Can HE be a cover cfor child abuse? discussion on Radio 2 today.......

[Yurtgirl]

I know I know Jeremy Vine and his show not what everybody enjoys but...........

He has just announced that todays show will feature a discussion called "Can HE be a cover for child abuse?"

Anyone confident enough to phone up and have a rant?????????????

Yes you did misunderstand. What I termed 'shrugging it off' was the hypothetical answer on the lines of 'why should we tell you how to do your job' - that's not the same thing as saying 'actually I don't think the problem exists', it comes across much more like 'not my problem mate, nothing to do with me' - especially with the face! Like it or not that comes across as shrugging it off.

And also there's a difference between a 'problem of abuse' and 'the problem HEers have, which is that people are saying there's a problem of abuse'. You've got the second problem even if you think there's no abuse going on anywhere, and for that reason it seems counterproductive to ignore the issue.

I'm not anti-HE. I'm not anti-HEers. I just didn't think some of the arguments I saw here stood up, that's all. (It's not that I therefore think the government must be right, either.)

Oh, forgive my attitude, I'm just in the very worst place to be trying to debate reasonably atm, and genuinely didn't mean to offend. (people seem to see the face in very different ways - I was using it as an expression of incredulity, not dismissal, but anyway)

I'm not sure I understand your criticism, though. Given that most of the HE families represented here have engaged with the various consultations, I'm not sure in what sense we can be said to be ignoring the issue.

Maybe only because what's a given to you (cos you see the bigger picture of what people represented here do) isn't a given to people who've just happened across the thread (till later when more people expanded on what they were doing).

Maybe only because what's a given to you (cos you see the bigger picture of what people represented here do) isn't a given to people who've just happened across the thread (till later when more people expanded on what they were doing).

Oops how did I do that twice?

ah, the magic double post sprites are out again.

I'll leave the rest of the discussion in the capable hands of AMIS and julienoshoes, who are much more balanced and sensible than crazywimmin like me right now I actually (ironically enough) have some marking to do...

Can I just ask a question.
Given that I've seen the word if highlighted a number of times and more than one reference to there being no eveidence that any parents are falsely claiming to HE are some of you saying that you catagorically do not believe that there are any cases of this?

statistically there probably are cases of HE parents abusing their children, adn it woudl be very naive to say that there coudln't possibly be. What I said earlier was that despite the authorities claiming that if you HE your children we must check that you're not abusing them, they haven't been able to (or have chosen to ignore the queries) provide any statistics or references to any cases where it is known that abuse is happening, and more particularly with regard to this consultation, that the abuse is only happenign and continuing because the child is not at school.

sorry, misread your query, yes there probably are parents who are claiming to be HEing and are actually not (even taking into accoutn that the method of HE in any one family might not actually look anything like "education"). I don't personally know of any, nor have I heard of any, but, yes, i'm sure there are some out there somewhere.

I see.
Sorry, I thought people were denying it's ever happened.
I mean, I personally have represented children in those circumstances and I can't believe that I happen to be the only lawyer that has ever experienced this.

my particular issue with this current consultation is that it's so loaded in it's terms, adn that it's mixing welfare and educational provision. SS have plenty of authority to insist on seeing a child. LAs have plenty of guidelines and law to allow them to deal with anyone not providing an appropriate education. What's currently beign suggested is that SS/LAs should make welfare checks on HE children just because they are HE. And a very cleverly worded press release now has everyone up in arms because "if you have nothign to hide, then why shoudl you be against a visit" and "if it saves just one child's life" and so on. (not personally aimed at anyone here, just a general frothing at the mouth in the media).
I would hazard a guess though, that the families you've been involved with, already are known to SS, prior to the deregistration from school/not turning up to school?

But that's the point I've been , admittedly clumsily trying to make...I have represented kids who were not known to SS and no referal was ever made until it was far too late to save them from abuse.
One example : an asian girl was suddely de-reged. The head looked at the file and it was entirely unremarkable.
She passed the matter to the LA who called the family. No-one spoke english. Again in a high density muslim area - entirely unremarkable.
LA wrote to girl's family asking for a visit and an educational plan. It was ignored. They wrote again and got one of those delaying letters that you'll find people quoting on this site and many other HE fora.
No-one refered the matter to SS and LA had no evidence whatsoever that the girl was at risk of significant harm and so no investigation could begin.
After several weeks of to-ing and fro-ing the LA (not SS) went round uninvited. Someone let them in which was lucky because they didn't legally have to.
What they found was my client and several other teen girls working in sweat shop conditions. At last they were able to refer to SS but frankly it was too late.
If SS had had the power to insist on a face to face at the de-reg stage perhaps that girl and the others found with her would not have suffered. Worth a go I feel.

Some pre-school children are never sent to nursery or childminders, and are looked after entirely by their parents.

Never seem to be ill, never taken to the GP or HV.

But there are cases of children in that position who are abused. Horribly. I'm sure you come across them as a lawyer, litchick.

To argue that all HEers should be forced to undergo inspections, even just one FTF inspection, is exactly the same as arguing that any family who do not avail themselves of professional child care should be forced to undergo inspections. Exactly the same.

I think that the whole thing has never been properly thought out and there seems to be a huge difference between LEAs. I only know one authority and they just pop along for a chat and it is all very friendly. I believe from here that this is not the case everywhere. It seems to be pointless doing an inspection and wanting evidence that it is 'school at home' when that is the very thing that people are getting away from! It also seems pointless to evaluate it and have targets that are not relevant. I can see why home educators get upset. There is also the problem that some areas are not offering a 'good' education at school.
I don't know the answer to it all! However I think that beep has made some good points and there is the problem of abuse (admittedly small) but I don't think it is fair for HEers to say 'we are alright, it isn't our problem'.
Abuse is picked up at school, sadly it is the only place where some children feel safe; of course it is missed sometimes but children have an adult to turn to if they want help. I think it is everyone's problem and we should all help to stop it.
Authorities need to stop treating HE as if it were a school, and find a new system so that is a natural choice in education and HEers do not have to feel so defensive all the time. They should be celebrating what they do.
Everyone needs to be open minded and start to think 'out of the box'.

Well I believe all children should be known to the Local Authority. I believe babies and Mothers should be seen soon after birth, primarily to offer support, but this would also act as a back stop position for SS. This happens already I know, but if a family refused to accept a visit I would view it in the same way as someone refusing an LEA visit - not as evidence of harm, but as a factor that could trigger a compulsory visit.

It is a very difficult problem-there is no way that I would be a social worker!

The government would be better off trying to ascertain where many children who are not known to the LA's actually are imho.

In terms of abuse, do none of these 'HE kids' ever leave the house, interact with the wider community, have neighbours or extended family?
Would none of these people report any concerns of abuse regardless of how/where the child was educated?

I have no doubt that HE is, in a minute number of cases, used as a cover for abuse, so is Scout Leadership, Sunday school, Gymnastic club, are the children who attend these also to be interviewed?

I also don't doubt that HE is used by some parents as an excuse for avoiding truancy fines, but again, there are systems in place to deal with this as well.

The point being made about
"why should we tell you how to do your job?"
is imo, because if we don't engage with the LA's they will seek the very powers we don't want them to acquire.

If I was HEing I would be very open and friendly from the start. I am confident that I could do it really well and so I would be wanting to celebrate what we were achieving. I would make sure that they had plenty of time to talk to the children. I think that a lot of problems come from parents being resentful of visits and uncooperative and defensive. I don't know much about it, and I daresay some LEAs can be difficult however you behave, but generally in life I find that the response that you get mirrors your attitude in the first place.

Tough one isn't it? I think in that situation piscesmoon I would be open about what I was doing in terms of the learning goals/materials used and topics covered, activities outside the home; however tbh I think I would object to having someone interview my dc. Perhaps less so once they are at secondary age. Can understand the reluctance of HErs to have to deal with that

Don't know the solution either

I think a formal interview of children would be dreadful. I think you could sum it up pretty quickly with a general chat. I would expect an LEA inspector to roll their sleeves up and muck in with whatever was going on, but perhaps I am expecting too much!
Social workers get the blame whatever happens-either they are officious and interfering or they have been lax and not done their job. I read somewhere that many don't want to work in childcare.

The anxiety about compulsory visits which I really sympathise with comes from families with children with various SN. Often children on the autistic spectrum don't converse with strangers at all. And if they are being ed. at home, the parents haven't necessarily gone down the route of a formal diagnosis.

Or children whose confidence was shaken massively by feeling failures in school. Anecdotally, a visit of a schooly type adult can be enough to set their literacy or numeracy development back by months, reignite panic attacks etc etc.

There are perfectly innocent reasons in a child's best interests why state intrusion can be a really bad thing. The question is whether those children should definitely be made to suffer, or suffer further, so that the LA can use their enhanced powers to find the tiny number of children who might or might not exist who have been removed from school in order to be abused/white slave traded/whatever and who had not otherwise come to the LAs attention.

What's the phrase? Caught between a rock and a hard place. I mean, we all are - the HE community and also the State officials. What I'm seeing from the HE community is a resistance to definitely causing harm in order to potentially save an unknown number of children from harm, about whose existence those wanting to change the status quo are unable to provide stats or concrete evidence of their existence or concrete evidence that changing the status quo would make a blind bit of difference.

E.G. with one compulsory visit soon after registration - fine. Evil Dad sets it all up to look like a nice school at home, has the visit, THEN starts the sweat shop. Evil people will always find ways of doing their evil.

I think your reference to the white slave trade is crass.
Actually, it's inexcusable.
To score a point you are seeking to make a child's suffering seem far fetched and ridiculous. This is a real child, in real life. Sadly she isn't alone.

But litchick we are all talking about real children here.
Children definitely harmed by school/LA officials.
I have another family to deal with, being badly bullied by a local LA. They contacted me yesterday.
It is disgraceful what this LA are demanding, this child is shaking in his shoes thinking the LA are going to send him back to somewhere where he wanted to kill himself rather than return to.

Onward hasn't said anything I haven't heard from LAS anyway

You misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that the suffering of abused children is far fetched. I did not mean to score a cheap point in any way. I meant to acknowledge that yes, in very rare cases, absolutely ghastly things happen to children - forced prostitution, the sweat shop example you gave earlier, the kind of awful being locked in cellars stories which make the international press.

But before Home Educators are singled out as a minority group who should ALL lose existing freedoms in order to find those abused children, it would be worth while the government giving us some statistics about what sorts of numbers of children they are thinking might be involved here. Normally an intended change to legislation would be backed up by evidence that there needs to be a change. All we have here is unsubstantiated allegations from Baroness wossname based, as far as I can see, on NSPCC lobbying. And, when put on the spot, Veejay Patel backed down and said "no, we don't actually have any evidence of this" (only in different words, but they've probably already been quoted 45 times on this thread alone).

If there are thought to be tens or hundreds or thousands of children in this category of home-educated-and-we-are-worried-about-them-in-welfare-terms-but-we-can't-gather-enough-evidence-to- do-anything-about-it then the State needs to say so, and explain why they have these welfare concerns and explain exactly how they think a compulsory inspection regime would save those children from abuse.

Me, I think their money would be better spent on training more social workers, paying social workers better, making sure the SS is transparent and open so that their work is more widely respected and appreciated, reviewing policy and procedure within the SS. This whole thing seems to me to be a case of the policy makers wanting to be seen to be doing something even though the something they are proposing to do isn't actually showing signs of solving the problem it is supposed to.

In the last couple of years, there has been a concerted effort by the LAs to conflate education at home with welfare, I suppose with changes to their bureacratic structure within children's services. But there are two separate lots of law, each of which is set up to deal with each of those areas. The HE community continues to be very resistant, and rightly so IMO, to the implication that HE is in itself cause for welfare concerns in the same way that children of non-child-cared under 5s would be very resistant to the idea that not paying anyone else to look after your child during the week would in itself be seen as cause for welfare concerns.

DOH!

I meant

"Parents of non-child-cared under 5s"

(Preview is my friend, if only I remembered to use it)