over reaction at beavers

[boxingclever]

Hi guys I'd really appreciate your help with this one, briefly:

My son was at beavers recently, whilst sitting down a kid started kicking him, he lashed out and poked the kid in the genitals. (I found out he did this as a couple of weeks earlier another kid had hit him in the same area so he knew it hurt to be hit there). The first kid went away and got his sister, they both came back and started kicking him. Again, he lashed out and poked her in the genitals, being naive enough not to know it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Now this is where it gets silly, Beavers recorded what happened and forwarded the details to their HQ. A rather arrogant woman from the HQ contacted me last night and apparently I need help with my son’s behaviour, so they are passing the details of this ‘incident’ to Child Services who will be in touch. I strongly objected to this whilst on the phone. Are they allowed to forward personal details of my child to a third party without my permission under GDPR? I’m assuming there is some sort of way of doing this without my consent but surely only if they consider my son to be at risk or something similar?

And he’s being blamed for defending himself by lashing out to get his attackers to stop

Who is blaming him? No-one as far as I can see. Saying that his actions are a possible marker for child abuse is not in any way blaming him. But, if he is being abused, it is important that the abuse is detected.

You do realise we are talking about 6 year olds?

Yes, we are talking about 6 year olds. It is almost certainly entirely innocent. But, regardless of justification, the fact that a child has touched another child's genitals is a possible marker for child abuse and must be reported. If this is the only thing reported it will almost certainly be filed and forgotten. But if other indicators of possible abuse appear it should be investigated.