Safeguarding issues in the Girl Guiding movement

[EishetChayil]

Parents of daughters in the Girl Guides - what do you think about the new lead commissioner for the Southwell division?

"Monica Sulley" also goes by the name of "Monica Tetley", and used this name to sign Aimee Challenor's open letters (a quick Google will shed some light on why this might be a safeguarding issue). This is just the latest in a series of WTF moves from GG.

My DD isn't old enough for Guides yet, but if she was, I would be thinking twice about sending her if this is deemed suitable as leadership. Perhaps this makes me a huge transphobic TERF witch bigot, but there we go.

They can get up to whatever they like in their private life but when they put it on SM its no longer private
It demonstrates that they make poor choices and that would make me question their ability to lead a group of young people to make healthy ones if they feel that's acceptable

Sad..Im a leader having a break for personal reasons - this is not the organisation I loved as a child and hoped to replicate for other girls and young women. Something is going very, very wrong. Over the last few years the workload of a leader has increased massively and in a small unit where there are only two of us Im not sure I want to go back. If guiding isnt careful it could write itself out of existence and we'll just have mixed sex scouts.

I volunteer with children in a few different capacities, including Scouts, and I'm not a huge fan of this, even independent of the trans issue. I think those roles come with some responsibility in terms of what you do and say publicly / identifiably online. There are plenty of online spaces where ppl can share and explore their (legal / consensual obvs) sexual preferences, without the 9yos they're supposed to be mentoring stumbling across it. You really don't have an inherent right to share your sex life all over insta and still volunteer with kids. Sorry if that makes me awful, but there you go.

Also I thought "don't overshare on social media" was one of the things we were all drying to drill into kids' heads in 2021? Don't we already have an issue with underage girls sharing sexualised stuff online because they come under pressure to do so, or just don't realise how public it all is?

Send your daughters to military cadets instead. They're professional and properly organised. Ds goes to Air Cadets and it's brilliant.

Is this them wearing a guide leader’s uniform?

What freely consenting adults do in their bedrooms within the law is entirely up to them.

Posting sexually suggestive content on social media demonstrates questionable judgement for someone wanting to work closely with children.

Posting sexually suggestive content on social media demonstrates questionable judgement for someone wanting to work closely with children.

So you really have to ask yourself why GG are facilitating this.

It isn't an oversight. Or an admin error. So what is it?

@charabanctrip, 100% air or army Cadets.

Maybe if there were more women who took time out to volunteer, they wouldn’t have to spread their net to appeal to a trans audience

And yet again Transwomen accessing what should be female only spaces is our (womens) problem?

If an organisation which is meant to be girls and women only does not have enough women then they reduce the number of spaces they can give to girls to keep things safe.

Not offer the spot to a male person.

Shedmistress
Quite.

It seems astounding to me that they would overlook this. First rule of safeguarding is it (abuse, neglect, safeguarding concerns) could happen here and it could involve anyone.

I wouldn't want DC involved in any group that can't/won't follow basic safeguarding. To effectively safeguard children there can be nobody who is above safeguarding procedures. An organisation who won't put children first shouldn't be working with children.

Not offer the spot to a male person

Can I point out that to say this is a male person (on the FWR board) would lead to a deletion and cries of transphobia. If this person is wearing a dress and has boobs, they are demonstrating that they wish to be gendered as female. No matter what your eyes tell you.

I can't see any response from GG regarding this person. I wonder if they will just ignore it or make a statement?.

@SomewhereEast

I volunteer with children in a few different capacities, including Scouts, and I'm not a huge fan of this, even independent of the trans issue. I think those roles come with some responsibility in terms of what you do and say publicly / identifiably online. There are plenty of online spaces where ppl can share and explore their (legal / consensual obvs) sexual preferences, without the 9yos they're supposed to be mentoring stumbling across it. You really don't have an inherent right to share your sex life all over insta and still volunteer with kids. Sorry if that makes me awful, but there you go.

Absolutely. There are people on Twitter posting stuff like “adults are allowed to have sex lives you know” - yes, but anyone who works with children, yet has the poor judgement to post sexualised pictures of themselves on a public forum, can’t be trusted to have good judgment and appropriate boundaries elsewhere. Sorry, but it’s true - and that’s exactly what safeguarding and due diligence are bloody for!

Think a bit about the dominatrix/“mistress” picture that individual posted. Now one of the connotations of “mistress” is a female teacher/headmistress - it’s a role that relies on the idea of naughty schoolgirls and soft-porn sexy teachers and eroticised capital punishment. How can anyone think someone who thinks it’s appropriate to put pictures of themselves in that “costume” publicly online should be in a leadership/teaching role with young teenage school-aged girls….?

It absolutely beggars belief that no-one at GG thought to check up on the social media use of someone who they’re appointing to work with children.

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy

I too have been a lifelong supporter of GG. My gran, my mum and my sister were all leaders. I was a unit helper, and of course my Dad came along to help out on occasions without an issue. Because it was obvious he was a man.

It is the secrecy that GG are supporting that worries me. Yes adults are separated from children. But not all women want to share a bedroom with an unknown male. Young girls certainly shouldn't be forced into a situation where they may be sharing washing and sleeping facilities with males WITHOUT THEIR FULL KNOWLEDGE AND CONSENT.

My DD has just given up Rangers due to A level commitments, having been right through the movement since Rainbows, including being a Young Leader. Whilst on one hand it has made me very sad, on the other I have to say I am relieved.

It's not just the poor judgement of posting the picture is it?

Posting pictures of oneself as a sexy mistress/dominatrix is a different game to private role-playing. Its involving others in your sex life, its about getting off on others seeing you, sort of voyeuristic. It's poor boundaries, at best a lack of knowledge of appropriate behaviour. Its a public twitter (or was), anyone can see it including children. It's not the same as something done in private, because it's not being done in private!

Plus children will Google their guide leaders, just as they Google their teachers. Its so wildly innappropriate to have that on a public social media page

And let's be honest a born woman would not be allowed to post photos of themselves like that on SM without consequences

It's like the difference between a teacher smoking some weed in their back garden, and a teacher having a public social media page where they advertise how great weed is.

The 'meet the team' page has been removed from www.girlguidingnottinghamshire.org.uk/who-we-are/meet-the-team/

I wonder why?
There's also a link to report a concern about a leader. I'd be concerned about both of those photos.

www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/running-your-unit/safeguarding-and-risk/concerns-about-volunteers/

There's a code of conduct about being a role model too.

@CarrotSticks19

It's not just the poor judgement of posting the picture is it?

Posting pictures of oneself as a sexy mistress/dominatrix is a different game to private role-playing. Its involving others in your sex life, its about getting off on others seeing you, sort of voyeuristic. It's poor boundaries, at best a lack of knowledge of appropriate behaviour. Its a public twitter (or was), anyone can see it including children. It's not the same as something done in private, because it's not being done in private!

Plus children will Google their guide leaders, just as they Google their teachers. Its so wildly innappropriate to have that on a public social media page

And let's be honest a born woman would not be allowed to post photos of themselves like that on SM without consequences

Yes, exactly.

And when it comes to working with children, it is a reality that publicising your sexual interests makes them open for discussion and judgment. Do I want someone who gets off on dressing up as a porny sexy teacher “mistress” with a cane/riding crop teaching activities with my daughter? No. Of course it makes one uncomfortable to think that someone with those sexual interests wants to do bits of that scenario “for real”, just as if a teacher posted that they found teacher role play sexually erotic in the bedroom, or a teacher at a riding school.

Just like women and girls don’t want to be the unwitting validators of anyone’s sexual fantasies and role plays. I don’t want to be cooped into anybody’s BDSM sexual fantasies, and I certainly don’t want my preteen daughter being used like that either. And with someone displaying that poor judgement and poor boundaries, how could I be assured as a parent that it wasn’t the case?

@Iggly

I don't think what an adult dies in their personal life has anything to do with their suitability for being a GG leader tbh

Really

Yes.

If someone wants to be a dominatrix, then that's nothing to do with being a GG leader.
Obviously, they should be keeping that side of the private and away from GG... But their sex life should have no bearing ok their suitability to lead , surely?

The girls feelings aren't even considered as a factor.

As a young girl, I would've been massively uncomfortable, and even afraid, if a male like this was introduced as my new guide leader and I had to call them a woman. Girls are now being told they must suppress or ignore their perfectly natural boundaries to pander to a grown male's feelings, and if they don't they will be punished for it.

I really hope we're close to the time where women will not receive death threats for speaking out.
Obviously it's insanity that this individual is deemed an appropriate Guide Leader.

If someone wants to be a dominatrix, then that's nothing to do with being a GG leader.
Obviously, they should be keeping that side of the private and away from GG... But their sex life should have no bearing ok their suitability to lead , surely?

I don’t think that’s strictly true, is it? How much kink is too much kink for you? Some fetishes are public ones: some are questionably immoral, if not strictly illegal. Obviously no-one is advocating going round asking questions about people’s private sex lives — but then, there are still things we might quite reasonably draw the line at someone who works with kids being interested in, and I think to pretend otherwise is naive and disingenuous.

It can’t really be right to take the “pro-kink” position that everything goes and it’s all ok if legal and consenting. Because some kinks and fetishes re precisely around blurring those boundaries for erotic payback, and some we might rightly find distasteful even if they aren’t illegal.

I was an assistant leader and although we took care never to be in a situation 1:1 with a girl there are certainly opportunities that I could have been if I had wanted.

I hate the conclusion that trans people are in any way to be concerned about sexually however in an environment full of young girls it is very much something that should be on everyone's mind.
Would I send my daughter on a residential with a leader that was biologically male and had a rather explicit and sexual social media? No.
That's not so much a worry on trans women as it is a worry on the sheer number of sexual crimes committed by biological men.