[quote PattyPan]@callmeadoctor there are two very important differences to that thread, one it was a toddler vs a teenager capable of making his own decisions, and two there were concerns that the childminder was giving a potentially unsuitable treatment which might cause a side effect whereas a LFT doesn’t have those risks.[/quote]
Its actually not about risks at all.
Its about pressure being applied to a teenager to make the 'correct' decision.
There are some serious questions left unanswered here.
It doesn't matter if its having your temperature or having your hand held taken. If you do not consent to it freely, its not ok.
If there was parental consent asked for rather than this purely being down to children there is an issue.
If you are talking to kids in front of a group of other teenagers and asking them a question where peer pressure or teacher pressure may be present and you are doing any kind of medical procedure you are opening yourself up to a complaint. A complaint which is fair.
If you have concerns about the parental consent not being what the child wants, you have to take the child to one side and quietly explore this as discreetly as possible.
In this particular case, the child has subsequently gone home and said to the parent they felt forced into this. This may or may not be true.
The point is this has to be dealt with now by the school and explain their side of what happened and why the child is saying they felt forced into this by the school.
What strikes me here is the child did not need to volunteer the fact they had the test. If they wanted the test, but parents had said no, and child was worried about the parents' reaction it would be easy to just stay silent. But thats not the case here.
You now have a situation where as a bare minimum there needs to be a sit down discussion over the schools handling of this, why the child felt pressured, by whom the child felt pressured and whether the child said something to please either the school or the parent - and why.
It is absoluetely NOT ok to merely say that the kid was 13 and can make their own decision because there is more to this story. There is a power imbalance somewhere where the child feels unable to express how they really feel and there is pressure coming from somewhere for them to satisfy the demands of that adult.
The safeguarding issue here is the imbalance of power and pressure on the child to do something they may not want to. It is not about the medical proceedure and their legal capacity. It is not about the safety of that procedure.
And this is why consent matters and why complaints about coercision are relevant.
How the school is handling the administering of lateral flow tests - particularly with regard to children who may not want it, matters. The school have a duty of care to protect a child's right to say not and to prevent bullying and peer pressure resulting from that. They have a duty of care to ensure that consent is properly sought and valid. The have a duty of care to make sure that children aren't in a situation which might produce conflict with their parents.
The school have failed on at least one of these fronts and thats important.