17 year old found starved to death in Birmingham

[PinkPussyCat]

Just heard about this on the lunchtime ITV news... Apparently there were several other emaciated children found at the scene following a call to the emergency services.
They don't have any more details than that atm.

How can stuff like this be happening in the UK in 2008?

I am a home educator in the Midlands area.

Just wanted to point out a few facts about home based education.

It is always a parents responsibility to make sure their child is educated to their age aptitude and ability. Most parents delegate that responsibility to the state, a few of us do not.

When a child is home educated the LA may make informal enquiries if they have reason to believe an education is not taking place. they can then ask for more information, if they are not satisfied, and can issue an School Attendance Order if they remain unsatisfied.

How to give that information is always the choice of the parents. They can choose to have a home visits or choose to send in information in writing.

This family appears to have chosen to have a home visit, if the media is to be believed.

The LA DID visit this family.
The LA did not find any problems apparently.
If they had found problems it is up to the LA to act. Likewise if there were welfare concerns then the Social services rightly have the power to do something about it.

however insisting that every home educating family has to have regular home visits is unfair-unless you consider that every family with children under five should have regular home visits 'just in case' as there are children of that age who are abused.

And would a visit once every 10 weeks or so be enough or should they be more frequent?
Would all of you with children under the age of five be happy having monthly visits from the Social services/LA just in case?

My own children were badly damaged by their experiences in school-home was the only safe place for them, they felt and they strongly did not want anyone from any authority coming here to check up on them. Should I have sacrificed their right to a private life and a feeling of safety here?

What happened to this family is appallingly sad-and I say again, if there were welfare concerns social services had the power to do something about it.

But home education is not, of itself, a welfare concern-anymore than a child aged under five not going to nursery.

But social services don't visit every family that there is, they rely on other agencies, family, friends and neighbours telling them when there is a problem. If the LEA came in and didn't see a problem how were social services to know?

Mum was an ESW covering that area not long ago. She is now a Senior CPSW in that area, but different office.

Social services don't come into every home educating family either.
They rely on other agnecies in exactly the same way they do for families who have children under five, who don't attend nursery.

sorry that was meant to say they rely on other agencies, family, friends and neighbours telling them when there is a problem.

Otherwise no family would have a private life.

I never said they did.

You can't just say that SS rely on others to tell them where there is a problem. I don't believe that to be true. SS have a legal duty to follow up any complaint or referral that is made to them concerning a child, yet for many, many cases - those making the referral are seen to be over-protective, or interfering or even just vindictive. I have worked with dozens of familes where numerous referrals and reports were made to SS and were ignored, abusers vindicated and children left until something major has happened SS have finally been dragged back into the issue purely because other agencies have insisted on their involvement.

I have talked on here before about one case that I will never forget - the one where I was forced to walk away from a case involving two children, where the abuser was physically abusing his invalid mother and his children, purely because he was a police informer and made a significant contribution to their arrest and conviction rates.

I also have personal experience, I made a complaint to SS about my own Grandson that was ignored until six weeks later when he was hospitalised at 5 months old with facial injuries, bruising and a chest fracture. The SS had actually lied to us after our intial report - telling us that GS would have a social worker and would have weekly visits. They eventually admitted that they had assumed that we were simply over-protective grandparents who had been simply trying to cause trouble for GS's father.

Yes, I am sure that there are a significant number of social workers who do whatever they can in their to ensure the safety of vulnerable adults and children, but what they can do is surprisingly limited, and they may have yet to come up against the brick walls that can appear when the internal politics of numerous agencies take priority.

So what should they do if they don't rely on others? Visit every home themselves without just cause to make sure the children are not being abused?

For the ones that slip through, how many do you think they've actually got involvememt on? Many, many more. If their caseload is too high you can't blame the social workers. I know many who work through the night just to keep up. Mum regularly has three months of TOIL and holidays left by March, she never takes sick leave because it's a waste of TOIL, she takes TOIL so she can do paperwork from home. She's not alone either.

There are malicious allegations (my uncle and aunt did it to my parents) and they need to work through which are which on top of their already full caseloads.

They don't work alone either, they can investigate things but they can't decide what to do with it. It's a like the police, when they arrest someone they can't just throw them in prison, they have to get a higher police officer to decide if it should be dealt with, then passed to the CPS then the court decides.

It's not individual social workers who let the kids down, it's the whole system from social workers to the courts. The best social worker could have something bad happen to one of their kids because of a weak link.

ITV news at 6.30 tonight follows this story and carries an interview with a Home Educator, to balance the sides up i think, as alot of anti home ed views since this sotry broke sadly.

Which is why I completely support julienoshoes excellent post. Scapegoat-arama round these sorts of cases.

oh good, that makes 2 of us then!

Julie, why would anyone be happy about having no jurisdiction or method of state contact with any child. How does anyone know that you're not abusing your children, you're hardly going to tell are you? Obviously I am not saying that you are but with no system of checking or even seeing these children how does anyone know what's going on. Home educating could be a perfect (in this case) way of hiding systematic abuse of a child. I made the same fuss when my HV stopped 2 year checks for all, it means that vunerable children are left to the whims of their sometimes inadequate parents.

But they had a visit from the LA.

How many visits and at what point in the withdrawing from school?

They had a home visit, from what I've read, which would probably have been a few weeks after they were withdrawn.

"How many visits and at what point in the withdrawing from school?"

If you were a homew educating family or a family with children under 5 years old, how often would you be happy with authorities coming into your home and making judgments about your choices posieparker?
Once every twelve/six/three months?
Once a month?
Once a week?

I home educate and am very happy not to have visits.

My reasons are very similar to julienoshoes, in that I have spent years undoing the harm suffered by my children in the state school system. I have no intention of them coming along to my house for a visit.

My answer to that request would be that my children are "NOW learning in a safe and happy environment".

The circumstances surrounding this tragic case in Birmingham should not be presumed that it is 'as a result of being home educated'.

wow-i always assumed home educators would have regular visits,like every term or something.i dont understand it,i mean,if its against the law not to send your child to school,then how come you're allowed to say 'right,im home ed-ing from now on' and then get left to it?

The Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 says
?The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable ?
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.?

It is the "otherwise" bit that allows us to home educate. But ensuring the child receives an education is always the parents responsibility.
Most people delegate that responsibility to the state but a few of us do not.

Some people choose to home educate from the start and never send their children to school.

It is against the law not to send your child to school once they are a registered pupil at a school.
You are allowed to send in a letter to deregister your child from school and take back the responsibility to provide the education yourself.

The School then has a duty to inform the LA and the LA can make informal enquiries if they have reason to believe an education is not taking place.
If the information the parents does not satisfy the LA, then they can ask for more information.
If still not satisfied the LA may make a School Attendance Order.

Our children were desperately unhappy in school over quite a long period of time(if I'm truthful our eldest was never happy there) Then aged 13, our son told us he didn't want his life anymore. That sent me scurrying to look for alternatives.
A few weeks later, after he had returned one Friday afternoon desperately upset again, I came across the Education Otherwise website.
I knew I had found the answer, the deregistration letter went in on the very next school day and seven plus years later, we have never looked back.

We have had a fabulous life that has suited our whole family so well.

I haven't meant in anything I've said that it's a result of home ed. If the LEA had visited and didn't see anything wrong to report to social services then social services and no one else called them in, then social services can't be blamed.

My question was regarding the family of the little girl that had died. I would think one should have to justify with a lengthy interview and clear goals and objectives when deciding to home educate. Justification for taking your children out of the developmental and safe radar of a school system is something not to be taken lightly or assumed as parental right, the child's safety and development must cut through political correctness. The parent should show that he/she can educate on a wide scale and is seen to help the child socialise. As part of a community and not a selfish individual I would be more than happy for regular checks from the state in the full knowledge that perhaps there were children who were not getting the sort of educative and safe environment I was providing for my children. Surely if you could assist situations where children didn't starve to death you would be more than happy to welcome a state visit on a regular basis, or maybe attend a state run meeting of parents and children who educate a home. Something like a playgroup/coffee morning just so official could talk to you and your children and offer any assistance....perhaps this could be bi monthly and then a visit bimonthly, whether the resources are available is another matter. I think it is a very frightening situation that some children are in these days, some seen at the hospital at birth and then not agian following vaccinations and even than some miss their MMR, then they can vanish again until they start school and for those that home educate they can disappear. How on earth can parents be monitored???

Mine have not all had the MMR either, as well as being home educated, so I must be an awful parent!!

Sorry, but i do not understand the need to be monitored by schools or LA really. There are plenty of other places they go to where it could be picked up that something was wrong. They are in local cubs, scouts, football clubs, music groups, as well as home ed groups.

We do see a doctor if we are ill, so it need not be monitored by school/LA.

As julinoshoes states, it is not illegal, not to snd your child to school. What we are doing (50,000 plus ) is perfectly legal, by de-registering your child from the school role. Please visit www.educationotherwise.org and you can find out exactly what is expected of a Home Educator.

I completely fail to see the logic there, posieparker. This family was monitored. Therefore, the notion that 'being monitored' is something that will stop abusers is demonstrably false.

Part of the reason that the HE aspect has been raised on MN is that the question was asked, 'Why didn't the school do something?' And in this case, the answer was, because the child was HE.