My HV has just phoned to ask if DS1 was going to school this year.

[Bleatblurt]

I am a bit

Why does she even know that I didn't register DS1 (he's 4.5) for school? She also wanted to know if he was going to be going next year instead and sounded a bit herself when told no.

Is it normal for a HV to get involved? She even said she'd tried to come round to see us last week but we were out.

again.

It's because we took DS1 out of nursery I bet. Must be evil parents hiding abuse or sommat.

Please feel free to tell me I'm being a paranoid arse and it's normal for the HV to contact me.

no, lizzie, what you have is a HV with some common sense and a more-than-large-enough caseload of people who actually want and need their services...

but a child who's SN would have records of doctor's visits etc. leftie looked for cases of children who were know to exist but had NO records of health visits, nursery, school etc. which could be excellent - a child who never had an illness/accident, and being HE'd, or far more serious. doing a 'paper search' for these things is worth doing.

Not necessarily, kickass

"the LA has a statutory responsibility for all resident children"

I thought that parents were legally responsible for the welfare of their children, with LAs being the state agency with responsibility for investigating if they have grounds to believe there is something amiss and then, if their investigations do show something is amiss, they either help the family if welcomed or hand the case over to the CPS? So the parents have the statutory responsibility, but the courts judge their failure to meet that responsibility if such failure is thought by the LA to have occurred.

Or am I misunderstanding?

yeah, not necessarily kickass. In my own RL circle of HEing friends, I can count 3 off the top of my head where the children have some sort of SN but the families are choosing not to avail themselves of professional diagnosis at this point. And of those families, 2 are non-vax families and all are co-sleeping, natural-term breastfeeding earth-mother type families who have nothing to do with HVs or GPs if they can help it (more likely to go to private alternative health-type practitioners). So they might well not be on anyone's list. Does that mean they are likely to be abused? Does that mean SS should investigate just in case?

Why is HE something anyone would need to do a paper search for? I don't get it. Since the legal responsibility for a child's education "at school or otherwise" rests with its parents, there's only any need for the State to know about it a) if we want to use the state-provided schools or b) if there is reason to believe that we are breaking the law and not educating our children.

Ah, you might be right. Has been a while and tbh, my job was more about finding children between 14-16 that were 'missing'

My experience of this is that we were given the option of a visit by the school nurse. While her title might be school nurse, I think that is a somewhat unfortunate title as she said to me that part of her job is to offer the same services to all school-aged children whether in school or not.

Now I'm quite happy with that.
I think it's a good thing to be able to access health services for my children which are usually delivered through school. As with school, I have the option to decline the offers but it is good to have a contact who I can check with should have concerns about any of my children's health if it doesn't warrant a gp visit.
I know that I could contact my local clinic or gp if I wanted any health services but I feel comfortable enough with the 'school' nurse and she is more easily contacted than arranging a gp appt for advice. She is also better placed for knowing what is being offered through schools and giving me the option of using those things for my children.
Nothing to do with education, really.

Are you saying, cat64, that the best way to ensure that all children are safe and well is to ensure that they are all seen by "child professionals"? Shoud every child have regular safe and well checks, or only the ones who do not come unto contact with state-employed and state-trained child professionals on a regular basis through state school, NHS or similar?

If children are at private schools, or seen by private health practitioners, or members of some sort of community group (guides, church, ballet/music classes, whatever) is that sufficient for safeguarding purposes?

I'm all in favour of living in a society where we care for others and offer support, I'm less in favour of living in a society where the right to private family life is bulldozed because of some idea that a safe and well check will prevent child abuse. I need more evidence that such checks do more good than harm before being happy to give up a fundamental civil liberty.

As for your last question:

"disappears off the radar" presumably suggests that a family has been on the radar previously, yes? If a vulnerable family has come to the notice of the authorities, and there is good reason to think that the family is at risk, and then they move without notice, then yes, of course Children's Services should be making sure all is well if they possibly can. But if there is no reason for Children's Services to think that anything is wrong beyond the fact that a family chooses to live without using State-employed teachers, doctors, dentists, whoever, then yes, they should leave the family alone to go about their lawful business.

I think it is often easy for those in Children's Services to forget how much harm they do simply by investigating and invading the lives of innocent families.

Absolutely Ommmward.

I'm sort of torn over this one, ommmward- and I am someone who has been suspected of child abuse so I know exactly how much harm that does

but I also see that the logical conclusion of not checking up on the children of families who do not avail themselves of services is that vulnerable families will not come to the notice of authorities at all

if noone ever sees the children noone will know whether there is reason to believe they are vulnerable

so from that point of view the small proportion of children who are abused in this category will be at a disadvantage compared to their peers who do at least have a chance that someone will pick up on it and do something