Can we talk about Camilla Batmanghedjh?

[HarveySpectre]

Everywhere I look, she is getting totally crucified. Including on MN chat.
I don't get it. Even if she has been bad at financial accounts, she has still done amazing work for kids, for the last 19 years.

People are saying the money could have been 'better spent'. What the fuck do they know about what those kids need??

People are calling for measurable benefits I.e. Improved exam results, employment, reduction in offending/criminal activity. You cant link those things to whether a child should be fed! There is no 'measure of improvement' to providing basic need

To my mind KC thought outside the box and catered for those that absolutely needed help the most. You cant always do that effectively, by conventional methods

They don't even give basic info such as client age groups and how many are male and female ... can't say how many meals provided

I didn't know it was that bad. Downright silly of them/her.

Very many of the people who make real differences (good and bad) are raging narcissists. I'm uncomfortable with arguments based largely on personality assassination. It could, though, be CB's undoing - she'll be up against equivalent narcissists and, if her own is too great, she will not be able to accept that appeasement may be necessary.

I'm still very sorry that the organisation seems headed for the bin.

where dont they give that information almond, on their website?

"Through their centres in north and south London, Liverpool and Bristol, they now support 36,000 children and provide 3,000 meals a week. Of those children, 85% rely on Kids Company for the main meal of the day."

Published in the Guardian, hardly secret information.

In any of their annual reports, and in the research studies done of them, and to funders, when asked. The research studies done on them are odd - lack of basic quantitative info, focus on the director that you wouldn't expect to see, funded by them. Also a study done on one particular unrepresentative group of clients used as an example of client needs and experiences in other reports.

Without them providing info on gender, the stereotypical assumption to be made based on the groups they discuss is that their focus is on older (over sixteen) males, but that speculation could be just my bias based on machismo I've seen before among youth service provision.

Garlick, I hadn't thought before about what you've said about particular individuals driving things. I suppose that was the case in the banking collapse - lack of regulations and checks in place allowed particular individuals to go with their vision. Andy Hornby's selling mortgages is like selling tins of beans claim, and so on.

There are lots of numbers in that article. I now think the charity's being misrepresented and that what's happening is what Batmanghelidjh & Buffy have said.

Garlick - those figures are the ones people are asking them to break down, as they don't fit with staff, funder and client info, and they've been unable to.

do you have links to those reports almonds?
The reports I read, some years ago now, did have ages and sex of the clients

Sorry, Almond, I cross-posted with your previous. This all seems very sad and unnecessary. Silly Camilla.

I think the short term outcomes culture we seem to have at the moment is a tyranny.

Good lord, yes!

Foucault is bloody great, but very waffly. Buffy, if you wrote a blog translating it all I'd definitely read it and link to it profusely :)

I don't think "The nation has turned on her so fast" i think she has always been disliked, she is outspoken to the point of being rude and has very little tolerance of anyone else's point of view.

They're all on their website Harvey.

Even in that news report Garlick linked to in the Guardian, the figures on prior experiences are incorrect.

They are taken from a specific group of 16-24 year olds who are educated by Kids' Company due to issues such as exclusion from mainstream education. But the article does not report that - instead it says that the abuse figures are those of the kids who generally are seen by Kids' Company. That could just be lazy fact finding on the part of the journalist, or it could be that those are the figures Kids' Comapny want to present to the press.

I find the lack of gender info on the education research unhelpful. There are stats there on knife crime (suggesting boys and men) but none on pregnancy. I would expect a unit dealing with people under 25 who cannot access mainstream education to include a number of young mothers.

I don't know anything about the stuff SGB has said about uncontrolled violence between clients and people being scared to go, but if that is true, we all know that will be a gendered problem.

I'm not an investigative journalist and there's plenty of reports on this stuff from people who know more than me (including people who have worked there) and I could be wrong about it all, but it doesn't add up.

I personally am far more bothered about some of the stuff going on in alternative/religious drug and alcohol therapy and treatment centres, and the loop holes allowing those to do all kind of dodgy things, so I'm not going to look any further into Kids' Company.

I hope groups working with vulnerable people become better regulated, before we end up with another Rotheram. But if we do, I expect it to come from the fringes of the substance misuse sector, because that seems popular among MRAs, fundamentalists and other non mainstream groups who rely on charismatic figures with a desire to 'help.'

If you look at the annual report I linked earlier, the give a detailed breakdown of 750 high risk children. They give no detail of the other 35,250 or the meals. How are these funded, ie do they provide food, cash, vouchers etc.
They also say 98% of the children are self-referrals. This means they just turn up - does not seem to be any oversight on whether they are actually in need or not.

Unregulated groups run chaotically by charismatic figures, in theory to "help" the most vulnerable people, especially children, can do great damage. Vulnerable people in particular need to know where they stand, and that the staff making decisions about them are professional, and are acting professionally. Otherwise all kinds of stuff can be swept under the carpet.

There have been so many things that have gone wrong across so many organisations and institutions. Only the really big cases make the press.

We had the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and the Equality Act to bring in regulations to stop some of these issues happening. But if organisations get funded without evidence that they are actually operating within the Equality Act, then Cameron's Government has effectively dispensed with a large part of the Act's purpose.

If that was going to be the case, then that should have been formally declared as a change to the law so it could be debated. I feel now that the impact of the 'Big Society' has not been that local people organise to help each other, but that local people end up organising to try and do something about groups with power who are being paid to 'help' in some unethical or incompetent ways, because the Government is not behaving responsibly. And that is not something we are equipped to do, particularly if the local community in question includes large numbers of vulnerable people. And Kids' Company is probably nowhere remotely near one of the worst cases; it's just a fairly well funded organisation that was close to Cameron so is now getting a lot of attention.

ALmondcakes: I hope groups working with vulnerable people become better regulated, before we end up with another Rotheram. But if we do, I expect it to come from the fringes of the substance misuse sector, because that seems popular among MRAs, fundamentalists and other non mainstream groups who rely on charismatic figures with a desire to 'help.'

Brr, worrying thought but you are right. Yes, wouldn't be surprised if that happens, sadly. Though there are, of course, lots of people working within charities who are perfectly decent, level-headed and good-hearted, all 'caring' work attracts a percentage of not-decent people. Some are actual predators (perhaps fewer get away with it these days) who think that they can abuse their 'clients' and complaints will not be believed because, well, the clients are 'troubled' and 'confused' and 'difficult'. Some get off on having power over others: being permitted to shout abuse at someone till they cry as a way of 'curing' them can be a massive thrill to a certain personality type. And some are motivated by a conviction that they are ever so special and the world needs to recognise this and worship them.

On a slightly OT note, it's good that more and more people are questioning AA and the 12-step model of substance misuse treatment. 12-step is useless in the majority of cases, its failure rate (ie the number of people who don't stop drinking/drugging or don't stop for very long) something like 95% but there is this big cultural myth that it's the Best Way.

I've always been surprised by the adulation for AA and the 12-step method.

Think the need for balance goes both ways!

Surely it is possible to have charismatic figures who head charities who are a disaster area when it comes to funding/financial management and charismatic figures who are excellent at it. And charismatic figures who are somewhere in between.

I think SoljaBonita's post makes a lot of sense

Buffy I am with you and Foucault on this.

You want charities to be more regulated by the government? That's a terrible idea

Buffy been wanting to read some Faucault while on holiday, any particular one you recommend?

Article in Sunday papers think it was the Torygraph or Times was pretty interesting guy spent 2 days there and questioned how they can claim for 3000 meals a week when the capacity of the hall can't take that amount of kids... To be honest it was a very indepth article but with the papers you never know how much is really true...It would be great if some kids maybe now adults could come forward and 'defend' it.

Those numbers quoted make no sense. 36000 children supported. 85% rely on KC for their main meal. 3000 meals a week served.
But 85% of 36000 is 30600 - and if all 85% are relying on KC for their main daily meal then that would be over 150000 meals a week.

So if the numbers make no sense, what is it they are actually doing? And if they can't explain then they shouldn't continue getting very large amounts of public funding.

Googling " helped by Kids Company and similar brought no results except a small number of testimonials on KC's own site.

So far as the theory that she's being brought down because she's an outsider challenging the system didn't she go direct to Cameron for help on a previous occasion when funding was being delayed due to lack of compliance?

A common theme in the articles I read was journalists spending time at KC and not seeing many actual children there, the exception being the Jay Rayner article.