Camila Batmanghelidjh (Kids Company) has passed away

[TERFisTHEnewTREND]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/02/kids-company-charity-founder-camila-batmanghelidjh-dies-aged-61

Oh bless! She seemed a good woman.

I always thought she was treated far worse than she should have been. Her heart was in the right place.

@hotdiggetydog people happily repeat the lies about her in the same way they do about poor old Jean Charles de Menezes.

The Newsnight journalist won an award for the investigation, its still on his website list of achievements. I remember he was one of the reasons we stopped watching Newsnight. Part of the slow decline into the rubbish prog it is now.

The charity commission, the high court and the police all concluded she did nothing wrong yet people still choose to remember and believe the press accusations.

How very sad 😢

I remember it was reported that She used the money as did others in management positions to send their DC and family members DC to private schools etc

She did not have children.

Absolute rubbish.

What questionable practice exactly?

Kids Company passed every annual audit for nineteen years. They also passed two additional government audits.

They were found not to have enough reserves but that is true of every grass roots charity who have to raise their own money month by month. It’s certainly true of the charity I work with currently, where the managers are forced to spend almost more time raising money than they do with the end users.

That is why government provided money to
LC in the first place because the state provision of psychiatric and social services was so woefully poor and the London branch was located in an area in which the social services had failed their Ofsted inspection. Kids Company ended up hiring their own psychiatrists, psychologists and paediatric nurses bc abused and suicidal children had completely dropped through the net of social services and the NHS.

CB made enemies of certain factions within the Cabinet Office - I believe Matt Hancock was one of them - when she highlighted the issue of inadequate provision.

To repeat what a pp reported, the verdict of the High Court judge was as follows:

”There had been no dishonesty, bad faith or personal gain on the part of Batmanghelidjh or the trustees, (judge) Mrs Justice Falk said. Nor had there been any inappropriate expenditure on children assisted by the charity."

For LC please read KC. Didn’t edit in time.

How very ghoulish.

I agree

Unfortunately this is entirely accurate have worked with one such service user who was ' supported' I such a way. Spent all the handouts on weed while her child went without underwear. Sold her the world and failed to deliver.

Her heart was definitely in the right place but I could not agree with her methods

@TheYearOfSmallThings

I didn't say she did

I am another one who wasn’t aware of the results of the investigation and of the court cases. I’m deeply embarrassed by that.

I heard her speak twice, I feel very privileged.

I have never seen another public speaker make so many rich and influential white men squirm. She certainly did not hold back on how she felt institutions failed the vulnerable.

Sad to hear the news. I remember once getting a train from Castle Cary & recognising Camilla on the platform. She was talking very loudly to someone I suspect was a service user. I remember thinking maybe that wasn’t ideal from a confidentiality point of view. We also had a talk from a Kids Company staff member when I was training as an allied health professional. It came across that the charity was well meaning & passionate about supporting young people but the boundaries seemed very sketchy. For example support workers were working from an attachment model & had to be contactable at all times of day. To me this didn’t seem sustainable. You’re always bound to have some staff turnover in that line of work. However I think it’s a shame that people still think there was some sort of cynical financial mismanagement when this has been disproven.

I think that she did some marvellous work with good intentions. However, as the company grew she was clearly out of her depth in terms of the skills a CEO of a charity that side needed. She suffered from founders syndrome where she couldn’t recognise her limitations in running the business side of the charity. She should have stepped aside and continued as a figurehead for the charity and left the operational running of it to someone better suited. She may have been exonerated but it wasn’t a well run charity

@Circularargument which part of “she was exonerated” are you finding it difficult to understand?

During episode two of Mr Bates vs the Post Office last night one of the post mistresses called Sam was cleared in court. Afterwards her husband said to her "its over now" She replied that it wasnt because the papers wouldnt bother to report that she had been cleared.

Seems to be a habit of the MSM

From what I've read and heard from her online, I think she was passionately child centred and less concerned with regulations and boundaries, unfortunately, to the detriment of the organisation.

As an erstwhile manager of Children's Services in several settings, I always interviewed for these two, as well as for knowledge, skills and experience, but always knowing that the subsequent training had to clue people in about the need for boundaries and transparency.
As an example, my leaving care team only gave cash handouts to care leavers living independently under rare and exceptional circumstances, precisely because of the temptation spend it on drugs. Or alcohol. Or a new dress. Or a birthday present for their Mum. They were kids!

Parts of Kids Company were fabulous, it is a shame it ended as it did.

And I always thought that a name that sounded like Batman Jelly must have been a real asset when working with children.

CEO. What part of that do YOU not understand? Not doing wrong personally is utterly irrelevant.

Before you sneer at others, get your own facts straight.

@JenniferBooth, I’m on the same two threads as you & I think you’ve got your comments mixed up!

I'm sorry to hear she has died. She was certainly a force of nature and I wholeheartedly believe she meant well. I remember hearing her speak and she was mesmerising.

I do think KC was a personal crusade for her and that her approach was my way or no way. Decisions were made with compassion, but were driven by emotions, meaning they were not always wise or equitable. The board of trustees should absolutely have reigned her in, and not let her personality bamboozle them.

The world needs more CB's to get stuff done and not take no for an answer.

I am sorry that she has been lost so young as she was clearly a powerful, charismatic speaker on behalf of very vulnerable children and young people. There was much more good she could have done and much more life for her to enjoy. RIP Camilla.

A couple of my colleagues went to an event at Kids Company with CB as the main speaker, in their final year of operation. According to them she was highly passionate, but apparently quite an advocate for doing ‘whatever works’ and in taking an ‘if you do it, then funding will come’ approach to charity management. And for a long time she was right as KC received big tranches of funding from government, from celebrities and from other donors. But was it successful or sustainable?

In their final year KC had already received a £4.5m grant from DfE and the closure happened when a further £3m was not forthcoming - KC wanted it to restructure. This was at a time when most charities were beginning to be held very tightly accountable for DfE funding, mostly given as delivery contracts rather than grants. Evidence, impact and KPIs became the name of the game, a game that I suspect CB was unwilling to play. Other ‘out of the ordinary’ charities like KC had also received generous funding in the past, but it was being cut back all round, for everyone, during that period.

I think there were lots of things happening at that time. CB was unorthodox in her approach and polarised opinions. Kids Company was unorthodox in its methods. The press simultaneously loved and hated her. Public expenditure cuts were finally biting and having an impact on the amounts of money available to this kind of charity. The trustees probably didn’t have a strong enough handle on the strategy and direction of the organisation. And yes, I suspect a few right-wing individuals rubbed their hands together and added oxygen to the fire, as soon as KC began to falter. But ultimately both CB and the trustees were cleared of wrongdoing in court. And has another organisation successfully addressed the needs of those children and young people in that part of London since KC collapsed?

There is a link to a BBC article upthread ‘What went wrong…’ which links to another interesting article written by an ex-KC employee. But ultimately, no one is a winner.

She spaffed £42 million of gvt funding and had powerful connections, hardly surprising that she was "exonerated". She was painfully under equipped for the job she did but Cameron, Yentob et al had to save face.