (generally) where abuse is being investigated, the local authority could apply for an EPO for a child if the parents didn’t provide access alone to aid those enquiries? In other words in a case where abuse was suspected they could apply for an EPO, to a court, with evidence that there was some possible risk to the child? Have I misunderstood his point?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the idea that if abuse is suspected, then they can apply for that and remove the child if the parents don’t comply. And i think that IS the premise on which it was made.
However, if that is made law and you are a minority community where you have been smeared with abuse, told there will be legal unsupervised access to your child without actual allegation and that you might resent that intrusion, it is of considerable concern.
I really don’t want to find myself in the position of saying no to an unsupervised interview and then them saying “well, we all know HE is a cover for abuse so either comply or we have the legal right to remove that child while we work out if they are safe and well” – do you?
Like pretty much everyone else, i don’t subscribe to the “my kids, my property” thing any more than i subscribe to “i don’t care about any kids in jeopardy” – but i think we are already a long way don’t the “abuser by default until proven otherwise” route and i for one don’t want to find there is another law that can be used to threaten me.
It smacks of potential terrorism laws for icelandic banks to me.
Might have answered differently if i’d known that was Parent 2 and not Galoka.
I’m not sure I understand the Balls quotation.
Was he saying that, in the case of children (generally) where abuse is being investigated, the local authority could apply for an EPO for a child if the parents didn’t provide access alone to aid those enquiries? In other words in a case where abuse was suspected they could apply for an EPO, to a court, with evidence that there was some possible risk to the child? Have I misunderstood his point?
Go on then 😉
I was going to say that i always feel you think i am a dumb assed moron, but in all honesty, i think i might be, because i don’t quite know what you expect me to respond with.
*I’m* thinking that it doesn’t seem too much of a leap of imagination to get to a circumstance where they might remove a child because we’ve not agreed to access, because HE in itself is deemed a potential safeguarding issue which is enough evidence in itself therefore “better safe than sorry” or worse “you do as you’re told or else”.
Are you asking me to clarify that that is how i see it being misused (potentially) – or are you really saying not that you don’t understand it, but that you think *I* don’t understand it?
I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know where it had come from and, therefore, whether it was HE specific or not because if it wasn’t I couldn’t see what was terrifying about it for HEr’s. Which is the question you answered when you read it without inserting loads of unwritten stuff between the lines.
In terms of your response I *think* (or is it hope) that our judiciary would not accept ‘they home-educate’ as a legal basis for suspecting abuse. The law is not as partial as Badman and Balls.
Ah – glad we’ve cleared that up then 😉
I hope that too – but i’m slightly afraid that “nothing to fear, nothing to hide” and “they won’t let us in” might be seen as tantamount to a guilty conscience.
(PS, can you insert unwritten stuff between the lines? 😉 I’m sure there isn’t html for that 😉 )
Hope isn’t really good enough is it? Anti terrorism laws have been perverted time and again, so it’s not out of the realms of possibility for this to be misused too. That particular piece relates to a section 47 enquiry, and whilst we may not actually be threatened with a section 47, it is entirely possible that, should statute say we must submit our children for questioning and we refuse, they will then invoke the powers created under that section.
We have children’s charities – spits – saying that more children should be taken into care, even if they wrongly remove children. We have Badman saying the self same thing – better to save one child etc. The problem is, these people have, presumably, never been on the receiving end of a social services referral. I happen to know at least 2 home edders who have been maliciously reported and the long term damage done has been really unpleasant. One of these families was subject to a year of investigations, that has left the whole family very damaged. False negatives are abusive, to think otherwise is to delude ourselves, and this is something that the PT(DOT)B whether genuinely or wilfully, don’t appear to understand.
false positives rather
I’m inclined to agree. (PS, sorry about the modded comment, this site seems to have it in for a totally random set of people, no matter how often they comment or i approve them and there is nothing i can do to persuade it or make it think otherwise. Should rename it PoP goes the Badman…)
And there, to prove me wrong, it didn’t mod you the second time. Actually, it is clearly just a toddler.
What concerns me about the seeing kids alone thing is, taken with the latest report that the NHS is not meeting child protection targets, its only a baby step to think that should you take a child to A&E with a broken arm or a twisted ankle and they see the child has bruises on their legs then they will demand to see the child alone to check for abuse. I don’t want my kids put under that kind of pressure and I’m not even HEing. My kids clam up whenever they are asked a direct question from someone they don’t know and the rubbish that DS1 has come out with in the past (“I am allergic, I’m allergic to the sun”, turned out he meant it made him sneeze) combined with the verbatim quoting DS3 does from TV programmes whether its entirely appropriate or not makes me think that its a situation I would end up regretting. Chris, there is a link about somewhere to the full text of the debate that the quote came from, I just can’t remember where. It certainly isn’t taken out of context here though.
Talking about avenues to pursue, Lord Lucas in his blog – http://lordlucas.blogspot.com/ – says that it’s as important to focus on lobbying (or whatever) the Conservatives and Liberals as it is Labour, because Labour will “not be the next government and will not be able to implement these plans”.
Fingers crossed – everyone’s feeling horrendous but it’s not over for HE yet – we need to try and make sure the people in power next will be more supportive.