Worried about things in Girlguiding - anyone else have issues/ concerns?

[Eggybrains]

Hello,

I'm a bit reluctant to go in to details here, but I have some concerns about Girlguiding, that the organisation themself seems disinterested in addressing. I'm NOT talking about the trans issue here, but other more fundamental issues of making sure girls are kept safe.

I wondered if anyone else had any concerns and if so if they'd be willing to share them and what the organisation did to address them?

TIA

Oh - as for me saying others are concerned - I appreciate from the thread it looks like only wobbleinprogress raised an issue, but there’s been other people talk about things in other threads of private message, so my experiences are not unique.

Thanks for all the “it works fine here” but I’m not especially interested in that as I know it works fine in many areas. I want to hear from those who have been involved when it hasn’t worked well.

@Wiltshire90

A lot of your concerns are the complete opposite of my experience with Girl Guiding, to the point I'm thinking of leaving! I've found them obsessive and a stickler for the rules.

They wouldn't let me start in the group until my DBS was back, despite the fact I have high clearance for my job (including a much more detailed DBS) and could show that to them.

Risk assessments for EVERYTHING, and them being rejected for finickity reasons. Scouts do a risk assessment for the entire term including any prospective trips out, and that's good enough for them. Guides you have to do a separate risk assessment for everything, including a COVID risk assessment. This is time consuming and unnecessary.

I got told I was "breaching GDPR" because I sent an email to the local leaders in my area and didn't BCC them in so everyone could see the email addresses. Except everybody already knows each others email addresses as we regularly contact each other

Obsessive chasing up of safeguarding training to the point experienced leaders who are out of date with (basic) e learning are threatened they can't take the girls away on a trip out, despite having completed higher level courses or even working in safeguarding for a living!

I feel a fear of being sued is ruining what has been a good organisation and sucking the common sense out of how it's run. Potentially I have been unlucky in the area that I volunteer in but it's all policy policy policy and no common sense.

Personally I think the guides are correct here. They can’t just take your word for a DBS and so what if you have a higher level in another job. You also are breaking Data protection rules by allowing everyone to see the email addresses. Really doesn’t matter if they already know each other’s. That is the law. I’m really glad an organisation like the guides is applying these rules - as they should.

A lot of very sensitive posters here. The op has reasonably asked about some safeguarding issues. She doesn’t want to hear about how good it is at your pack. She isn’t saying all groups.

@feelingokaytoday Just out of interest, which part of the DPA would I have broken as an individual? The "data" (the email addresses) are already known to all in the email chain. I'm not a business, a charity, or an organisation. I am an individual contacting others in the same organisation who all hold the same information about one another (in this case, each other's email addresses). Information that is available to view and find on the Guiding website, even if they hadn't already known the email addresses

Of course I wouldn't have expected them to take my word for a DBS or my job - I already had one (from Guiding!) from another unit that was still in date. They've spent their own money paying for a new one because I moved to a different county.

@Feelingoktoday

A lot of very sensitive posters here. The op has reasonably asked about some safeguarding issues. She doesn’t want to hear about how good it is at your pack. She isn’t saying all groups.

Thanks @Feelingoktoday.

The data protection allegation sounds nonsense. I don’t think they really understand the legislation. You can ask ICO for advice. There’s a lot Girlguiding do not appear to understand which they should.

As for, “ They've spent their own money paying for a new one because I moved to a different county.” DBSs are free to volunteers in a charity.

Op, I suggest you ask this post on the feminist board stating clearly it’s not about trans. You might get more help. Or AIBU?

I’m intrigued why you are collecting examples, but you only want negative experiences. Are you a journalist?

No, I'm not a journalist, @Sittinginthesand. I'm asking if anyone else has the same concerns as me, rather than those who don't have the same concerns as me for a number of reasons:

1. I think often people won't know about these issues, particularly given the way the organisation is set up. Indeed I only recently identified many of these issues, and feel that the pandemic has really shone a light on them. Without the pandemic I don't think I would have identified them.
2. I'm aware it's not every area. This has been confirmed to me by people stating that it doesn't happen in their area. Having had that confirmed, I don't need it reconfirmed. I'm also not looking to obtain a statistically valid proportion of people who share my concerns by asking on MN, so I don't see what value having other people say "no I don't have those concerns" would be. I'm not claiming this happens everywhere.
3. The number of people who share my concerns, from experience, only really needs to be very small for it to be a significant issue, so I'd like to hear from those people, even if the absolute numbers are low.

@Feelingoktoday Thanks, that is probably a good suggestion. I'm not really a MN expert. I do see a lot of Girlguiding concerns threads on here which are overtaken by the trans issue, so I am a bit concerned about the risk of that happening if I put it on the feminist board. In the same way that I'm not really interested in hearing from people who say "everything is done properly here, I don't share your concerns", I'm also not interested in hearing from people saying "allowing biologically male women to share sleeping and washing facilities with biologically female girls and women, as if they were biologically female, poses a risk and Helen and Katie were treated really badly, and Girlguiding don't care" - because this isn't what my primary concern is (I absolutely do agree Helen and Katie were treated in a disgusting manner and Girlguiding should hang their heads in shame). AIBU does seem to get a lot of "traffic" I think, but not sure I want a vote. I have had a few people in contact, which I'm grateful for, so maybe I have my answer.

My Dd was a brownie leader in my unit (I've left my unit and become a district helper). We had a dreadful late 20/21 and Dd didn't do her "safe space" training. Bear in mind she had better child protection training from her holiday job and her uni course. She got told her membership was terminated. Not at any point did the Div Com or County Commissioner contact her to ask why, they just told London that she could have it terminated. I spoke to a few leaders who were stunned that they had got shot of a good leader.

I then re did my safe space and in my feedback ripped their shite training to bits pointing out what they missed out. I was trained to level 4 in Girlguiding.

My work child protection was higher than what they call level 4. I cringed at the face to face trainings as to what wasn't shared that I would expect to be basic safe guarding.

I'm not convinced some leaders on the trainings I was doing took it seriously. They clearly said they would do it their way.

@Groovee that’s really concerning, thanks for that.

I’m so sorry about your daughter. I hope she wasn’t too upset by it.

“as to what wasn't shared that I would expect to be basic safe guarding.” Could you possibly share some examples please?

@Groovee

My Dd was a brownie leader in my unit (I've left my unit and become a district helper). We had a dreadful late 20/21 and Dd didn't do her "safe space" training. Bear in mind she had better child protection training from her holiday job and her uni course. She got told her membership was terminated. Not at any point did the Div Com or County Commissioner contact her to ask why, they just told London that she could have it terminated. I spoke to a few leaders who were stunned that they had got shot of a good leader.

I then re did my safe space and in my feedback ripped their shite training to bits pointing out what they missed out. I was trained to level 4 in Girlguiding.

My work child protection was higher than what they call level 4. I cringed at the face to face trainings as to what wasn't shared that I would expect to be basic safe guarding.

I'm not convinced some leaders on the trainings I was doing took it seriously. They clearly said they would do it their way.

Please dont blame your commissioners for your dd being removed. A similar issue is why I resigned as commissioner. The commissioners certainly did not tell London to remove her. HQ did it all by themselves and did not even tell the commissioner. I found out that a leader had been removed when I went in to Go to check something. I would like to point out that your dd would have received 2 emails and 1 physical letter about this before being removed. (I got these myself when my SS3 was about to expire but I couldn't find a course). If she disregarded these why do you think she would have paid attention to a Commissioner? Sorry your family were having such a tough time. Your dd could have asked for special consideration as explained in the letter.

@VeryTiredandweary your response is exactly what I would expect from Girlguiding. You’ve explained what should have happened, but not actually bothered to ask @Groovee what did happen.

I agree if she got multiple reminders then she should have addressed the issue, but you don’t know that she did.

How do you know what commissioners involvement in her DD removal was? Were you the commissioner?

I’m very aware that just because things are done one way in one place, doesn’t mean that this is replicated across the country.

[quote Eggybrains]**@VeryTiredandweary* your response is exactly what I would expect from Girlguiding. You’ve explained what should have happened, but not actually bothered to ask @Groovee* what did happen.

I agree if she got multiple reminders then she should have addressed the issue, but you don’t know that she did.

How do you know what commissioners involvement in her DD removal was? Were you the commissioner?

I’m very aware that just because things are done one way in one place, doesn’t mean that this is replicated across the country.[/quote]
@Eggybrains what I did say although not explicitly is that this is not done at a local level or county level, it is done centrally so every part of the country is dealt with exactly the same. Also the reminder emails are automatically triggered by Go. If I was the commissioner (and in this case I dont think I was) when I became aware of a removal I contacted the individual and asked if I could help with an appeal if they wanted. But can I stress that Commissioners had no part in the removal process or even knew when it was happening. Yes we did know that it was likely to happen if the required training was not completed but then so did all of the members.

@VeryTiredandweary again, you’re quoting what should have happened. Why not ask @Groovee before jumping in with judgment and condemnation of her DD? What you described may have happened with you, but you’ve no idea if her commissioners were involved with this or not. You are not omnipresent so you’ve no idea what actually happens elsewhere.

Quit with your Girlguiding arrogance, please.

[quote Eggybrains]**@VeryTiredandweary* again, you’re quoting what should have happened. Why not ask @Groovee* before jumping in with judgment and condemnation of her DD? What you described may have happened with you, but you’ve no idea if her commissioners were involved with this or not. You are not omnipresent so you’ve no idea what actually happens elsewhere.

Quit with your Girlguiding arrogance, please.[/quote]
@Eggybrains Apologies for everything I said. As I said earlier I actually resigned as commissioner due to a similar issue. Commissioners are volunteers and are asked to "manage" other volunteers. When this happened in my area I queried why local commissioners had not been kept in the loop. And was informed that it was done centrally. So please do not label me with girlguiding arrogance that is extremely hurtful as I stood up for my girlguiding sisters.

@VeryTiredandweary I’m sorry if I upset you, and thank you for standing up for volunteers. What HQ tell you may not be true, and I think @Groovee should have had the opportunity to say if it happened like you described, or if something else happened, before her DD has accusations levelled at her, when you’ve no involvement in the case - ie you don’t know that she got lots of reminders, so it’s premature to say that she ignored them.

There is a lot of arrogance in Girlguiding and they seem to think that they are above even the law in some cases.

Peace and love

IME the standards vary according to the experience/professionalism/training of the DCs and above, and how that percolates through to the masses.
I'm now involved with a different youth organisation and it's just the same: some areas are paying far greater attention to the rules and requirements than others. All you can do is raise the issues regularly - they do seem to get acted on where I am now.

@Ariela

IME the standards vary according to the experience/professionalism/training of the DCs and above, and how that percolates through to the masses. I'm now involved with a different youth organisation and it's just the same: some areas are paying far greater attention to the rules and requirements than others. All you can do is raise the issues regularly - they do seem to get acted on where I am now.

@Ariela couldn’t agree more. I would have thought there should be some consistency however. Absolutely agree that there isn’t.

Did you have experience at Girlguiding?

@Eggybraqins, I was a Guider for many years.
All you can do is raise the issues consistently, in writing/email, and always cc the level above. And go above if needs be.

@Ariela did you get anywhere when you raised concerns? What concerns did you raise?

Glad to hear that concerns getting acted upon in the organisation you’re now in.