Grown men pretending to be children

[Happypie]

AIBU to be very worried that safeguarding has broken down in England. I have worked in several schools in London where some of the newly arrived “children” were grown men. We have complained to social services and they admitted that the pupils were blatantly men but there was nothing they could do.
These men are being put into classes and foster homes with actual children.
We do not allow adults without DBS checks to have unfettered access to children unless they pretend to be children.
Head teachers hands are also tied. The only way to change things seems to be through parent complaints like in the story below. This is not safeguarding. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-suffolk-46070239

Cherries101 the way we deal with all criminal allegations - investigate them when people make claims and then prosecute if there is evidence. Surely you have read/heard about the grooming scandals involving large numbers of Asian men in British cities up and down the country? Are you seriously saying that this isn't a problem and that it wasn't brushed under the carpet by police forces, simply because they were afraid of being accused of racism? The police forces actually admit that now.

DD is a radiographer. As a registered HCPC professional all x-rays have to be medically justified I believe. Perhaps taking an xray for the purposes of immigration is not medical justification?

Anyway a dental check up IMO should reasonably determine the age of the said person, unless our MN dentists can confirm why this isn't possible.

I’ve NCed because we’ve had this at tve secondary school I work. ‘Boy’ who had walked from (war torn country) to meet his ‘Uncle’ in the UK. He was excluded for fighting with the other kids, and broke a (U16) child’s nose. The family moved without a trace during the exclusion.
Apparently it’s very, very common because they have have the right to stay, and it helps the rest of their family join them later. The fight will stay with me forever, it was not a typically playground fight but pure blind rage.

I was under the impression that far from aging you, war and deprivation actually makes children seem younger - malnutrition etc. restricting growth and development.

If the standards we have are inaccurate for anyone other than white europeans, then why is this a problem - do the studies, get the numbers for other races!

In the article I linked the Home Office's own figures showed that of 933 child refugees of disputed age, 68% were found to be adults.

@juneau - white british men abusing white british girls is a bigger problem than any ethnic minority doing so. It just doesn’t get into the news.

Personally I'm praying that unisex toilets don't take over in schools it's getting increasingly hard to safeguard our children.

I remember the Bearsden (linked to above) case, he wanted to be a doctor but got poor results first time round.

This was commonplace in the London secondary I worked in. One was very open about the fact that he had a business and property back in Afghanistan.

DD (12) has a girl who is 22 in her class!

@Micke Did you see my link. The research exists for non-white populations including, in that link, Indian populations. There is more than enough knowledge to make clinical decisions about age and use them to make informed decisions that put safeguarding children first.

Set against that, we have a very cut and dry approach to educational year groups. In many countries it is normal to have a small percentage of children who are either ahead or behind because they have progressed fast or need to resit a year. A friend of mine has a sister who was adopted from an Indian orphanage, where she was malnourished, had syphilis, typhoid and other health problems. They are sure they were told that she was younger than she was, but this has proved a good thing because it gave her longer in the school system to prepare for public exams. She will never know her real birth day or birth year, so her age may as well work for her. She is now a thriving adult with a loving family and a good job.

I remember the Brandon Lee thing it didn't happen in my school but one my friend went to. It was all so bizzare they accepted it but then I was in town last week and saw a group of girls in uniform and one of them looked like she was about 40ish and I know people who are in their 30s who could still pass as teenagers. I actually felt a bit sorry for Brian McKinnion aka Brandon Lee as he just wanted to study medicine and I'm sure many of us would like a do over in some parts of our lives!

I guess the issue the OP is talking about it asylum seekers claiming to be children to get access to the UK and do special treatment and education and it is worrying that adult men may be mingling with children in schools and foster homes. Perhaps we need to be more forthcoming and check their age through dental exams but hopefully provide better assistance to adults seeking asylum in the UK, provide better access to education etc so they will be less tempted to present has children?

Ah, yes Genevieva - I see now - right, well, this really does seem clear cut (and yes, sure, there will be some edge cases, but lets get the chancers away from the children first I would say)

And yes, the UK is much more strict with year groups than other places - we move around a lot, and I currently have my august born a year behind at school (which has been excellent for him) and my september born a year ahead - which is working perfectly for them - and none of the schools have had an issue with it!

I thought there were home office checks to assess age. I understood they were standard and mostly accurate. Possibly could be a little bit out but not often.

So someone assessed as 18 might be 16 or could be 20.

If the standards we have are inaccurate for anyone other than white europeans, then why is this a problem - do the studies, get the numbers for other races!

Would probably help but in any population you will have people at extreme ends of "normal" - and then with growth malnutrition can imped growth and I've read data that suggest girls living around non related men start puberty earlier - so genetic and environment are going to both contribute.

Home Office's own figures showed that of 933 child refugees of disputed age, 68% were found to be adults

Clearly we can already tell – there’s just not one reliably test.

Perhaps our processes in finding out just need to work faster or be more proactive in looking.

Why is having an X-Ray or visiting the dentist unethical? I did both last week, but I suppose the results were not to my detriment.

Presumably you consented to being examined by a dentist and having an x-ray. That's a bit different to someone (who claims to be a child and may well be a child) being held down and forced.

Our education system seems to be very formulaic at the moment - so, education at a certain level is only available to children between ages of x and y, and the setting is quite unsuitable for older students.

This must cause difficulties for a lot of students who are ill or not able to be at school at the 'correct age'.

My df missed a lot of his schooling (side effect of ww11) and caught up at evening classes.

I suppose there is nothing like that available now?

It’s sweet that some of you think they’re doing it for the education.

They’re doing it to keep up the facade that they’re children so they don’t get deported.

and I've read data that suggest girls living around non related men start puberty earlier - so genetic and environment are going to both contribute. Really? Thats odd , interesting wonder why that is.

InfiniteSheldon Got to hope there weren't unisex toilets at the school this bloke has been at, too.

Cherries, "white british men abusing white british girls is a bigger problem than any ethnic minority doing so." Do you have evidence for that, based upon proportional representation within the population?

Thats odd , interesting wonder why that is.

Don't know - but there been some studies that seem to find this - first article found seem to suggest it only happens in higher income families - but seen others I've read didn't make that distiction.

news.berkeley.edu/2010/09/17/puberty/

Sept. 17 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that the absence of a biologically related father in the home predicted earlier breast and pubic hair development, but only for girls in higher income households. The findings held even after the girls’ weight was taken into account.

“The age at which girls are reaching puberty has been trending downward in recent decades, but much of the attention has focused on increased body weight as the primary culprit,” said study lead author Julianna Deardorff, UC Berkeley assistant professor of maternal and child health. “While overweight and obesity alter the timing of girls’ puberty, those factors don’t explain all of the variance in pubertal timing. The results from our study suggest that familial and contextual factors – independent of body mass index – have an important effect on girls’ pubertal timing.”

I was looking ages ago for factors around ages starting periods as I started early (but had two parents and not high income) as I was wondering if my DDs would start even earlier – in event DD1 was two years later than me which was much better for her.

Thing is, there are genuine children and teenagers who are being investigated and refused help because they are assumed to be adults, either because of their appearance or their demeanour. On the mature demeanour thing: if your mum has sent you off at 13 to travel to Europe, because she's terrified of you being recruited by the local militia now that you are tall and strong, and it's taken two years for you, travelling through god-knows-what, to get to a place where you can claim asylum, you will be years ahead mentally and emotionally of your peers who have had a more sheltered life, even while you are fifteen or sixteen physically.

And sixteen year olds can vary wildly in their appearances anyway. Plenty look like adolescents, still. Plenty look like men. My DS does - he's not white, he's over six foot tall, he has facial hair, and I am convinced that if he'd rocked up in the UK claiming to be 16, people wouldn't believe him, would think he's in his twenties.

Yes of course there are men trying to buck the system, because they don't want to be sent back, but don't go down the road of thinking that every refugee who says they are a child is lying. We are at serious risk here of throwing the babies out with the bathwater.

The people who lie to get into schools are liars. This causes distrust and suspicion. If they really are children they would be glad to prove it by Xray. If they refuse to be Xrayed it could very well be that they are telling lies. Rightly mums do not want adults in classrooms with their DC. This all leads to tension and from their bias is born. The people who are lying are doing themselves and others like them a dis-service because people will be suspicious after such an experience.
As a PP said other adults went to night classes to get education. I imagine that there is some form of catching up with education.

Don't think that anyone is saying that "every" refugee is lying, but 68% is a fairly hefty proportion.
And if there are tests that are reasonably accurate, why not use them? A reasonable margin of error could be allowed for.

Are these older children/men being steered to the normal school systems? This doesn't seem appropriate as they are unlikely to have been studying the same syllabus as their classmates.

Surely this would slow the rest of the class down, and would be difficult for the refugees to catch up?