LGBT charities targeting children

[jadefinch]

First we had Prism, which advertises for LGBT people aged '13 to 21' in Coventry to talk to their staff about sexual issues. And then it emerged that one of the staff was Aimee Challenor, and this guy was another.

Now we have Yorkshire Mesmac, which chanted 'I'd rather be a pervert than a TERF' at Leeds Pride last year. They're looking for LGBT people aged '14 to 25' to talk to them about sexual issues. And they were recently told by the Charity Commission that they had 'fallen short' of safeguarding for allowing staff to have relationships with vulnerable service users.

I remember Andrew Gilligan writing about them in the Times a year or so ago. Sorry I can't do a share token: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/abuse-survivors-charity-yorkshire-mesmac-hit-by-sex-scandal-xbqb3hqbv

I miss R0wan - she'd have been all over this.

They run a local LGBT+ youth group which has previously been advertised in school newsletter. Age range 13-25.

So, this kind of thing seems to be looked at hear as really great. There is an arts org for example that caters to teens which includes a "safe space" sort of club with mentors. And schools all have rainbow clubs, even elementary schools which means ages 5 to about 12. Presumably the five year olds aren't going, but even 12 seems somewhat developmentally inappropriate to me. That at least though is run by teachers who have been vetted to work with kids.

People have become quite used to seeing this sort of thing, and labelling fairly young kids as gay or lesbian, so they may well not ask many questions or be suspicious of the motives of people running these things.

here, not hear, obviously

They're advertising in school newsletters for 13 to 25 year olds to talk to them about sex? How many red flags need to be waved here?

Link to the charity commission report:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-case-report-yorkshire-mesmac/yorkshire-mesmac-case-report#the-action-we-took

The former head of LGBT Youth Scotland, James Rennie, was jailed for horrific child sex abuse.

Warning for content (rape, abuse):

www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/10/29/former-gay-charity-head-jailed-for-sex-attack-on-baby/

jade - the advert I saw didn't mention talking about sex. Was for a youth group.

North Yorkshire promote the Youth Groups in various places like here:
healthwatchnorthyorkshire.co.uk/youthwatch/information-and-support/lgbtq/

What worries me about it is the link to the Charity Commission report as shown above.