Kemi Badenoch to face Women & Equalities Committee’s questions on equalities issues - 13 December 2023

Kemi Badenoch is just amazing, what a woman! Protecting women and children like that position should ✊

Froodwithatowel · Yesterday 14:29

I mean who needs democracy? We've got an extremist lobby with rainbow laces.

You've a good way with words!

A child already on the child protection register because a parent is abusing them verbally, physically etc. Sadly not all children have loving parents some are abused beyond belief and the threshold for removing them is high.

In this scenario the school would invoke the safeguarding procedures which brings in the appropriate authorities I.e. referral to SS etc.

And the Magdalen laundries. Because single women who got pregnant were clearly such bad people it would be better for the children to be placed with “proper” families.

And the children removed from loving families and shipped off to abuse in Canada and Australia by middle class busy bodies who believed that children were better off being removed from 'feckless' parents living lives that said busy bodies disapproved of. Also justified as 'removing them from abuse'.

Previously, it would have seemed ridiculous to ponder that children could be removed from parents who practice mainstream religious adherence. That this would be viewed as a safeguarding issue. It just conjures up the junta in Chile, Khmer Rouge etc.

Absolutely. Confidentiality is very nuanced and schools deciding to withhold any info from parents have to be really certain that they've thought through the implications and ideally consulted with other relevant organisations in the child's life if there's the possibility the child is at risk of harm.

Sometimes awful things have happened to children and it transpires that they've confided in a teacher who has kept it secret or the school has failed to refer on to SS. It always comes out in the subsequent review.

It's why we have our complex national safeguarding system - because we know this stuff. It's literally been built on what we've learned when things go terribly wrong for children.

The idea that transactivists think they can dismantle this for their own purposes is unbelievable

What are the chances of a child questioning their gender, having parents who are likely to harm them if exposed, but otherwise have no issues?

What are schools proposing to help these children, exactly? If the only risk is the parents finding out, but that risk is deemed potentially harmful, how does allowing them to transition at school guarantee saftey? The collusion of every teacher and child would be required. All it would take is one child to say to their parents x is now y, and the parents could find out.

In this scenario, the only safe option would be not to transition at school.

This is why i dont think the issues between parents and schools is genuinely harmful parents, its reasonable parents who say to the school 'no, school transition isnt right for my child'.

Its some schools and some teachers that are so TRA, they dont want parents to make this choice. Similarly, they want to force other children to comply with the policy of preferred pronouns.

There is no right to exclude parents. The police / social services who remove a choild for emergency reasons MUST seek the court's permission with 72 hours. The whole safeguarding system has working in partnership with parents built in throughout the process. When a school refers a child to SS the school must contact the parent and tell them they've made the referral. There are exceptions (sometimes sexual abuse where the parent is the suspect and prior knowledge can result in them destroying evidence).
Parents are then in involved at all stages of the process - even if they're accused of abuse - sitting in meetings and expected to contribute. If children are in care, parents still retain parental responsibility and must be consulted about all sorts of events u the child's life.

Only the courts can remove parental rights and it's a long process to getting to that stage. Schools do not and have never had this power.

The “when to withhold” decision needs to be the same as it is for any other piece of information. I’m not a DSL nor a social worker so I’m not 100% on where exactly that guidance is. But I actually wouldn’t want separate guidance for keeping secrets with gender questioning children. A lot of the damage has been caused by the idea of “trans” being a special case wrt safeguarding.

Some of the reporting around this has suggested that a perceived risk of harm would be sufficient grounds for schools or teachers to independently decide to withhold information - a loophole in the guidance.
As long as it is social services that take the lead in deciding if the risk threshold is reached and information is withheld

Destabilising children and cutting them off from their parents and wider family in this way makes them vulnerable to grooming either by the people doing it or others, eg online.

Yes. If there's credible evidence that the parents would harm the child for wanting to undergo gender reassignment, a) the parents are likely to harm the child for other reasons, and b) the child will be harmed if someone else, e.g. another child's parent, "outs" the child to the parents. So the school keeping a secret from the parents isn't enough to protect the child from that risk and other statutory agencies need to be informed as they may have to act quickly to protect the child.

Plus I don't think anyone should be encouraging children to live double lives, which is what a school-only social transition is.

If a school makes the decision to withhold information they are saying that the parents represent a serious risk to the child's safety.
This should not be something that they can do in isolation.

I completely agree. Many teachers have had minimal safeguarding training. They are supposed to pass concerns up the line.

@CheckingTheNumbers of course. I’ve been consistent on this for years - wherever safeguarding risk are real the school are not the appropriate body to make the decision to keep parents in the dark. That’s why I also said in my previous post that sometimes info is kept from parents “on the advice of social services”.

@JemimaTiggywinkles
If a school makes the decision to withhold information they are saying that the parents represent a serious risk to the child's safety.
This should not be something that they can do in isolation.
If the risk is real then they need to also inform social services and present the evidence for their decision.
Either the risk is real or it is not

Not a social worker, I'd also appreciate insights on this. The one time I have ever seen parents not informed immediately was when the child was being removed into care, and it was important parents were not able to attempt to physically remove the child by force (based on a long evidenced history of events carefully recorded) before the social worker could get there to take the child off the premises. Even then as soon as the child was removed, those very difficult conversations then had to be held.

If the school feels that a child's parents represent a safeguarding issue serious enough to warrant exclusion, surely they should be reporting this risk to other authorities.

Absolutely. But there are some times where information is withheld from parents on the advice of social services. I do not think that “they’re religious” would be an acceptable reason for keeping things from parents, but perhaps one of FWR’s social workers could give insight into which instances parents are kept in the dark.

Exactly this.

As mentioned on the threads discussing the new guidance, a MNetter who is a social services manager pointed out that the threshold for them, as social workers, to exclude parents on the grounds of risk, is very high and has to be evidenced.

It was never meant to be weaponised to prevent parents being able to interfere with adults in a position of trust exercising their personal political agendas on their child. Excuses like this is how this awful situation has been achieved. And it has also been achieved by trying to make 'parents having other views' be seen at the same level of abuse as 'serious physical harm'. Remember that useful little phrase we've all had dinned in about 'literal violence'?

It's time for everyone to stop being useful idiots, and I'm pretty sure KB's department are gathering up the evidence on this.

I can see if the issue was about questioning their sexuality, and the parents were for instance very religious, it could be a concern as to how the child might then be treated at home.

I don't think that would be a fair assumption unless there is already evidence of emotional or physical abuse. Parents have responsibility for their children, they get to make decisions about how they raise them, including religious beliefs at home.

It stands for 'The Right Side of History' AKA 'God is on our side' (IMO).

What's TROSH?

If the school feels that a child's parents represent a safeguarding issue serious enough to warrant exclusion, surely they should be reporting this risk to other authorities.