Good luck to SNP MP Mhairi Black

[claig]

She is phenomenal - just 20 years old, SNP MP.

"I'm not the one who should be nervous, the people who are responsible for so much poverty and so much struggle in people's lives, they're the ones who should be nervous becase they're the ones who are going to held accountable for all the damage that they do to people"

Thet are going to shake our usual spinners up. They won't know what hit them. The SNP have some great women MPs - saw some of them on TV over the weekendm a real breath of fresh air - they are going to shake things up and not put up with the bowing and doffing of caps crap.

They don't conform to the traditional profile of our useless lot. This is a bit like the movie "Mr Smith Goes to Washington". I can't remember what happens in that movie though.

I agree with you SDT, but then if you're a good parent it is unlikely the named person would ever be called upon. But he/she would be there for those who do need it.

I don't think its fascist, but it definitely a one size fits all solution (like many other SNP strategies)

I think it's a good thing. I can see both sides but for me, it's merely an expansion of something that already exists. There's nothing to say that in the future there won't be any circumstances under which I'm not looking after my child properly and I actually feel a bit reassured knowing there will be someone with a duty to flag it. I have no fears that anyone is going to be snooping on the details of my parenting decisions.

For the vast majority of children and parents it has no impact whatsoever, health visitors and teachers in promoted positions already have a duty of care to pass on any serious concerns.

What it does change is that for pre -school children, there is now the expectation that they will see a health visitor at least at some point. A few years ago lots of areas stopped doing routine checks and developmental checks for parents that weren't in an 'at risk' group, I have huge issues with that, partly because there's the assumption there that abuse and neglect only happen in certain types of families, but also the assumption that other types of parents will recognise and know how to access support for developmental delays or disabilities, the onus should not be on parents to seek help for something like that.

In secondary schools (an area I have experience in) it's very easy for children with issues to go unnoticed if they don't speak up voluntarily, in a class of 30ish pupils it's very hard to tell if a pupil at the back of the class saying nothing is fine and just a bit of a quiet person or if they're quiet because there are huge issues outside of school. Now, someone has to be checking in with them and it raises the possibility that it won't go unnoticed because nobody had time to check.

I also think that agencies involved with children absolutely should be sharing information and it's ludicrous that despite lots of other initiatives that are designed to do just that, you can still have seperate agencies all involved with one child all receiving different information and not passing on relevant things.

Basically it's designed to flag up the children that are currently missed, the ones where a family put on a good front but there are horrible things happening behind the scene, the ones that have other agency involvement but everyone is passing the buck a bit and the ones with low level stuff going on that wouldn't otherwise be noticed. The cases you read about in newspapers where despite social services involvement and massive concerns at school nobody actually sees the child until they're dead, or the ones where there are lots of little flags being raised all over the place but nobody is doing anything because they're kept as seperate files at seperate agencies.

I know there's supposedly issues with the way the it's been written - I wouldn't know as I'm not a legal expert.

I also know that it's criticised for being easy to misuse if someone dislikes a parent or is vindictive... But, if health visitors or promoted teachers are behaving like that then they could do quite a lot with the systems that were already in place.

What it definitely does is make the named person accountable for actually checking that a child is ok, rather than how it was where it was part of their job, but in a vague way and no real consequences if they missed some because there were no pressing concerns.

My that was long, lol.

Tabulah - thanks for the detailed explanation. I didn't have a very clear idea of how it is supposed to work. I am quite shocked that the promoted person will be held accountable. That's a big deal, but like you say, does mean people can't pass the buck

It does sound to me as if it's another layer of policy (for want of a better word|) on top of an already complex system. Wouldn't it be better to simplify/integrate the way agencies operate at the grass roots?

In theory, it should be simple, it's a health visitor for pre-school children, a promoted teacher in primary (not their class teacher) and in secondary it's usually going to be their guidance teacher.

So all people that already have responsibility for welfare anyway and for school age children people that they already know.

So it's less an extra layer of policy and more, those people who ready have responsibility for child welfare need to make sure they're keeping an eye out for all children rather than just identified ones...but good staff in good schools would be doing that already and that is pretty much what health visitors exist for.

It's not the huge amount of intervention that some people have made it out to be. Mostly it's, make sure health visitors are doing developmental checks and make sure teachers are checking in with all the pupils they're responsible for and that they have a bit more leeway to work with other agencies if they need to.

Oh and the accountability - for instance if a school child died because of parental abuse or neglect, now there's one teacher who should have made an effort to meet with that child occasionally and have kept a file of any minor things anyone had flagged up.

Previously yes it would be the same teacher's responsibility, but they may not have spoken to the child for a while if they didn't think there was a pressing need to and the class teacher may have gone straight to the child protection officer with concerns.

My worry is that, if a teacher has a big list of pupils for whom they are the Named Person (I saw a news report about a Head Teacher who was NP for 300 pupils), how are they going to find enough time, alongside all the rest of their work, to meet with all those children and make it more than just a box-ticking exercise? Isn't there a risk that, by having to spread themselves and their attention too thinly, over children who don't need their support or input, they may miss the ones who do?

It is mostly a box ticking exercise though, children who are already known to need support and intervention are getting that already, and not from a headteacher, so it doesn't take anything away from them and it could flag up things like when schools think social services are involved but actually they haven't been back, most children are fine and are going to be fine...but what is flag up those who seem fine, but aren't.

Saying that, a headteacher being the named person for 300 pupils seems a bit ridiculous in a school that size there should be at least 3 or 4 other teachers who would be capable of doing it.

It did also feel to me as if the Government was saying they could parent my child better than I could - it seemed overly paternalistic and somewhat patronising.

But as my youngest, ds3, just turned 18, I probably don't need to worry any more, and can carry on with my normal neglectful parenting!

There have been a lot of people saying stuff like that, but I genuinely think that's because people underestimate how involved teachers and people were already in the welfare of children...and then a load of people kicked off about parent's rights and hypothetical situations that would just never happen.

If you want to join a religion, let your children have a TV in their bedroom, become a vegan, not vaccinate your children (all examples I've seen people saying teachers would now report) teachers don't care, they're only looking for things that might warrant medical, social services or additional supports needs intervention.