Camila Batmanghelidjh died

She was amazing.
A million times the person that anyone in our disgraceful government will ever be.
Rest in peace Camila 💖

The investigation found no real evidence to back up claims and found they tended to be very vague.

Guardian article

I think it’s super complex because children who’ve been abused are more likely to make allegations directed at those caring for them, though often these don’t follow. They should always be treated seriously and followed up (as they are also more vulnerable to it happening again), but we won’t know whether the allegations , only that the investigation found very little to support any of them.

I don’t think anyone can disagree that the charity could have been run better or that there were failings, however, as far as I recall, none of the headlines were ever proved and much of the coverage seemed quite ‘Daily Mail’ in the claims around the pool etc. Some charities still send children to boarding schools now, in order to move them away from drugs, gangs and crime. It’s easy for that to be portrayed as unfair when it’s done on a case by case basis. Anyway, as I say, I don’t think there weren’t failings, but I do think there’s plenty that was positive about the work the charity did too.

Some years ago , before the investigations, I made a generous donation to Kids Company and as a result was invited to a tea party with CB as the honoured guest (her not me!). I was very much pro the organisation initially, but after an afternoon of listening to CB and other speakers I completely changed my mind. Several hours of smug, and self congratulatory back patting made me realise that although the initial concept of supporting children and their families was sound, the way it was being realised was doing far more to massage the egos of a small and self selected coterie, including CB.

I felt that many initial good intentions seemed to have been lost, that there was almost a competitive “ see how far we can go before anyone says anything” attitude and that there was a distinct lack of future planning to sustain support for needy children.

I admit, and say again, this is my opinion , based on one short exposure, but I suspect that the speakers I heard felt they were among “friends” so were perhaps a bit more honest in expressing their ideas than they might have been in a more formal setting. I left feeling very disillusioned with the organisation, and was not unduly surprised at the later revelations.

Not a well run charity and a lot of extremely poor practice in governance, financial management and staffing. And giving out bundles of cash to beneficiaries, misuse of charity funds for personal use! Exonerated my arse.

So hang on - she wasn't using kids company to hand out cash to children who then used it to buy drugs and alcohol? She didn't have a swimming pool fitted that was "for the kids" but almost exclusively available for her own private use? She didn't use kids company money to send one or two of her favourites amongst the kids to private school, without a fair equality of access, application or selection policy?

It is sad when someone dies young, but has she really been exonerated?

I was very sad to hear this. She was someone who truly cared, despite the charity’s issues.

Good piece by Janice Turner

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kids-company-showed-peril-of-personal-passion-whm5s68tl

I dont even understand that statement

www.place2be.org.uk/about-us/news-and-blogs/2022/april/a-statement-from-place2be-on-the-uk-conversion-therapy-ban/

A very sad loss, it's lovely to hear that while it seems the structure and mechanisms of the charity was problematic she had such enthusiasm, passion and knowledge.

I had no idea she founded place2be.

I do need to highlight from. Safeguarding pov that this charity is very problematic in terms of approaches to gender identity. It is bought into schools to offer MH, pastoral and counselling services.

I'd forgotten about the ridiculous claims made at the time Kids Company collapsed. From a BBC article a couple of months later:

Kids Company warned civil servants that the sudden closure of its services could create a high risk of social unrest, including riots, looting and arson attacks on government buildings.

Nothing of the sort happened, of course. As a previous poster said, it does sound similar to some of the current alarmism from Mermaids et al.

Much has been said on this thread about her exoneration. The case was quite complicated and as people have said, the judge did praise CB for her achievements.

However, the judge also gave this assessment of CB (paras 99-103).

In my view this shows that she should not have received either the amount of praise or the depth of the opprobrium that she did.

'99. My overall impression was of a charismatic, persuasive person with strong views, who is well used to employing advocacy skills. There were strong beliefs in particular narratives, beliefs which were sometimes maintained in the face of contrary evidence.
100. I consider that Ms Batmanghelidjh’s evidence generally reflected her honest beliefs, but it could be selective. This could result in an incorrect impression being given. The most significant example of this related to responsibility for the charity’s finances, discussed from [634] below.
101. There were also some examples of Ms Batmanghelidjh having seemingly convinced herself of something which it should have been apparent to her was not the case, albeit that there might have been some possible basis for the view that she had formed. However, the examples of this that I saw related to relatively insignificant matters. One was whether the payment of payroll one day late in November 2014 was due to a “technical” problem as she insisted it was, rather than the reality of funds not being cleared, and another was her insistence that she had Trustee permission to give interviews on the Today programme and Newsnight on 3 July 2015 when in fact she had been given an instruction not to give interviews, albeit that there was a possible basis for her to have misunderstood the position in connection with the Today programme.
102. As a result, I have treated Ms Batmanghelidjh’s affidavit and oral evidence with particular care. However, I do not accept the Official Receiver’s submission in closing that I should entirely discount her evidence unless corroborated by a document.
103. There was also a significant amount of advocacy by Ms Batmanghelidjh from the witness box. While questions were generally answered eventually, this was often not done directly, because she wished to add her own explanation of the relevant context. This was understandable but did not generally assist the court.

I had good experiences of the organisation in terms of support for children I referred, I attended seminars of hers which were great

Referring to a previous post about trans kids though, I suspect she was/would have been all over this to be honest. Unfortunately.

Very nice tribute on BBC London News right now

I think ‘do not speak ill of the dead’ is wrong. Fine at the funeral or on a personal level with friends and family. But to refuse to acknowledge and even investigate failings because someone has died means serious harms that could be prevent may occur again. We do not need to look far to see horrific crimes committed by charismatic individuals that held public court whilst they were alive. I am not saying there were horrific crimes, or indeed any crimes, here but her death is not a reason to ignore problems and let similar happen again.

She really wasn’t the wronged angel she was made out to be. I’ve had professional dealings with her and her organisations, and they were not OK. Even if her heart were in the right place -which I’m not certain of - I witnessed first hand the harm that her organisations did to vulnerable children. There a reason you need qualifications, accountability, and to comply with best practice/legal guidelines. It’s not nice to criticise someone after they’ve died yet it’s really hard to read things which I personally know to be wrong. I wonder if it will ever all come out or whether her current organisations will fade away without her and the investigations will stop.

She wasn't very nice to service staff: security and wait staff and the like. Very high-handed and rude. No further details as she has passed away and it feels mean-spirited to go into it further. We all have off days I guess?

On Kids Company, it's not enough for someone's 'heart to be in the right place'. In order to run a charity one must stick to the rules and to strict ethical guideleines. Operationally, financially, health and safety - it must all be done right. Otherwise anyone could get away with anything by protesting that their heart was in the right place.

To employ another cliche: 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

She was very much at the heart of the Cameron-era Establishment (and got £££££ from the Tories) which is why KC got away with little scrutiny for a long time.

I agree with this. She was very charismatic but the charity was badly run and I also think that the fact that high profile individuals who lauded her and the charity would have been embarrassed by all the disclosures had some influence on the outcome of investigations.

I live locally to where the charity operated and heard some of the stories. There was much good done, but also some things happening which were not good at all.

A sad loss for her family and friends. May she RIP.

A close relative knew her through work and said that she was a lovely person. A sad loss.

Very sad news. I met her and heard her speak a few times. There were a few things that bothered me at the time about yet another charismatic figure seeming to ignore boundaries and good practice. I can understand the wish not to speak ill of the dead, but it isn't accurate to state that she was exonerated. It was also obvious that the services that were expecting to pick up the support needs of the children and young people Kids Company were working with were certainly not inundated after their demise. Their way of working seems to have generated demand. I understand that most of the approaches to other organisations afterwards were for cash handouts or for specific items, an approach most children's charities don't favour in their work. The most vulnerable individuals and families were mainly already known to other services, even if there were issues over engaging successfully with them.

The alarmist claims that there would be an outbreak of savagery and destruction if their work came to an end were extraordinary, and there's something similar in the claims of organisations like Mermaids and Stonewall now about potential suicides. There've been other cases where charismatic leaders have been lauded and given too much freedom and it hasn't ended well (thinking of the Quintin Kynaston 'superhead' for one and the drama teacher John Owen in Wales). I think everyone who talked Camila up and massaged her ego and didn't impose the same kinds of checks and balances on funding and safeguarding as for all other organisations have to accept some responsibility for what happened. Again, there are lots of parallels with how gullible and credulous many politicians and public servants have been over the last few years. There should be no sacred castes or privileged individuals.

I thought it was sad. Her enthusiasm and ideas about how to help those children were good.

I didn’t know her but from what I’ve read I have the same impression -well-intentioned but didn’t run the charity hugely well. A lot of celebrities seem to be dying at 50-60, it’s so young. Very sad.

I think that is true. Unhappily good intentions have a well-known destination if not salted with common sense. But it is sad to die at only 61.

I completely agree that her heart was in the right place, but the organization she ran was a mess.

I have this impression too.

But the world does need more people whose hearts are in the right place.

So I am very sorry to hear that Camila Batmanghelidjh has died.

💯