What the GRA reform fiasco has revealed about safeguarding [edited by MNHQ at OP's request].

[FloralBunting]

So, the Times is reporting that the GRA reforms are dead. Time will tell, of course, but as we often analyse and examine beyond appearances in FWR, it occurs to me that this whole affair has brought to light many more surprising and worrying things than we realized.

Obviously, the rampant glee with which so many purportedly progressive men have let their repressed sexism and contempt for women flow freely has been a pretty unpleasant revelation, but I think there is something more surprising than that.

In all the discussions here and elsewhere in the last few years, the women here have been able to pinpoint that the hinge to all possible damage is a total disregard for Safeguarding frameworks.

Time and again, people have appeared on FWR to promote Self ID, gender identity as paramount over material reality, and all the attendant beliefs, and each of them has repeatedly demonstrated a complete absence of safeguarding knowledge.

What is most concerning about that is that some of them say they have had safeguarding training, or even that they work with vulnerable children and others.

It seems to me that, going forward, this egregious lip service - where a vital safety framework has been revealed to be smoke and mirrors among a large proportion of people who are tasked with implementing it - must be addressed.

I propose a concerted focus on actual Safeguarding education and implementation. Time and again, people, some of them in positions of power, some not, have illustrated that safeguarding principles are not at all well understood, let alone adequately implemented.

I'm starting this thread because I think this is a vitally important component of a society that looks after the vulnerable, because not only is there widespread ignorance about safeguarding, but some have very clearly been determined to undermine and remove it entirely, and I think that is something we should stop.

I'm encouraging us all to continue to ask questions, and I think it would be great to organize something lasting and effective, in terms of safeguarding education, so that the hard work put in over these last few years, and the consequences many of us have faced, actually lead in to something that will benefit our society, and genuinely make life better for women, children, and anyone who is vulnerable.

The safeguarding training I’ve had was exceptional. Lively, hard hitting, practical,applicable. Hard hitting enough that staff who have personal experience have found it triggering in the true sense of the word.

Doesn’t make any difference if the person hearing it is thinking box tick. Our trainer pointed out that if you don’t think it’s happening round you you aren’t looking properly. It’s almost as though some people don’t get it without personal involvement.

Our trainer pointed out that if you don’t think it’s happening round you you aren’t looking properly.

This is the message that needs to come across.

It’s almost as though some people don’t get it without personal involvement.
Actually I think it may also be the other way around, as suggested by people being (truly) triggered. People who have issues around unresolved trauma - and this is no small number - may find it very difficult to engage in certain things being safeguarding issues because they happened to them when they were kids and didn't cause them any problem OR they happened to them when they were young and don't want to engage because "it's best left in the past". Neither type of person is ill-willed, they're effectively driven on this issue by pain, even if it's one they're avoiding feeling.

I'm not exactly sure how to deal with those issues other than a change in culture and increased provision of proper trauma therapies to those who need it. I don't think it's fair at all - or ethical - have training that provokes flashbacks with no follow up, nor to do that in a professional setting. It's humiliating to have that happen.

Maybe safeguarding training should be completely changed so people are NOT with colleagues and there's emotional support available. And following that session on what the outcomes of poor safeguarding can be, including facts/figures from the study leading to the development of ACES (the one Nadine Burke Harris was involved in early in her career - 17k participants), then a session on how to effectively carry out safeguarding.

Or something along those lines.

Then there can be a session a couple of weeks later with colleagues and a trainer looking at how it needs to be implemented in their setting.

Some really important points about triggering. Trainers should always identify the potential for this from the outset and participants should be enabled to step away from a particular discussion if necessary. I always warn people when we're about to discuss more challenging issues and am careful in my use of case studies. I also offer the opportunity to answer individual questions after a session which some people find helpful. adulthumanfemale 's point is important about the need to consider how to support and enable people with previous trauma. But, when working with children, then their welfare must be the priority and we have to ensure that adults are always able to hear a child, despite any previous experiences.

I don't think it's fair at all - or ethical - have training that provokes flashbacks with no follow up, nor to do that in a professional setting. It's humiliating to have that happen.

A trainer with actual experience of frontline Child Protection would be very alert to the range of possible reactions by people & would respond appropriately & supportively.

But, when working with children, then their welfare must be the priority and we have to ensure that adults are always able to hear a child, despite any previous experiences.

This has to be understood.
Safeguarding prioritises the welfare of children & Vulnerable Adults. The prime responsibility is to protect them from harm.

I've attended Safeguarding training as a school governor and have to say it was crap.

People who are in positions where they will have Safeguarding responsibilities should be able to request adequate Safeguarding training.

Understanding the importance of Safeguarding recognises that effective training which is appropriate to the context & roles is essential.

26th February 2020Times,
'Abuse inquiry: Labour ministers led group that backed Paedophile Information Exchange'

(extracts)
The former Labour cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt must accept responsibility for the “foolish and misguided support” given to a paedophile campaign by a leading human rights group, the inquiry report said.

The report said that the NCCL’s leaders “should have known better” and: “There was a fundamental failure to see the problem and a lack of moral courage to confront it.”

The inquiry said that the NCCL, now known as Liberty, was guilty of a “deference to ideas”. Its desire to be open-minded and “push at the boundaries of what was considered appropriate” had “blinded them to the danger and led to some seriously flawed thinking”.

The report said: “It is difficult to come to any other conclusion than Hayman was treated differently from his co-defendants on the basis of who he was. In other words, his prominent position gave rise to . . . special treatment.”

The inquiry added: “There is no question but that Hayman was the beneficiary of preferential, differential and unduly deferential treatment as a person of public prominence.”

The case showed the “culture of deference” that allowed a number of paedophile politicians and officials to escape investigation and prosecution."

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/abuse-inquiry-labour-ministers-led-group-that-backed-paedophile-information-exchange-d0vv229rr

These are common points of Safeguarding failure in all contexts.

LangCleg wrote Thu 21-Feb-19

"How did the scandal of TV entertainers grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of Catholic priests grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of on-street gangs grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

Because if you create a sacred caste of any group and silence anyone asking questions about individuals on behalf of the sacred caste, abusers will see, infiltrate, and groom and exploit children. That''s how."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3512177-Julia-Long-asking-Munro-Bergdorf-about-child-exploitation?pg=12

R0wan
Ours was organised by the LEA at the request of the HT
the HT was of the there is no bullying in my school a the bullying book is empty

I TOTALLY agree with the two stage approach of alsohuman
Principles of safeguarding in a non work big group
followed up by Application of safeguarding

as the former can be done by those with broad experience
and the latter can be done in a more focused manner

such an approach might have headed off the current mess
(and may yet do so)

the HT was of the there is no bullying in my school a the bullying book is empty

I don't envy anyone being a governor in such an environment.
School governors though have ultimate responsibility for the school including all teachers & children.

It was 'interesting'

I can well imagine!

I TOTALLY agree with the two stage approach of alsohuman
Principles of safeguarding in a non work big group
followed up by Application of safeguarding

as the former can be done by those with broad experience
and the latter can be done in a more focused manner

IMO people should not be able to progress to application of Safeguarding until they have demonstrated clear understanding of basic principles.
There should be no shame in not understanding it straight away but it is dangerous for people to be expected to apply specific policies without the fundamental understandings. They won't be able to & so are being set up to fail to protect or worse, enabled to breach Safeguarding.

But, when working with children, then their welfare must be the priority and we have to ensure that adults are always able to hear a child, despite any previous experiences.

This. What is needed is a shift in framing, I think. Safeguarding culture centres children and vulnerable adults. Those with safeguarding responsibilities have to get into a way of thinking that puts the child or vulnerable adult front and centre. So the question to ask is not "Is my organisation okay?" but "What do our children and/or vulnerable adults need to be safe?"

And mostly, it's about boundaries. Am I, and is my organisation, respecting the boundaries of children and vulnerable adults? Is my practice and my organisation's culture centred on enabling them to assert and maintain boundaries?

Which is why queer theory is, and will always be, a blight on successful safeguarding.

Which is why queer theory is, and will always be, a blight on successful safeguarding.

This is a very useful interview which explains how Queer theory obscures abusive power dynamics.
Preventing the abuse of power = Safeguarding

'Derrick Jensen Resistance Radio w/ Susan Cox'

I was blown away by the trainers we got. The organisation needed prompting to consider impact on staff and that has improved a bit.

I should mention that the training is based around GIRFEC principles. It was hard. The clear identifying of neglect and non-sexual abuse was for me very difficult as it laid out why I had had a hard childhood which I hadn’t previously properly put together. Free work counselling though and ultimately better for me to tackle it.

But I can’t emphasise enough that the number of people who clearly saw it as lip service was horrifying. Not due to the trainer, not due to the organisational culture, it’s their own meh approach that undermines the whole thing.

But I can’t emphasise enough that the number of people who clearly saw it as lip service was horrifying. Not due to the trainer, not due to the organisational culture, it’s their own meh approach that undermines the whole thing.

An important part of effective Safeguarding during training is identifying who those people are as they represent risk (either direct or indirect).

There was a thread in AIBU recently about a volunteer who had given medication to an injured child without the parent's knowledge or consent. The organiser of the ( holiday) group did not inform the parent of the injury at all.
The mother was shocked and made a complaint. The pile
on of posters telling her she was making a fuss about nothing was extraordinary.
It is so difficult to explain the need for safeguarding to people who think it is not necessary.

The pile on of posters telling her she was making a fuss about nothing was extraordinary.

Agreed - so many people on that thread had the attitude of 'god, he was just trying to help, FFS' - it's not a huge leap to envisage a situation whereby someone is 'just trying to have some fun, FFS'.

People are often shamed as prudes and worrywarts for questioning anything nowadays - there are so many safeguarding issues that seem to be justified on the basis that any objections are 'political correctness gone mad'.

But, when working with children, then their welfare must be the priority and we have to ensure that adults are always able to hear a child, despite any previous experiences.

Absolutely agree with this. Before we can get to centering the children and vulnerable adults, we have to, in my eyes, centre the individuals who are supposed to be doing the safeguarding. When society is choca full of adults who can't allow themselves to hear something as difficult for a child because it makes them question the behaviour of that favourite uncle who made them feel special, or raises the question of how could X behaviour be so awful when it's what their own parent did and they know their parent loved them, there will always be blocks.

The problem with safeguarding is that people think of it as other

When the DDA (disability discrimination act) came in, people got grumpy about having to adjust things for wheelchair users
and then realised that dropped kerbs were rather useful for
parents / toddlers / the elderly / the blind / people pulling wheelie suitcases
US rather than THEM

Somehow safeguarding needs to make the same conceptual leap

OH works in an industry with stringent HSE. I just spoke to him about safeguarding vs HSE. There's a totally zero tolerance for not following HSE rules to the letter in his industry. It's not a case of "Well, yes, someone might lose a finger, but it's just one person and one finger, they've 9 more anyway and in the overall scheme of things, it's not such a big deal." If there's a minor accident it's a serious issue. If the rules aren't applied and there's no accident it's a big deal, because there COULD have been an accident. Now, I'm not pretending this is based on altruism, but the zero tolerance, the hammering home in trainings and by management has an impact.

Safeguarding, wherever it is applied, needs to have more this type of stringent application.

The first people who should go on "intensive" or hard hitting safeguarding training, are every single member of the top management. Start at the top. There's not much point in people further down the food chain doing trainings if management aren't on top of the issues and prioritising them themselves.

US rather than THEM
I remember seeing a report years ago about car designers who were made to wear "elderly suits" in order to understand how people with less spritely bodies were experiencing car use! Whichever company it was had some design changes after that!

We need an equivalent!

Ooh maybe drafting in the former special forces guys who run the "survive a kidnapper" type training for diplomats and foreign correspondents - those trainings are pretty hard core, maybe they could design something "real" for the people who are all a bit "meh" about safeguarding! 😬

Other adults can also help when parents are determined to get their children to kiss & the child is unwilling, just offer up a high five.

I haven't read the full thread yet, but wanted to respond to this (sorry if it has already been said. There is a "consent for kids" which covers not having to hug or kiss adults goodbye if they don't want. Personally, I ask nieces and nephews if they want a hug, kiss or wave when I leave. It teaches them the social norms around acknowledging people leave, but reinforces the message that the amount of physical contact is up to them.

The health and safety mention is interesting. Not least because it can enforce fines. And people up the organisation chain can be fined and tried as individuals for failing to prevent, which in the worst cases are for corporate manslaughter.

An important part of effective Safeguarding during training is identifying who those people are as they represent risk (either direct or indirect).

R0wantrees that absolutely makes sense but what is done with the information in a practical sense once the people are identified?