Why are ASDA normalising paedophilia and Child Abuse?

[Sunkisses]

Is it OK for ASDA to send parents emails linking to an organisation that normalises paedophilia with red flag phrases such as "love has no age", and recommending books for children that contain explicit descriptions of child sex abuse? Why are they doing this? Are ASDA experts in home schooling and safeguarding? More details in this excellent thread by Safe Schools Alliance: twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1272638132589035520

'but schools have safeguarding leads & training ' - but are often bringing in toolkits/consultants from some shady characters.

Schools are drenched in toolkits and packs, many from the DfE, and dozens arrive termly. Each takes a tiny bit of one isolated area and goes to town on it with huge amounts of guidance and recommendations and dvds to watch etc etc, schools have been suffering from hyperactive toolkit producers for years. The SLT groan as they arrive, sling them at a member of staff and someone gets briefed to read it, feed back the relevant bits, stick it in a policy and file the toolkit on a shelf. Sometimes there are important buzzwords to add to the 'say to Ofsted' list. It's part of the whole deluge of Stuff poured onto schools that has nothing to do with caring for and teaching the children on site who already occupy 100% of everyone's time and attention.

As a result, no one is properly looking at anything, consultants are being bought in to try and do some of the interpretation/feeding back or implementing (and there's a lot of trust, so probably no one has checked their qualifications or background to lead on this), pre written policies are always helpful because it means no one else has to go and write it and again there's way too much trust that your nice consultant or political lobby group is safeguarding trained, has worked with children and isn't trying to slide in an extremist political policy without anyone realising. The online world also means independent people or groups can make downloadable resources available, many of which are excellent, there have been some great ones made free for families through lockdown. But where there's a safeguarding or PSHE content, those should be independently checked first.

Safeguarding is based on people exploiting loopholes. This one is being hugely exploited. There needs to be a body to look at materials with accountability for ensuring safeguarding, legal compatibility and freedom from bias, and any materials not given the mark of approval from this body should not be allowed to be circulated to children, families or schools. A lousy maths pack can do limited damage. A heavily agendaed sex ed pack can do a great deal.

That Daily Star article was a fair assessment but the Diversity Partners spokesperson did try to weasel their way out by say this was for use in the class room. These are home education packs! There would be no teacher around which means it is all the more important to get it right.

Teachers are good at weeding out anything inappropriate it seems like these home education packs was a deliberate attempt to bypass that.

Schools have proven time and time again that in many cases their internal safeguarding processes are not robust enough by a long way. And/or the internal climate is not such that staff feel they can speak up.

See children (including a girl of 11, I believe) being set homework to research hardcore pornography. In what world is that okay??

Copy and paste reply from Walmart re 'misinterpretation'

@Aesopfable

Come September Sex Ed is compulsory and they are allowing all manner of perverted groups to provide dodgy materials under the guise of ‘LGBT’ and we can’t pull our kids out! Schools are even refusing to let parents see what they are teaching. How can that have been allowed to happen?

Is that all schools? Or just some schools refusing? I’m so concerned about this. My DD is only in reception but she is autistic and very impressionable.

What can we do? I think I may have to be that parent and raise it with the school governors

Copy and paste reply from Walmart re 'misinterpretation'

You would think though that even a whiff of misinterpretation on a topic like this would make a company panic.

www.gov.uk/government/ministers/parliamentary-under-secretary-of-state-children-and-young-families

Never mind the fact that trying to claim this is ‘misinterpretation’ is a gross act of misinformation on their part.

It absolutely is not a matter of misinterpretation.

I’m still waiting for both the relevant parties to set out their justification. In detail. With direct responsibility taken for all implications thereof.

@Knoxinbox - ask to see the pack. If you have concerns about the content or age-appropriateness then ask if she can sit it out - trust me, you won't be 'that' parent!

Also, there is no need to ask.
You have every right to instruct the school how to manage your child’s education in this regard.

You are the parent.

Another very relevant thread

here

Please take the time to read the letter discussed.

Nice quotee from that Guardian article about Harman/Dromey/PIE in the 70s. ""Back then a lot of people [on the left] felt they had to be ultra-tolerant to small groups and take them seriously,""

And here we are again.

Knoxinbix
You have every right to know what is going on at your school. For me this has been made much easier by using the resources on Safe School Alliance website and liking their Facebook page.
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/

Start with the Red Flags document. Then check all the school policies (equality, bullying, relationship and sex ed) where they quote the Equality Act 2010 and check they say sex not gender.

My school has chosen NOT to go above and beyond the requirements of the government guidelines and they state this in the RSE policy which I was part of the consultation process for. This begs the question WHY are so many schools going above and beyond and paying outsiders to deliver the lessons?

You are right to be concerned that your daughter is more vulnerable due to being autistic. Tony Attwood, the world renowned expert on autism and girls, recently spoke out about how more research is needed to understand why so many autistic girls want to identify as boys. Basically he said something like changing gender is not a solution for autism. My daughter, 10, is autistic so this is very personal to me.

I can't link to that article as I've used my free reads on the Australian newspaper the interview was in, but just Google Tony Attwood and transgender.

Also Transgender Trend have recently produced a critique of Stonewall's report effectively targeting SEND children which is very good to awsre of as a SEND parent.
They also helped produce a lovely book called 'My body is me' to help young children accept all types of bodies.

www.transgendertrend.com/stonewall-autism-stonewall-schools-guidance/

You sound like a fab advocate for your daughter good luck with the school.

And here we are again.

It feels even worse now because we have large corporates throwing their lot (and money) in.

Only paper to pick this up is the Daily Star. Please share so that the other papers might consider covering this www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/asda-sparks-furious-paedo-backlash-22201608

Link to thread(s) discussing Professor Tony Atwood’s expert opinion in relation to ASD here

I received a response this afternoon, I haven't yet looked to see if they've amended as he stated. I only wrote to them regarding the 6 year old and the sexual abuse, but would hope everyone else's comments are being considered although given previous responses, that is possibly not the case, though I would be happy to be corrected.

Dear aNiceBigCupOfFuCoffee

Thank you for your email regarding the home learning packs produced by our charity partner Diversity Role Models. I can understand the hurt this may have caused you and would like to sincerely apologise.

Diversity Role Models is a charity that works with young people and schools to prevent bullying related to gender and sexuality. The home learning packs are intended to celebrate diversity and help parents to talk to their children about LGBT+ issues. They do not promote abuse.

We recognise that some of the materials originally in these packs can be interpreted differently than intended and apologise for the concern this has caused you. In this instance, the passage you refer to is from a book that is listed as further reading, and I am very sorry that, on this occasion, our checks did not spot this passage before the email was sent. Diversity Role Models have now amended the packs and we will work with them to make sure any future content that we share is clear and not open to misinterpretation.

Regards
Jon

Copyright2019ASDAT&C'sAsda Stores LTD, Registered in England No464777.Registered office: Asda House, Southbank, Great Wilson Street, Leeds, LS11 5AD

Apologies, it’s Prof Tony Attwood.

@anicebigcupofcoffee that response is not good enough! How can you "Misinterpret" the fact that it links to a clear passage about child abuse! This is again deflecting blame from their serious error back to the person reading the material, rather than admitting proper accountability. Shameful.

@anicebigcupoffucoffee sorry wrong tag there

Absolutely. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

to all those on this thread who have personal experience with abuse.

Mine arrived late afternoon. I've just picked it up. Not good enough

Thank you for your email regarding the home learning packs produced by our charity partner Diversity Role Models.

Diversity Role Models is a charity that works with young people and schools to prevent bullying related to gender and sexuality. The home learning packs are intended to celebrate diversity and help parents to talk to their children about LGBT+ issues.

We recognise that some of the materials in these packs can be interpreted differently than intended and sincerely apologise for the concern this has caused you. I am sorry that, on this occasion, our checks did not spot this before the email was sent. Diversity Role Models have now amended the packs and we will work with them to make sure any future content that we share is clear and not open to misinterpretation

Regards
Jon

Also this paragraph is clearly wrong:

"Diversity Role Models is a charity that works with young people and schools to prevent bullying related to gender and sexuality. The home learning packs are intended to celebrate diversity and help parents to talk to their children about LGBT+ issues. They do not promote abuse."

They clearly do promote abuse if they are promoting literature of the kind that describes sexual abuse of 6 year olds.

This needs to be called out with both Asda and Diversity Role Models.

@magicmallow @Ninkanink no, very clearly a generic response, as you say no accountability either. I doubt they even read the emails properly, merely skim them and put them in the pile to send that response to. It seems they are not in any way prepared to step away from this, nor to take any responsibility, I shall not be using them anymore since this is the kind of thing they deem to be acceptable. I used ASDA fairly regularly up till this point but it seems I'll need to vote with my feet.

I have the same stock reply. I've pointed out that framing this as 'misinterpretation' as opposed to a significant failure of safeguarding is the reason why marketers and lobby groups should not be allowed to release packs to the public, free or not, termed as 'educational' without their being passed through a central qualified body. The internet makes it far too easy for those to push agendas in their own interests without accountability.