Andrew Gilligan Times: 'Green high-flyer Aimee Challenor hid father’s rape charges' David Challenor 'A paedophile rapist posed a “major safeguarding risk” for almost two years'

Very disturbing - one at how credible they sound to the uninformed - which most of the interviewers readily identify as. Second, so disingenuous - contact us, email me or tweet me - we should transparent and reachable - we’re not going to ignore people -

unless you’re a GC woman /s!!

And the way they refer to the trans day of remembrance as though it’s long established and as important as the real Remembrance Day. Also the tactic of proposing the Green candidate if elected mayor would take a lesser salary - sounded like buying votes.

The last thing was Baloo derailing by disagreeing that Aimee had risen through the ranks of the GP quickly - which they had.

What struck me was AC's entitlement - the assertion that political issues affected younger people more as they would have longer to live with them plus that because there's an A level subject of Govt. therefore that shows there's demand for lowering the voting age!!! It's also their absolute dismissal of anyone older as having any wisdom or anything to add and that younger people hold the key - right - no entitlement there at all........and women not mentioned once - 52% of the population not even referenced.....

I am familiar with Trussell Trust and from my perspective, as someone who deals with very vulnerable people, and with a partner who does youth work with a large group of youngsters in an area with significant social issues, I can say that safeguarding is very much about a whole culture of trust. As mentioned, if it gets boiled down to tick box exercises, everyone misses the point that it's about everyone understanding that we all have a part to play in being vigilant, and we have to make wise choices based on very clear frameworks.

Yes it is political as most everything is on one level, but it's not a partisan issue. The left may well have cocked up certain elements of it, but the right has significant blind spots too, and it's only by a clear, open, non-partisan framework that we can hope to avoid the pitfalls that are inevitable if we miss it.

Nothing is ever completely black and white I agree - AC aside, the political class mix with their own type and have a collective blinkeredness that is misogynistic in character. It's curious how they are only blind to the adverse impact on women yet promote stances that advantage men. I agree that the competence of many political types is questionable - I have long held the view that our version of democracy is long overdue for an overhaul to ensure systems thinking and tech skills are centred, in addition to people competencies.

One could also surmise it's because there are many Cluster B types in positions of power. Cluster Bs are very adept at pulling the wool over people's eyes and recruiting flying monkeys that work on their behalf, yet their self-centred actions are wholly incongruent from their words.

Add to that the lack of older practitioner women in politics and the result is a toxic short-sightedness.

Re AC - they are either being duped or doing the duping, dependent upon one's view of them. And yes competence and capacity have been highlighted in the report as problematic - but let's agree many of us here have been saying that of many for a long time.....

Womanformerly...but Aimee Challenor, Jeremy Corbyn and a lot of other players in current politics are not RG graduates. Part of the problem seems to be, as AC appears to admit, they do not seem to have the capacity to understand. (Other than Layla Moran who can conveniently see into people's souls.)

Common sense is, in my experience, not much about education. 'Educated' people can be completely dopey. We need to expect/demand our senior politicians ,and influential policy advisors to have a better understanding of the world ordinary people live in.

bedford.foodbank.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/133/2017/02/Safeguarding-Policy-May-2016.pdf

Here is the safeguarding policy document for Trussel Trust food banks. As you can see, they have it properly covered. (Okay, they say gender not sex but small mercies, eh?) They have the definitions. They have general behaviour policies. They have information sharing pathways and all the rest of it.

Oink every year there are fires, often resulting in deaths, because people didn't follow the guidelines that you have mentioned. I have seen a lot of blocked fire exits in services for the public and many other fire hazards. Residential homes often have failings with regard to fire safety. Policies and procedures are dependent on those implementing them. As far as I am aware all services where there is contact with children have to have some form of safeguarding training.

Am I being unrealistic?

I want to add a couple of things re the discussion re safeguarding. From my understanding, it's about creating a culture of high trust, user focus, underpinned by interlocking frameworks of due diligence. Thus if someone spots something they think is untoward, they can raise it without sanction and without having the usual reputation first response - because the primary organisation focus is the user (the child for example). Everyone from CEO to cleaner is subject to the same ethos. A kind-of 360-degree perspective such that people with their own agendas, whatever they are, will find it difficult to forward them unchecked.

So one can see that as various bits of that service are outsourced to various disparate organisations, that common user focus and high trust culture and frameworks are sacrificed for the cheapest service delivery with a nod to paper safeguarding "health and safety" type policies. The latter being very different from the former. This is what Lisa M refers to as financialisation. In the latter, the user becomes whatever govt dept. is outsourcing the service, not the vulnerable individual. The cultural ethos is lost in the drive for the misinformed simplistic view that saving money will lead to better outcomes for the user - but which user are we talking about? It may save the dept. some money, but leads to irreparable and long term social damage to the vulnerable and the community. However, this latter KPI isn't tracked, measured nor valued anywhere - except it seems by FWR.;)

I think real care has to be taken that safeguarding isn't viewed as an enhanced DBS check plus a tick in the box, paper exercise - it's much, much more than that. It's understanding that those with their own agendas to exploit are skilled at hiding them, whether unconsciously or not. By being in a culture where user-focus plus openness & transparency are first and foremost, it means that any clash between the personal agenda and the user focus will be outed and dealt with in the open. People unable/unwilling to adapt to operate in that environment will move or be moved on.

David Davies, a good crop of intelligent centre-right journalists, and left wing feminists get it. Plus educated mums on a very mainstream website. What is wrong with those who aspire to be our political leaders?

Again I find Lisa M's insights helpful as she describes the total (and I mean total) disconnect between those who graduate from the Russell Group of Unis automatically into positions of policy power in various sectors and the reality on the ground. What the former are taught bears no relationship with how the complex systems on the ground actual operate. Thus these policymakers have a simplistic and misinformed view of life, and are unwilling to be challenged because they are "best qualified" cos they are the "elite graduates". Their willful blindness and closed-shop mentality mean they are not in the best position to make and shape policy nor importantly are unable to formulate the questions that would expose any harm being perpetrated by said policies, systems and rogue individuals. They know not what they do but they are being paid to do so because being a naive graduate from a Russell Group Uni trumps the actual real experience of practitioners on the ground, for example, social workers and police. This is the "elite" in operation.

However it is also required of organisations that their officers and trustees understand what Safeguarding is. The report demonstrates clearly that AC did not

Expecting a young person to supervise their own parent and to manage the risk posed by that parent is absolutely inappropriate. And given the nature of the accusations against DC and the history of social services involvement in his parenting of AC it becomes jaw dropping both that AC was put in that position and that this was considered to be adequate risk management.

All parties should be seriously considering if AC had chosen their party, would the outcomes really be any different?

Yes, exactly.

LangCleg brilliant, thank you.

Oink - welcome. I tell you what - the next time you have some time to spare, why don't you read the statutory safeguarding guidance for children? It has all the info on the basic principles and the details and it explains the legislation underpinning. I'm not trying to give you homework! It's how I found out about all this stuff in full detail.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729914/Working_Together_to_Safeguard_Children-2018.pdf

Here's an analogy. Fire risk assessment. Most workplaces aren't au fait with fire compartmentalisation and most employees have never dealt with or been in a fire. Thankfully.
But because fire safety is covered by EHS legislation employers have a vague idea about minimum standards, large employers with multiple sites normally have set standards, small consultancy firms exist to carry out training, alarm checks and extinguisher renewal etc.
The general public knows fire exits shouldn't be blocked, and that overloading wall sockets is dangerous. Some even know that propping open fire doors is not allowed.
Presumably at some point in the past, none of this was in place.
Something changed to put it in place. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement from nothing to some awareness/legal responsibility/specialist providers available.
Safeguarding of children and vulnerable people could be similar, to the extent that five years from now, new starters at ASDA have to watch a video on safeguarding and reporting concerns as well as a fire safety one.

LangCleg thanks for that, appreciated.
So if (for example) a law regarding public liability insurance was passed that stated that any organisation that had access to children or vulnerable people had to have a policy in place whereby secrets were never allowed, would that help, or is it too prescriptive, do you think?
I'm just thinking that there are orgs with none of this in place, like the Green Party by the look of it. So if we had a way to spread the principles further it would be helpful, I think.

If safeguarding is too complicated for us plebs to understand, and can't be explained then you will get frustrating questions from people like me in unrelated industries.

I don't work in safeguarding. It's not too complicated to understand. I'm not trying to be patronising. Safeguarding is a collection of protocols and principles designed to minimise risk to children and vulnerable adults. It has nothing to do with politics or ideology.

I'll give you a simple example I often use, hopefully that will help.

Why are professionals working with children and vulnerable adults going against safeguarding principles if they accept confidential disclosures?

a) because someone with a secret is easy to control and abuse if an organisation has been infiltrated by an abuser (try as we might, we'll never keep them all out)

b) because information sharing can help to prevent harm to self or others but if the left hand doesn't tell the right hand, the right hand doesn't know to pay attention

It doesn't matter what the secret is. In the case of a child, say, with a trans identification, it also doesn't matter whether one is pro- or anti- child transition. It just matters that the child is kept as safe as possible - from infiltrating abusers, from self-harm, from bullying and all the other possible harms.

YSWIM? And risks will be different in every case. The key principles of not allowing confidential disclosures and encouraging information sharing apply regardless.

So is there a legal minimum in terms of safeguarding efforts for an unregulated organisation?
Because if not, then again it points to having an ombudsman type organisation, with some teeth, to enforce minimum standards. Or beefing up requirements for public liability insurance maybe?
I admit the child protection issues were a derail, and I don't want you to oversimplify anything. It's just hard work sometimes to try to get some basics out there for the lurkers. (and me)
I'm conscious that you and other posters won't want to unwittingly dox yourselves too, so I'm grateful for the information you do share.

You're not quite understanding things.
Bit patronising?
I've already stated I don't work in social care. My issue was around the various layers and how they are not clear enough to the lay person. I don't want a crash course in whatever your jobs are, and I fully appreciate there is a lot of skill, knowledge and training required to do those kinds of roles.
This thread was about safeguarding risks posed by a dangerous sex offender linked with a local political party and that party's national spokesperson.
If safeguarding is too complicated for us plebs to understand, and can't be explained then you will get frustrating questions from people like me in unrelated industries. We want to know more, about how this can happen, what normally gets put in place, what doesn't.
Finally I fully understand that not all loopholes can be closed, but as an interested member of the public I find it concerning that measures can't be explained in a few posts.
You could explain brain surgery, in theory, in a few posts, but not safeguarding.
And that's supposed to be robust.

Oink - the point is that we can never close all loopholes. That is the point, for example, of Serious Case Reviews in social work, where bad things have happened and we investigate to see if current protocols weren't followed or if new ones could have prevented them - and establish what is needed. The death of Victoria Climbie, for example, led to a public enquiry and the institution of Every Child Matters.

You're not quite understanding things.