Potential Systemic Safeguarding failures in NSPCC / Childline illustrated by appointment & ending of relationship with Munroe Bergdorf Thread 2

[R0wantrees]

link to previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3605120-Munroe-Childline-s-first-LGBT-campaigner

NSPCC statement by CEO Peter Wanless
www.nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/news-opinion/munroe-bergdorf

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3609218-Hi-from-Safe-Schools-Alliance-UK

There are some excellent posts in this AIBU thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3611125-AIBU-to-say-that-if-you-work-in-child-protection-you-shouldnt-post-pictures-of-yourself-wanking-at-work-in-fetish-gear

Ongoing thread collating examples of wider failings of Safeguarding & Child Protection frameworks:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

Issues with the NSPCC employee responsible for engaging Munroe Bergdorf discussed from page 16 of the previous thread.

There have been a lot of deletions

Thanks R0

What were the deletions about?

important comment by Professor Rosa Freedman (Reading University Prof of Law, Conflict & Global Development) :

"THREAD ON CHILD SAFEGUARDING AND THE NSPCC: For the past three years I have been researching and working on child safeguarding in conflict and crisis zones. The international child safeguarding standards, developed by @keepchildsafe provide a tool for implementing child

safeguarding across organisations ranging from local book clubs to multinational institutions. An overall approach to safeguarding children is rooted in understanding the risks to children from the organisation, (its staff, programme and operations). This is a robust and

comprehensive process that begins with developing or strengthening a child safeguarding policy that describes how the organisation is committed to promoting the rights, dignity and well-being of children, and preventing all forms of exploitation and abuse. It then requires

organisational development in the form of allocating staff time, ensuring staff are trained and coordinated, and that there is good communication on safeguarding children. There also needs to be sound processes for planning, implementation, monitoring and review, to ensure clear

and transparent lines of accountability right up to board level. Our project website showcases how this can be done in peacekeeping operations: research.reading.ac.uk/safeguarding-children/the-toolkit/ … The Keeping Children Safe website showcases how this can be done across all types of organisations and contexts

www.keepingchildrensafe.org.uk/ The criticisms being levelled against the NSPCC are not about individuals being homosexual or transgender, just as the criticisms being levelled against Oxfam are not about individuals being heterosexual white men. The criticisms levelled are about

organisations taking responsibility for ensuring that people working with children uphold the organisation’s policies on child safeguarding. Publishing photographs of your genitals whilst in an NSPCC building violates child safeguarding standards and goes against the

organisation's values. Encouraging children to contact you privately violates child safeguarding standards and goes against the organisation's values. That is not to say that either individual has harmed or would ever harm a child – the issue is not about what they have done but

about whether they uphold or contravene the organisation's child safeguarding robust policies and procedures. The issue is about ensuring that the organisation has robust measures in place to ensure child safeguarding standards are implemented and upheld across the organisation.

The organisation's responsibility is to the children it works with and the communities it serves, and part of that responsibility is ensuring that its values and that international child safeguarding standards are implemented and upheld. END"

threader.app/thread/1139141531565285378

The AIBU thread seems to be pretty unamious tbh in saying that the NSPCC should sack this guy. A few disagreements over the safeguarding aspect of it, but no one thinks its homophobic.

And there is horror at the NSPCC sitting on their hands because of the message that it puts out. Including a fear that its damaging to the LGBT community NOT to take action over this employee.

Just had a look at the deletions on the other thread. I don't think there is anything significant thats got the chop. The main point is definitely still there and untouched.

Weren't there quite a few deletions because posting went weird and there were many repeated posts?

For anyone trying to catch up, this is not about 'white feminism', 'prudishness' or 'kink shaming'. It is about safeguarding within children's charities.

James Makings works for the NSPCC, and had linked his fetish social media pages and his Instagram to his Linked In profile, where he describes his role as ''Celebrity and Talent Manager for NSPCC & Childline''.
He has since made his fetish profiles and blog private, but at the time the story broke they were public.
His social media pages show him acting out sexually at work, in the NSPCC offices, including masturbating in a toilet wearing fetish gear.
Its not clear if the toilet was the mens or a mixed sex toilet.

James was responsible for giving Munroe Bergadoff a role as LGBT Ambassador for Childline, and apparently did not perform background checks, or if he did he did not see any cause for concern.
Munroe was subsequently dropped as an ambassador, partly for posting online that children could contact them without their parents knowledge (which is a breach of safeguarding)

Shelley Charlesworth (former BBC News journalist) tells the NSPCC story from the beginning:
twitter.com/charlesworth102/status/1138416838109487105

Richard Garside (Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies) has condemned the NSPCCs actions;
twitter.com/RichardJGarside/status/1138696715777843200

Dr Jessica Eaton @ jessicae13eaton
Uhhhhh... don’t NSPCC go into schools and tell kids not to film themselves or take naked selfies and upload them to the internet because it will be their own fault if they get shared everywhere and they can’t control how people will use the images against them?

Karma much.

In terms of NSPCC values their employee has

1. put the NSPCC in a very difficult position where they now have a pr disaster on their hands to manage.
2. caused damage to public trust in the NSPCC
3. demonstrated he does not understand basic safeguarding principles
4. exercised incredibly poor judgment over the potential conflict between his professional / private conduct
5. ignored the principle about a campaign about online sexual images to the point that he's rather demonstrated the point of the campaign.
6. therefore being massively undermining and hypocritical in terms of what the NSPCC is seeking to achieve.
7. failed to understand the need for anyone working with vulnerable children or organisation for vulnerable children has to be whiter than white in order to protect the organisation itself and why this is necessary.
8. has poor understanding of boundaries and how sexual acts in a public place which have an element of risk involving getting caught which is part of the sexual satisfaction, potentially violent other peoples rights with regard to consent as unwitting or unwilling participants.

Have I missed any?

While not suggesting that any individuals concerned in this debacle are predators, it is worth noting that Penny Mordaunt has voiced concerns that sex offenders were deliberately targeting vulnerable women and children via charities . The government have set up a global register called Soteria, (after the Greek Goddess of Protection) to share information about adults who are a risk to the vulnerable. I presume that British charities such as the NSPCC will be contributing information to this register.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sexual-predator-ngo-list_uk_5bc6e6d3e4b0d38b5873109f

India Willoughby @indiawilloughby
Pink mafia 🤦‍♀️. This has nothing to do with “transphobia.” It’s to do with previous comments the person made, and the same person then exaggerating their role with the @NSPCC. Whole thing is sordid. More to come apparently #Munroe #NSPCC

India posted this in response to an Owen Jones link where he interviews Bergdorf.

Pretty comprehensive list redtoothbrush
And if people complaining this behaviour is not a good idea are accused of bullying doesn't that suggest the NSPCC could be a bit more clued up on what bullying is? Am I unreasonable in thinking they should be pretty clear on that?

I'm going to reframe my (first ever) deletion which Jacky quoted and was also deleted.

This is what I meant:

When boundaries are so blurred and interchangeable in queer theory and being ‘body positive,’ and by proxy it seems also ‘sex positive,’ (what ever that means - kinks?) this very easily descends into a safeguarding issue. When this extremely wide umbrella of ‘queer’ is normalised, there is a blurring of safeguarding practice. And that’s what’s happened to the term ‘transgender.’

A similar process happens in organisations - I’m thinking of schools as that’s where I’ve seen it happen and been a part of training to tackle it - where lines begin to be blurred in any number of areas that has nothing to do with the children, for example in terms of how staff interact with one another, communicate via text, joke or even offer support.

What is one person’s normal may actually not be normal or appropriate and lines can be crossed. Perceptions become skewed, people become used to allowing a person to behave in certain ways, and younger staff don’t know they can’t challenge it or worry about the impact of their whistle blowing or how they’re perceived by colleagues.

This culture within the staff group, apart from leaving people open to workplace bullying, can potentially can filter down to actual safeguarding issues with children.

Of course this is plain to see re Oxfam. I can’t help wondering about people signing the letter.

From the last thread, a comment about how the NSPCC doesn’t exist to validate these people really rings true.

Excellent list Red and in terms of this

has poor understanding of boundaries and how sexual acts in a public place which have an element of risk involving getting caught which is part of the sexual satisfaction, potentially violate other peoples rights with regard to consent as unwitting or unwilling participants

If someone walked in on him, surely they'd have grounds to say they were sexually harassed at work? So, he would be in line for at least a disciplinary hearing (if not being fired) on those grounds alone. And I do wonder if there are people working at NSPCC who have been harassed by this guy. It wouldn't seem out of character, given what we know.

Have I missed any?

Given the CEO Peter Wanless statement:

Whilst it has become very clear to the Board that our processes in establishing a relationship with Munroe were inadequate, no one doubts that those who initiated contact with her were acting with the best of intentions and the error is in our process and not with individuals.

& the NSPCC twitter response to the revelations has been to characterise them as 'bullying' & prompt an assertion of protecting staff then what may be happening is that a second male is insisting on the affirmation of their identity, feelings & rights over that of the charity's purpose which is Child Protection.

And I do wonder if there are people working at NSPCC who have been harassed by this guy. It wouldn't seem out of character, given what we know.

It may speak of a workplace culture which is completely disconnected from Safeguarding & Child Protection.

Whether permissive, colluding or bullying, its at odds with the work that the department should be focussed on.

Boundaries are rarely broken in such a way in isolation.

Forgive my ignorance but does one take ones rubberised fetish gear into work in a bag and sneak into the toilets get changed and have a wank then change back (quite a long absence from ones desk I would think). Or does one wear ones rubberised fetish gear under ones work clothes all day and get off on the thought of it as one wonders round the office and talk to other people?

Birdsfoottrefoil

It might explain this

www.today.com/health/office-air-conditioning-cold-women-science-reveals-why-t36476

Office air conditioning is too cold, women think, and science says they're right

important indicator of current context

link to the screenshot above twitter.com/NSPCC/status/1138858597390147586

Boundaries are rarely broken in such a way in isolation

Yes

The danger with the whole no kink-shaming edict is that kinks are by definition transgressive, that's the turn on. If you are repeatedly transgressing one boundary it's likely that you'll push at another. Had a disturbing conversation with a fairly elderly relative recently - gay & in to BDSM. He was talking about a middle-aged friend who was 'teaching' a teenager about the scene and wishing he'd had such a mentor when he was a kid. Plus bemoaning the fact that sexual abuse against women is so much more 'creative & varied' than on the gay scene. He's a 'nice' bloke but clearly can't see beyond his own sexual interests.

Good to see supporting staff, and their kinks, is NSPCC’s priority rather than worrying about awkward things like safeguarding children.

I recommend this Twitter thread about men, fetishes, paraphilias, queer theory and “kinkshaming”.

twitter.com/lascapigliata8/status/1138951942800125953?s=21