Aimee Challenor suspended from post

Elizabeth Warren

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/30/elizabeth-warren-vows-transgender-child-must-appro/

Sorry should have been more clear. Aimee now appears to be in the US working for the Warren campaign.

I don't understand the significance, Ova, can you spell it out for me (sorry, on strong painkillers and not firing on all cylinders)?

Bumping one of our numerous Challenor threads to add this

This seems to be "OK" because it's a primary school. A secondary school teacher who had sexual relationships with sixth-formers from other schools, even over 18, would be instantaneous toast.

Interesting to see that suddenly disclosures cannot be confidential.

It's strange timing isn't it, that suddenly they have done what any organisation dealing with vulnerable youngsters should do, re. due process/Safeguarding...

Is that the one with the orange fingers? 🤢

*loath, god, self flagellating here.

It does say it was uploaded 'November 2019', Coldwater, so seems to have been done very recently.

Naked teacher, eh?

Hm. Is it just me really loathe to download anything from that site?

Bizarrely, Prism has magically sorted out procedure - did Ii miss this previously? I don't recall being able to find their Safeguarding info at all .. maybe I missed it?
It's at prismlgbtq.org/policies-procedures/ , with the owner of the Safeguarding Policy the naked teacher!

Datun, to get Sport England accreditation, which host Local Authorities required before we got their needed support, we had to have a whole raft of things on our website, not least a name and contact for our safeguarding person and the relevant policies.

I can't see why the Local Authority is not requiring similar from a youth group, especially a youth group catering to a potentially vulnerable group, to have a similar degree of protection and transparency. I wonder who oversees youth groups, and what accreditations they offer. And why the local police etc are not checking before engaging. or why the local authority are not intervening. This has to be a wheel that has already been invented. The idea that volunteers, whoever they are, are setting up a group to engage vulnerable young people surely ought to have safeguarding experts ready to ensure that all is as it should be.

I am very disapproving of any 40 year old who has sex with one or more 17 year olds. The power imbalance alone is worrying. For a headteacher to behave in this way is (imho) completely unacceptable and this applies whether they have sex with two 17 year old boys or girls.

It appears that many of the problems were procedural? I find it hard to believe that even in these porn soaked days, most schools would be accepting of teachers having sex with children under the age of 18 regardless of consent - given their safeguarding duties and being role models?

Possibly precedents like this might discourage the school or local authority from taking action.

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/15/tribunal-awards-700k-to-headteacher-sacked-over-gay-dating-app-activity

I nearly started a thread on this the other day when I read it. For those of you who don't know, a primary headteacher was sacked after he had sex with two 17-year old boys he'd met on a dating app, and he took the school to tribunal and won.

I was very surprised indeed at the scale of the payout. Legally, I suppose, it was hard to justify the sacking because having sex with 17 year olds isn't against the law, and yet there's something about it that makes me feel very uncomfortable for someone who's a headteacher.

Datun, surely the first step is to have clear policies, checks and procedures so that the likelihood that anything untoward happens is kept to a minimum.

Yes, which relies on the organisation itself tho. And they could not care about safeguarding, for whatever reason.

How does this work Lang? If the person concerned just looks totally dodgy, but hasn't actually done anything illegal, what is the recourse?

Technically, your local safeguarding board. If it hasn't already been captured by queer theory.

Datun, surely the first step is to have clear policies, checks and procedures so that the likelihood that anything untoward happens is kept to a minimum.

I assume that since this person is a teacher they have an enhanced DBS. Just because someone's spidey senses suggest someone is dodgy, it does not mean they are. And the reverse. Lots of evil has been carried out under the cloak of respectability. But the potential for problems must be kept to a minimum.

Prism should have a clear appropriate safeguarding policy. Given they cater for quite a wide age range, thought should be given to older attendees. For example should 16+ attendees have DBS checks? The policy should be displayed on the website, as should the name and contact of the person responsible for safeguarding, and ideally the governance of the organisation and the names of the people running it.

I am not an expert in safeguarding, and someone like R0wantrees would know exactly what is required. However what Prism have is clearly not good enough. If someone was aware of a problem, perhaps including this poor use of social media, how would they know how to report it.

And what the hell are the police and others doing supporting Prism when a quick glance at their website gives no evidence that they have considered safeguarding or done anything to minimise risk.

There's quite a shield around certain people in a range of professions these days. And - just as the NSPCC demonstrated so aptly with rubberman - there is a now sense of untouchability in certain professions. Even more since the safeguarding of children has become of lesser importance than the rights of adults (mainly males) to indulge in public displays of nudity, fetish and sexual behaviours.

Like, I make sex jokes to my friend. I do not make those same jokes around children, because that would be inappropriate. If my job involved working with children I wouldn't make them on social media while talking about my job because, again, inappropriate.

Someone will no doubt be trying to get all these posts deleted which is why I am pointing out that the discomfort women are feeling here is not because the man referenced above is gay, it's because he's acting inappropriately for someone in the job he's in.

What the ever loving fuck?

How does this work Lang? If the person concerned just looks totally dodgy, but hasn't actually done anything illegal, what is the recourse?

Also if people could try to wrap their heads around the idea that there's a whole lot of space between "be deeply ashamed of your sexuality and feel compelled to hide it" and "abandon all sense of appropriate boundaries and make fingering jokes in the context of talking about your job working with children" then that would be great.

We are letting LGBT children down so badly. They deserve the same level of safeguarding as all children. Unfortunately sticking a rainbow flag on something is blinding people to their responsibilities towards minors.

This, this, this.

We are letting LGBT children down so badly. They deserve the same level of safeguarding as all children. Unfortunately sticking a rainbow flag on something is blinding people to their responsibilities towards minors.

Possibly precedents like this might discourage the school or local authority from taking action.

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/15/tribunal-awards-700k-to-headteacher-sacked-over-gay-dating-app-activity