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'

Effective training, sufficient resources, valuing professionals, organisational ethos, reflective practice and robust supervision are key.
Last comment on this, I promise.
To me the above sounds a bit "closed shop". It sounds subjective. It sounds like being able to maintain it depends on funding, will and ability, which can all vary.
I'm not trying to suggest professionals are all dodgy, or to strip search child psychologists every ten minutes. But the public look at the Victoria Climbie fiasco (one of the worst, in terms of professional incompetence) and this is now in the public record:
Arthurworrey, a junior worker with only nineteen months of child protection experience when she took on Climbié's case, was found to have made mistakes in the case. She accused her employer of "making her a scapegoat", and criticised her superiors and department for not guiding her properly. The inquiry heard that Arthurworrey was overworked, taking on more cases than guidelines allow. Carole Baptiste, Arthurworrey's first supervisor, initially refused to attend the hearings, but subsequently gave vague responses to the inquiry, and said that she had been suffering from mental illness at the time. Baptiste's own child was taken into care a few months before Climbié's death. Arthurworrey said that, in their meetings, Baptiste spent most of the time discussing "her experiences as a black woman and her relationship with God", rather than child protection cases, and that she was frequently absent. Baptiste admitted she had not read Climbié's file properly. She was removed in November 1999 when she was found to be professionally unfit for her job from wiki
Now my concern is this: what catches this kind of incompetence when it is set in at all levels in one particular area? Hence my preference for an overarching authority.

R0wantrees
Ok thanks for the clarification. So by putting trust in the professionalism and training of the staff member instead of enforcing CCTV coverage (for example) you open a loophole though, surely?
The idea of blanket policies as per the prison staff being subjected to searches is not feasible, then?
The blanket approach is the most non-discriminatory one, and the more that is covered in that way the fewer things have to be reviewed in the event of an issue.
You can easily review if a person was trained or the CCTV was recorded. It's harder to establish what the "ethos" was.

“BlindYeo

Marshmallow pointed out a fact that the trans dogma is not repeated across the political firmament. There are exceptions. You might not like where those exceptions fall but they exist. People are allowed to mention them.”

Thanks. There are also many on the right of the Conservative Party who do not agree but on the whole the Conservative Party do seem to be buying into the modern trans/gender ideas. They think this is the way the wind is blowing so they go along with it. Which is to be expected from career politicians, especially in the age of trial by twitter. I think many on this form just don’t like the fact that support is coming from the right of the political spectrum. But that support is there regardless. It’s entirely up to them if they want to take it, I suspect most won’t but nevertheless I wish them luck.

Oink exactly. A good froend was really agressive about Brexit. I was pretty much on the fence (and genuinely worried about Junckers ability to listen as well as the growing right wing movements in places like Hungary). I therefore hated the automatic assumption that I was 'racist' and therefore bad.

Noone has a monopoly on 'right' and what is 'correct' now wont be in a generation's time. Free speed, the ability of argue and to think critically, respect, listening etc. Sod #no debate. Its what gives us the Challenors.

Needmoresleep I recognise what you are talking about. It's part of the binary politics were are stuck with now. Where you pick a side and denigrate the opposition as evil. It doesn't allow any talk about degree, or any weighing up of pros and cons, or for you to ever change your mind without alienating your friends!

Its systemic rather than about individuals in this case...It is complex and nuanced.
Agreed, but like the example of prison security on the other thread, perhaps complex and nuanced isn't the right track.
Let me explain in lay terms, and forgive me if my understanding is incorrect. An individual works with vulnerable service users. Might be a school, a youth group, a medical setting, a charity, whatever. That person has some background checks. That person works in an area covered by CCTV. That person is not permitted to be alone with service users of the opposite sex. That person receives training on all this. That training is logged. The background checks are renewed periodically. That person receives anonymous feedback from their peers via their line manager. That person is regularly appraised. Random CCTV footage is appraised. Service users' parents, friends and guardians are encouraged to give feedback on the staff. There is a robust complaints procedure. The institution is subject to spot checks and audits by an outside organisation and is legally bound to comply with recommendations.
That to me is safeguarding, in terms of what might reasonably be expected to be put in place to mitigate against the risk that employee might be malicious.
Now if that was say "safeguarding minimum standards for direct employees" then it should be rolled out in any or all institutions that could feasibly be expected to fall under a similar category
Then we agree a similar "safeguarding minimum standards for agency employees", "contractors", "visitors", etc.
Everyone involved in each organisation/workplace/government department could be reasonably expected to be subject to one of the frameworks.
One size fits all, no exceptions, and if someone moves from one category to another, or falls into more than on category, the more stringent framework shall apply.
It will cost money, obviously. It will mean no exceptions. No cultural sensitivity. Everyone subject to the same. For example if someone had an objection to being recorded on CCTV, they would not be allowed to work there. It's those kind of objections that employers are so scared of, and why so many organisations have pre-empted things like self-id.
A safeguarding ombudsman (with teeth!) would ideally overrule those kinds of insular objections with an eye on the bigger picture.
Am I being unrealistic?

I spent Christmas in thd US where we had dinner with a lovely educated couple. He was a retired senior scientist, she a high school science teacher. All three of their (bright) children had been educated at Ivy League colleges. So far so liberal.

I expressed my GC views on culture wars. The mum was amazed. She agreed completely and came out with a story of a neighbouring high school who had come to an amicable agreement over changing facilities for a MtoF teen (seperate) only to have local activists charge in threating lawyers and insisting he/she used the girls facilities.

Interestingly the mum expressed her utter dislike of the democratic establishment especially the Pritzkers but also the Clintons. Trump had emphasised his outsider status and had promised to break the mould. This is why people voted for him.

Echos of Brexit here. I hated the way remainers accused those who had exercised their democratic vote of being 'racist'. (My own concern remains the undemocratic nature of the EU.) Ditto those who voted Trump, who are, if you listen to enthusiastic Democrats, clearly beyond the pale. However the left, in the UK or US are not blameless. They dont hold a monopoly on truth. They have a duty to listen to voters, not accuse them. Yes on some issues ordinary people may be more conservative than opinion formers (which is why Stonewall has plenty more LGB work to do) but most people are good, sensible and kind and they need to be listened to.

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?

R0wantrees
Good point.
How far apart are the three major parties in what the US call "culture wars" terms?
The main difference these days is economic, I think.
Tebbit is the most obvious homophobe, calling churchmen "sodomites" etc but he is less relevant now. BoJo said after Civil Partnership was passed mentioned two men and a dog might as well get hitched BoJo not funny
But since "call me Dave", even the Tories are on board with the alphabet soup.
Pascoe seems like an odious individual, but again there seems to be a failure to challenge, a free pass because Pascoe is trans.
I don't expect the Tories to challenge either, their new worldview on this is similar to that of the Greens.
I would much prefer the idea of a safeguarding ombudsman as mooted earlier, and for that office to be very strictly secular and very strictly politically neutral.

Strange, I can't link that FT article but can read it without subscription. Sorry

Any narrative which limits the focus on the sources and complex nature of risk is dangerous.
Agreed. And the girls in the grooming gang cases were ignored, written off by all. (Which is another illustration of my point, we don't look after working class girls if we write them off like that).

Perhaps the time/resources thing is the most important factor.
I feel that if the Green Party had endless financial resources, though, they still wouldn't exercise a healthy scepticism with regards to certain issues because it messes with their worldview.
I think there are some very questionable political positions within the left, for example the cultural relativist stance, which elevates other cultures as noble and denigrates any western culture as imperialist - and in so doing spits in the face of women in other countries who would dearly love for their countries to be as free as the UK. It's the whole talking for people I hate.
So I think it's important to know if UKIP are against TWAW, for example, because that leads to questions such as "why just them?" It's useful dialogue.

FT re CB
This woman was given oodles of cash because politicians didn't want to bother themselves with the problems inner city (mainly black) kids had. complaint re KC advert
How do we know the cash that was doled out to kids didn't cause more problems? How do we know there were no safeguarding issues between KC staff and the children they were concerned with? Luck, I guess, because CB had no idea what was going on and none of the figures made any sense! Spectator
I'm not a social worker but that isn't safeguarding. That's kicking the can down the road because nobody wants to ask questions.
It's the same now, throwing cash at trans organisations like Mermaids because nobody wants to deal with those kids.

R0wantrees
Why is it dangerous? If I'm concerned about how we are failing to protect black kids, Muslim kids or gay kids (for example, and I think we fail all three groups) then how is insisting on robust challenges dangerous?
I'm not whistling for a dog here.
I want to know why the outcomes are so different and as a lay person I can see that there is less scrutiny. Mermaids is a perfect example. They've been not only left to do what they please but elevated as a kind of expert organisation.

UKIP's definition of a woman is no more relevant than the Green Party's. The safeguarding failures are about failures of disclosures, information sharing, etc. So apolitical in the sense of party positions, or competing ideologies.
Agreed. We just need to ensure everyone is subject to the same rigour.