Safeguarding girls and protecting women post Jimmy Saville & #metoo

How strange! Maggie Mellon was a senior social worker and vocal about the named person fiasco, so both good women but I wonder who really wrote it?

I cut and pasted it all from the original article, including her name.

I can see on Twitter she's also previously RT links to sexual assault on girls.

How odd regarding her name as the byline said Ritchie...

The Sunday Herald article linked to says the author is Maggie Mellon, although a comment at the bottom by Mike Ritchie says it's the wrong by-line as Mellon did not write it. Where did you get the name Maggie Ritchie from Indierockandroll?

Good for the Sunday Herald. A media voice in Scotland joining WoS. The Scottish Consultation just went under the radar in the mainstream media here. And the School Guidance needs to be seriously examined publicly.

maggieritchie.com/

My friend Google informs me she is an author and journalist.

Sunday herald article is good. Who is Maggie Ritchie? Has she written other things?

Noticed this today and thought it worth sharing as a reminder about why many young women need privacy and to feel safe :

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/22/sexually-abused-teenage-girls-likely-suffer-mental-health-issues-months-later-study

Place-marking to read later

Ah it is clicky!

Sunday Herald guest comment: the impact on children of accepting 'transgender' ideology
Maggie Ritchie

Apologies it's not clicky (again) but this post argues that children have the right to be protected:

www.heraldscotland.com/news/16369924.sunday-herald-guest-comment-the-impact-on-children-of-accepting-transgender-ideology/

I can't make it to this meeting but anyone who can and is interested in safeguarding or in how the big picture is looking with regard to women and girls and working class people, I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

Kate Belgrave is brilliant.

(Lisa's a bit rubbish though. )

OP *LangCleg wrote:

"This event is in Leeds on 1st August. Organised by MN favourite, Lisa Muggeridge. A slightly different emphasis to WPUK and WNTT in that it's trying to tie together all the fronts that women are fighting on.

Here's the event page:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/correcting-a-blindspot-women-talking-tickets-47717202437

'Kate Belgrave will be discussing the impact of public sector cuts and how difficult it is to get media attention to focus on the systems at stake.

Lisa Muggeridge will be discussing the policy makers, academia and media view of our benefits system, systems that protect from violence, child protection and social care.

Miranda Yardley will be discussing female erasure.

Claire Graham will be comparing two sets of statutory guidance for schools, to illustrate the impact of this blindspot.

We have supplementary speakers from fields including child protection and domestic, campaigners against the Spearmint Rhino in Sheffield, and people who want to discuss the managed zone in Holbeck.'
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3296082-Correcting-a-blindspot-Leeds-meeting-organised-by-Lisa-Muggeridge-and-others

current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3260133-You-need-to-read-this-article-about-the-Leeds-red-light-district

Thanks LangCleg

IMPORTANT

Can I just say that @MNHQ and I have had a productive conversation with regard to the post I had deleted? I am satisfied with the outcome.

I have great concerns about the power dynamics with regard to the reporting and subsequent deletion of posts on this forum and have represented them to MNHQ. I don't agree with all their actions or everything they say about this but I am satisfied that they gave me a fair hearing about this particular post and took on board everything I had to say.

I don't think it would be right or proper to include specific details, so I hope you can all trust me on this.

(When I say parents need more confidence, I mean they need more support to have the courage of their convictions. Parents who have always tried to get on with it and do the right thing are an easy target to knock back)

Gillick competence demands children are discussing the context of treatment, have sufficient understanding and is about making sure kids dont do something daft, with assurance they are not being unduly influenced. Gillick Competence and fraser guidelines are not about trans rights activists being able to demand we do not discuss that context. Not even remotely.

The thing about Gillick competency was that it was introduced as a way of preventing children from doing something irreparable, namely becoming a parent while still a child themselves, and finding themselves in a position of having lifelong responsibility towards another human being while still a child themselves.

I don't believe it was ever intended to be a way to permit children to do something irreparable and irreversible to themselves.

I think we could do with revisiting the whole concept of Gillick competency, starting from the good old adage of "first do no harm..."

I think parents need more confidence. We have had years of the mantra that most child abuse is within the family. I think this has been used to shut down any talk of outside abuse from predators. There are probably links as to why people from dysfunctional families become abusers/abused etc. But this does not mean that abuse is confined to family situations.

There are millions of parents out there who are doing a good job, but concerned parents are often accused of helicoptering, being overbearing, controlling. When the DC are older, it is hard to get help for things like anorexia as they are Gillick competent or within a couple of years of going to adult services and they won't do anything unless the DC goes and asks for help. Which leaves the parents trying to do their best with what they have. When things are not going right and the parent is feeling lost and needs help, it is easy in this climate to disassociate the parents from the child, and it easy for groups to do this for their own purposes if the parents don't toe the line.

Gay men had every right to challenge the constant conflation of peadophilia and their sexuality/ When your demands are that spaces of safety from male violence are ended, children are taught to have no boundaries, that established safeguarding and protective frameworks are opened to you, you dont get to screech every time someone mentions peadophilia. You are demanding a discussion whree that is central, you certainly dont get to police that with intimidation, abuse, coercion and then have noone notice and claim its activism. Its not. THis is a website for mothers bound by these laws and responsibilities and it is unacceptable to simultaneously demand that conversation and then abuse people for having it. Its an admission. Not a debate.

That twitter thread is terrifying

Offred .

Thanks R0wan.

@MNHQ why was Lang's post deleted please?

The thread's moved on a bit but I just want to stand up and say that it's shocking that Lang's post was deleted. No talk guidelines were broken.

That is not ok @MNHQ - what are you trying to do here? You're undermining a valid debate about safeguarding of children by deleting critical parts of the discussion. This is silencing women.

That post should be reinstated. It's not ok to delete very clear posts about risks to safeguarding (and incidentally risks to trans kids) because someone misinterprets them, no matter how much their feelings are hurt by their misinterpretation of what is actually written.

Indierockandroll
there are some recent articles which highlight some of the safeguarding concerns (there are many more of course):

www.heraldscotland.com/news/16311379.schools-forget-girls-in-rush-to-adopt-pro-trans-guidance-campaigners-claim-as-christian-group-threatens-legal-action

James Kirkup: blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/are-female-prisoners-at-risk-from-transgender-inmates/

Also re conflicing rights, this one demonstrates well:
inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-woman-transgender-nurse-smear-test/