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

KC is not loosing funding. It will continue to receive funding if CB stands down as CEO, which she has agreed to do

Buffy, although you said that you were just putting general thoughts out there without any specific knowledge of KC, this thread is discussing something quite specific. I think people are getting confused whether you have specific knowledge or not because you keep coming back.

It is your prerogative, of course, and don't feel you have to stay away. Just explaining how you come across to someone who has no agenda and who is also learning.

Harvey, it is under investigation and its future funding is uncertain, but it has been bailed out for the moment in return for her standing down:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11719428/Kids-Company-under-new-Charity-Commission-scrutiny-amid-fears-for-its-future.html

buffy I would like you to continue to post

Discussing theories and other similar examples, is very relevant

No one actually knows what the truth is about KC here. So its all quite speculative and based on peoples own values

I find your posts really intetesting

Buffy, you are back! Hooray!

On the substance - yeah, I can see what you say, but I have also read on other threads what ex-staffers have said. There has to be some sort of balance between "measure and bureaucratise it all to death, ignoring alternative approaches which may work better for some children" and "have no effective oversight over hundreds of thousands of pounds of donated money".

I'm not sure how I've become an advocate of not keeping records or having a process

I can't express how much I hate it when illuminating discussions become polarised, usually by a few posters taking an AIBU-type position. Whether this happens inadvertently or deliberately, it reduces conversation to an adversarial stand-off and we all learn less than we could have.

FWIW, I am a 'vulnerable' 'client' and I bracket those words advisedly. They don't describe me; they describe my place within systems not of my making. My attempts to access the help I need are constantly stymied by the systems' requirement for 'engagement'. Whilst I'm intelligent enough to understand the reasons for it, this does nothing to overcome the vulnerabilities that make it hard for me to 'reach out' and engage. My files are closed very shortly after opening and another avenue disappears.

I'm not even a very vulnerable person with learning difficulties, a deep-seated and justified mistrust of society and its systems, or intense disabilities. I believe I must be correct in assuming more of such people fall through the gaping holes created by management protocols than are adequately supported. It's very interesting to fit my perceptions into a philosophical framework as supplied by Buffy's Foucault summary.

There has to be some sort of balance between "measure and bureaucratise it all to death, ignoring alternative approaches which may work better for some children" and "have no effective oversight over hundreds of thousands of pounds of donated money".

Have the relevant agencies been visiting KC centres regularly? Just hanging out, talking to people? If they have, where are their reports?

Harvey there is first hand experience posts on the other thread. theres talk of money being wasted /given to kids ,fights ,teens with knifes not being told to leave scaring younger kids etc . so maybe leading to more feral/aggressive kids getting more not necessarily the most in need.

That would be interesting to know, Garlick.

fuji I don't have a problem with kids being given money. I know first hand that kids are left alone without electricity/food/bus fare etc etc.

Also, I'm not shocked that there are fights and kids turn up with knives

None of that, for me (and i am a tax payer) is reason to shut a place down

If another provision can help these kids more or help more of these kids, I'm all ears. Id like to hear about the approaches that KC use vs methods other places use. And why KC are not as effective

I haven't heard much about that at all. Some people are talking about other provisions, which help DIFFERENT kids

Harvey, the assumption you are making is that KC is effective. I think that is what everyone assumed for a long time until this has come out in the news. This is all news to me.

Whilst cash, knives and fights don't surprise you, to me and I suspect a lot of others, KC doesn't sound like a particularly well managed organisation who has a grip on the situation. Bear in mind it is KC herself who has brought all this additional scrutiny onto herself by criticising the authorities.

Yes, I would be very interested in how KC compares with other provisions which help troubled children. Those answers are not coming from KC herself, just accusations and smoke and mirrors.

I too am all ears.

I am using KC and CM interchangeably, it seems ...

Harvey - if, as a poster on the other thread alleges, young women feel unsafe at KC, then that's a really big issue. Regardless of all the other allegations.

The Charities Commission had a complaint about KC a while ago but after an initial investigation, decided not to take it further. They are now carrying out an urgent inspection. www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/19991/commission_urgently_assessing_kids_companys_funding_position

Bear in mind there is a new (and rather conservative) broom at the top of the Charity Commission, which might be the reason for them reassessing it now after having taken no action before.

Given what other people who work in the charity sector have been saying on this and the other thread, it sounds more as though CB made herself 'uncriticizable' for a good long time, despite running a chaotic and ineffective organisation. There seems to be no evidence that KC did much, if any good, but was able to make people believe it did by means of lovely soundbites (and the reluctance of the authorities to spend too much time looking at or dealing with these allegedly feral, disturbed kids anyway).

It's because vulnerable, troubled young people aren't necessarily poor little things grateful for any attention, and some of them may well lash out when distressed, that you need some sort of structures in place to stop them harming one another on the organisation's premises. There are certainly suggestions that this wasn't the case because, unconditional love and mystical healing and 'we're-the-maverick-outsiders' and 'Not-so-little-Johnny only threw a chair at another kid because he hasn't had enough hugs today'. Not much comfort to the smaller, equally troubled kid picking up his/her teeth.

Good practice would suggest the following should be present:

1. Accurate identification of those who need the service (not done as 98% self referred)
2. Planning and delivering the intervention (food, new shoes, leccy bill whatever)
3. Monitoring and evaluating the impact (this could include if the money handed out was actually used as intended etc)

It seems like only 2 was done. Which is at best an inefficient use of funds.

It feels as if someone had said "KC and CB do a marvellous job" got the answer "oh yes of course marvellous, er what is it they do?"

If you are all right in saying KC was run chaotically, ineffectively and even harmfully, that's a harsh indictment on the agencies tasked with monitoring the welfare of deprived children, isn't it?

Which agencies, Garlick?

Garlick: Yes. Yes it is. Perhaps the 'lessons to be learned' over this is that no charity should be allowed to 'just get on with it' because the charity's leader is well-connected and an ace self-publicist. It certainly sounds as though, for years, everyone was going 'Oh KC are marvellous' (as LU said) and if anyone did ask any questions they would be either fobbed off or condemned for heartlessness/malice/snobbery/NIMBYism.

It could turn out that CB and KC have all done an absolutely marvellous job - thing is, because it hasn't been monitored properly, we don't know.

Bearing in mind the new broom at the Charity Commission that I mentioned, I think I am minded to disbelieve the "KC are terrible" accounts as thoroughly as I disbelieve the "KC are beyond reproach" accounts. We need a bit of proper scrutiny from someone who doesn't have anything to prove either way, and who is open to non-standard approaches, before we will know what's really been going on.

I think I am minded to disbelieve the "KC are terrible" accounts as thoroughly as I disbelieve the "KC are beyond reproach" accounts.

Me, too - although I know nothing about any of it, and am just picking up on what's being said & not said. It just feels very much like someone falling off a pedestal: that's always unfair and, of course, nobody should be on any pedestal where the welfare of others is concerned.

SGB, the Erin Pizzey is spot on. I remember reading one of her novels set in the late seventies about a homeless charity and thinking you'd never be able to run a charity this way today!