NSPCC and SSAUK

[2fallsagain]

SSAUK continues to call out safeguarding failures at NSPCC. This is a shocking thread, look at some of these so called teaching resources.

The senior management team of NSPCC clock up a wage bill of at lease £1million per year and they are failing to safeguard children.

twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1384234109019463690?s=20

Thanks for the comments. I've emailed my local Child Exploitation contact within the police. It will be interesting to see how she responds.

Seems Glinner raised the relationship between Childline and Stonewall and mentioned the message boards last year. It would be good if this could be picked up by a journalist:

"Elsewhere on the Childline website, children can join “Message Boards”, ie discussion forums, dedicated to specific topics. (Presumably, these are moderated by Childline to censor inappropriate content etc?) One of these message boards is specifically about “Gender identity” and has a variety of sections in which children can post comments, start discussions and chat with each other.
There are discussions about being non-binary and gender queer and demi-sexual etc in which kids and young teens validate, even encourage, each other’s various identities and pronouns and agree on how awful and bigoted their parents are."

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/childline-the-nspcc-and-the-gender

Well whatever moderation they have they don't seem to be modded by trained adults who understand safeguarding. I mean just the Google it response would have been blocked as a minimum never mind the far more concerning posts on there.

Even if there was a way of ensuring only children could post, how is it sensible to have peers giving sex advice to other children? Even without assuming malice the ability ability incorrect and potentially dangerous information to be shared is high through a combination of Chinese whispers and bravado.

Agree Molten

You can talk to a trained advisor - either via chat or over the phone about your questions. And I would have no problem with that. The issue is that the message boards are moderated but I'm assuming only for content which they deem harmful or abusive.

There is someone claiming to be 14-15 who is dishing out loads of dodgy advice. They learned a lot from youtube apparently

I advised my teens not to touch NSPCC when the whole rubberman thing happened. I'm glad I've steered them away as they appear to have learned nothing at all. It's quite something when the only organisation in the country to have statutory powers seems to have such a limited understanding of safeguarding.

@persistentwoman

Those message boards . Children asking how to bind and being given crap advice and no warnings about long term impacts.

This social trend throws up a real conundrum for adults. Of course it's great that children are growing up more open about different sexualities with less homophobia. But amidst all the rainbow flag waving, adults seem to forget that these are children, many primary children and the majority too young to have sex lives.

There's a massive naivety about all this. 11 year olds should not be discussing sexuality with 16 years olds in LGBT groups in schools or binding breasts. 11 year olds should not be "coming out" as anything frankly. There's a massive element of social contagion going on here with adults standing back handwringing, not wishing to appear homophobic while their children are accessing some of the most unsuitable, unhinged and frankly dangerous adults in the world for "advice".
Where's the safeguarding? Where are the boundaries between adult behaviours and what's appropriate for children? Deciding and experimenting with your sexuality is a process. While I'm sure that much of this is harmless posturing there are so many very young naive children involved and with so many schools and parents failing to establish safeguarding dominated boundaries, these children are open to huge danger.

The fact that the NSPCC and Childline are oblivious to / uncaring about all this is terrifying in terms of child safety.

Good luck getting any traction with that. I suggested on a thread in AIBU a while ago that it really wasn't appropriate to be encouraging kids, pre-puberty, to define their sexuality, and overall there was simply no comprehension over why that isn't a wholly positive thing.

What the heck is the point of those boards?

If they want an online version of Childline, wouldn't you have kids submitting questions and concerns to be read and responded to by people they hire, adults, with some training?

What they have there is crazy and gross and I'l bet lots of parents would assume it was a healthy place for their kids to get answers.

There is someone claiming to be 14-15 who is dishing out loads of dodgy advice. They learned a lot from youtube apparently

I agree SmokedDuck Once you raise LGBT issues parents (in many ways rightly) are silenced for fear of being homophobic if they raise any concerns. But we should be raising concerns about adult groups targeting primary schools and persuading young children that they even need to identify their sexual identity let alone some of the other adult themes they want to talk to young children about.
The new government Sex Relationships guidelines remind schools about the importance of age appropriate information yet it seems that the fear of being called bigot, pearl clutching or homophobe silences adults from implementing the most basic of safeguarding measures.

These message boards appear to be adult free

I bet you they aren't adult-free, whether or not there's any mods.

There's ways of offering a safer space to isolated young people to talk - but this is not that space.

@persistentwoman

I agree SmokedDuck Once you raise LGBT issues parents (in many ways rightly) are silenced for fear of being homophobic if they raise any concerns. But we should be raising concerns about adult groups targeting primary schools and persuading young children that they even need to identify their sexual identity let alone some of the other adult themes they want to talk to young children about. The new government Sex Relationships guidelines remind schools about the importance of age appropriate information yet it seems that the fear of being called bigot, pearl clutching or homophobe silences adults from implementing the most basic of safeguarding measures.

And it isn't even just safeguarding. It's just not age appropriate or helpful for the children. Kids can have some pretty weird ideas about sex at that age, and they don't need to be trying to define these as some kind of identity.

I've wondered if this isn't the issue. We've moved from a universalist position about people, be they LGB or racial categories or whatever, as all being regular people, and in general its not important other than in limited situations (like dating,) - to a CT viewpoint which tells us that we are composed of all these identities and living authentically means recognising them, expressing them, and having them validated socially. And the identities are somehow inborn and emergent and based on self-recognition, so we should encourage children to define them in order to help them live authentically.

Have nothing constructive to add apart from what the fuck!!! Are there any adults in NSPCC/Childline.

Those boards, I don't know where to start I dread to think who is looking at those. And the gender identity ones, poor kids, they've no idea what its all about, all they know is they have to pick a label, FFS. Agree this needs to be on the main boards, probably AIBU. Parents need to know about this. Its good that kids can have somewhere to ask questions but this is definitely not the way to do it. Can't quite get over the fact this is Childline!

I'm shocked by those nspcc message boards.

The eating disorder charity beat has a much better system. They have chatrooms, but it's live chat rather than a forum. Each chat contains a mod, who approves messages in real time but can also offer support and guidance. The chatrooms are only open for set times, so for example it could be Monday 6-8pm, and you can't read back so you cannot view any messages that were posted before you joined the chat room for that particular session. I feel this would be a much more appropriate system for the nspcc to use. They must have enough money to operate that way. At the very least their forum should be set up so that posts can't be seen unless you're logged in.

Thanks for the heads up about the message boards. Absolutely horrendous. We are discussing our next steps but in the meantime please do email [email protected] and copy in
[email protected]

However posters are not vetted - there is no way of checking if the 13 year old girl asking about masturbation is actually 13, or female

I'd bet good money that the person on that thread is neither. I read it and it set of my spidey sense. Just something in the words used and way they were used.

I am still reeling from this - this site is practically begging to be used in grooming kids. Shame on the NSPCC. They should not get public money. Thank god for SSA.

@2fallsagain it seems to me that this issue is something that should concern all parents, whether or not they consider themselves to be feminists.

Might you consider starting a thread in AIBU or Chat?

[quote BoreOfWhabylon]@2fallsagain it seems to me that this issue is something that should concern all parents, whether or not they consider themselves to be feminists.

Might you consider starting a thread in AIBU or Chat?[/quote]
Yes it’s a good point. I’m out with not much battery left at the moment. I may do that later. Or anyone else is welcome to snd I will come and comment!

Not NSPCC but more crap in schools about 3 biological sexes and shagging hyenas (I am not joking). Have posted about it here if anyone wants to look: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4225794-AIBU-to-think-school-children-should-not-be-taught-that-there-are-3-biological-sexes-and-be-shown-cartoons-of-shagging-hyenas?watched=1

So, I contacted these people: www.saferinternet.org.uk/ about the message board, and they have spoken with a manager of child-line this morning and
'have been very reassured that the safeguarding protocols on this site are more than adequate'

and basically conclude that it's better children get information on this board then from pornhub or reddit

@2fallsagain , or anyone else, please PM me if you'd like more info.

They're not adequate, I've read some of the boards and I'm a mother and I don't think they're adequate.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that no parents ever get near this internet stuff. Which is a problem.

Unless they think safeguarding is some tick box exercise rather than making sure children are safe.

@Leafstamp

So, I contacted these people: www.saferinternet.org.uk/ about the message board, and they have spoken with a manager of child-line this morning and 'have been very reassured that the safeguarding protocols on this site are more than adequate'

and basically conclude that it's better children get information on this board then from pornhub or reddit

@2fallsagain , or anyone else, please PM me if you'd like more info.

Well done Leaf. So they can confirm that the 13 year old girl posting the message about cum on the Childline boards is definitely a 13 year old girl?

Thanks for this. On the Twitter there is a link to a letter/petition to remove said video.

Just signed.

Leaf thank you for doing this. That response is incredibly worrying as a parent.

Rabbit I didn't give them specifics, but they said the amount of moderation makes it very easy for staff to spot people who may not be who they say they are.

If you want to send me a link to that message/thread then I'll gladly go back to them and ask them the direct question.