named person - ruled unlawful

[peggyundercrackers]

don't know if anyone else was watching the supreme court ruling this morning but they have ruled the named person scheme unlawful. I am glad the court had sense to rule this sham unlawful. I am disappointed that previous courts didn't do more to stop this nonsense.

Details of the ruling can be found www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2015-0216.html

The named person is working very well in my experience and all agencies in the area I work are behind it. Social work being badly run is a completely separate issue. The NP is there to spot any bigger problems that otherwise would potentially have been missed and build up a fuller picture, assisting social work to get to those children quicker. If you work in Child Protection surely you would realise this. I also like it because it is a universal policy so we are not once again singling out disadvantaged children.

No protective role there then. Where does the 'child's' furtherance of their wellbeing come in in that case? How will they get a higher education without highers? Thanks to this government's cforexcellence it isn't possible to study for SQA exams independently.

Schools are quite tyrannical IME!

I don't get your point. If a child is leaving school at 16 they will be aware that getting to university is going to be less strightforward, however they can of course go to college and from there to university. and none of this has any relevance to the named person. In practice in my experience the bulk of the work has been very much around child protection. And pastoral teachers will have been doing this for years already!!

"Where does the 'child's' furtherance of their wellbeing come in in that case?"

The same place as every other school leaver's...

If after compulsory education a teenager is unwilling to engage with the school, they don't have to educate them, it's as simple as that and has always been the case.

It works the same as FE, HE or employment for that matter, follow the rules or go.

Let's be honest if a teenager is not following the school rules to the extent that they're asked to leave, they're not exactly likely to fare much better in HE anyway.

Schools will already have had a duty of care, this new legislation makes no difference to that. They would have been expected to pass on child protection concerns regardless. All it is doing is joining up existing agencies to stop kids falling through the gaps and putting it in law. Is this really that difficult for people to grasp?? I am still genuinely baffled at the outcry around this.

"They would have been expected to pass on child protection concerns regardless. All it is doing is joining up existing agencies to stop kids falling through the gaps and putting it in law."

Exactly.

I'm horrified how many people are so set against this.

The list of individuals and organisations in the children's sector is endless (Children In Scotland, Children First, Barnardo's, CELCIS...)
The list of those against it are predominantly religious groups.
Go figure.

"Social work cannot get to the children it already knows about, never mind the ones who don't obviously present as needing help."

So what? If the children aren't kicking up enough fuss they must be less deserving of help?

Access to confidential medical records without the parents' consent! Access that parents are not entitled to in the case of an older child.

Possibility of abuse by NPs.

Adding to the workload of already busy teachers.

Promoting the view that children, or young people up to and including 18YOs who are still at school can have their privacy invaded. Creating a culture of overly cautious, back-covering reporting. A child singled out to be asked questions is likely to be unsettled by it. Parents could be frightened to question/complain about their child's school in case they are labelled as unco-operative, which might be a red-flag. It's not healthy.

SW being badly run (and this is subjective), is a separate issue as the named person is independent of social work and has no impact on how a social work team is managed on a day to day basis, however what it can do is at least put the spotlight on children who social work have not yet reached and high tariff cases will of course be escalated. In my experience, many of those the NP may intervene with are already on SW radar, but at least now there is more information to actually be able to intervene as required, even if that is just by pulling together a core group meeting so earlier interventions can be put in place.

The list FOR is endless

Social workers would be more able to get to children in need of help if they were funded better.

Religious people are as entitled to their views as anyone else. Btw I am not religious. Who is anyone to decide that views based on religion are less valuable than secular opinions?

Rogue- you do realise that all these things were already happening? Schools and doctors already had a duty of care!! As I have repeatedly pointed out, all it is doing is giving a central point to collate small issues that on their own don't mean much, but when placed alongside other bits of evidence could indicate a bigger problem. It is to stop more children who are at risk of physical or mental harm being missed. It is not going to have any impact on children in secure loving homes.

Rogue- you do realise that social workers are not able to get easy to access to troubled families?? Having more of them isn't going to change that??

Teachers were entitled to access confidential medical records? Really? If that's correct that's shocking.

Teachers are not able to access medical records. In practice, the NP, which could be a teacher, will speak to the GP at RELEVANT points, but when interventions are already in place. I have been at core group meetings where this is the case and it happened for very good reason. It was not a 'breach of confidentiality' it was a strong indicator of child neglect. The key point is RELEVANT.

"The children who are ifs and maybes and we probably should look at (the ones NP is supposed to highlight) are never going to get a look in"

No, see it's not ifs and maybes, there are extreme cases of neglect and abuse that are missed or hidden because there isn't enough integrated information and sometimes because their parents take advantage of that.

That's why people going on about tv programmes is so ridiculous.

Guidance teachers (as one source of NP) already keep a bit of an eye out for low level warning signs, that won't really change.

What will change is that the bad but managing to stay under the radar cases should be more noticeable.

It may if money and resources aren't diverted to SS mean that more minor cases may be bumped down in priority, but that's because the children highlighted are actually in greater need of intervention.

I think Maggie Mellon has summed it up best throughout

That's not true, there are many agencies that can support vulnerable children in addition to social services. In fact, they are often much better placed to provide whole family, early interventions.

Another post verdict article which superbly articulates the current situation

Not really viper.

"It is in essence an attempt to 'casework' the whole population of children and families, and will bear particularly on the poor, the different, the most disadvantaged."

That bit and then the whole rest of the article concentrating on that...it completely ignores the fact that previously those were the sections of society already targeted.

In my area and many others for instance health visitors were scaled back about a decade or so ago and instead of seeing all young children routinely they were to concentrate on targeted sections of society, young parents, out of work parents, those with known addiction problems and a few others.

So those people, the ones she's concerned about being disadvantaged by being 'caseworked' already were.

It has to be taken in context, targeted services have to actually be targeted and doing it by things like maternal age, household income or known substance abuse doesn't actually work, partly because there's a whole lot of those people who actually don't need it but are being targeted anyway but also because parents can not be in one of those groups and there's still huge family issues going on.

You've also got to add in with my example of health visitors that without health visitor engagement routinely happening - things like developmental delays miss out on early intervention, if their parents aren't in a targeted group and haven't had any reason to seek out a health visitor, their children don't get the developmental checks.

That sort of situation is the same with all targeted services, the most effective way to actually provide services is to spread a very wide net and then have the services concentrated on those that need it, not just to start off assuming that certain sections of the population must be in need of the services, whether they're fine or not.

Flossietoot said "It is to stop more children who are at risk of physical or mental harm being missed. It is not going to have any impact on children in secure loving homes."

This is what Named Person supporters don't understand. Named person is connected to GIRFEC and SHANARRI and named persons are 'processing' families who have children with additional support needs, but who consider their homes to be secure and loving, through the same system intended to prevent abuse and neglect - the SHANARRI wheel, the My World Triangle and the wellbeing matrix, as if it's some kind of spotting the problem game. Yes, people are being dragged through the SHANARRI process who have no need of help from social services. This is extremely offensive. We have experienced a judgmental, self-righteous, patronising named person who was totally lacking in empathy and far from solving any problems, compounded them. Teachers may be trained education professionals but do they understand the limits of their competence?

I am an opponent of named person for this reason and not because I want children at risk of real harm to be denied the help they need. Many of the opponents of the scheme tell a similar story of children with additional needs and arrogant named persons not listening or understanding. It is nothing to do with religion or politics.