Recently became aware of the significant reach of an organisation called Metro Charity which provides wide ranging community and sexual health services in the South East and London. As well as providing services directly (sexual health services and counselling services) it also provides educational training including in schools and to employers. There are a huge number of organisations who are commissioning its services:
metrocharity.org.uk/about-us/who-funds-us
From what I can see, the training offered by this organisation is similar to Stonewall - materials for schools based on the genderbread person etc. A review service whereby employers can get a view on whether they are complying with the Equality Act (seems unlikely to be a reliable service given that their own training materials seem to ignore the fact that biological sex is a protected characteristic).
They also provide counselling services including to under 18s, some of the materials reference kids as young as 8, and based on the training materials available elsewhere on their website it is likely that the therapeutic approach followed is that of affirmation on gender matters rather than watchful waiting.
Worryingly the google reviews for this organisation suggest safeguarding failures, with one user reporting "They have had dodgy people working at their youth club. An incident where a worker sent naked pictures to a young person. I was also once called in the middle of the night by a worker." and other users agreeing with this.
Anyone got any ideas on what can be done? Most of the organisations buying services from this organisation are public bodies and it is public money being spent on this. There are aspects of the service offering which seem like important initatives (PrEP, STI testing, certain outreach services) so I don't want to make it sound like I'm questioning everything. But at the same time it cannot be right that public money is being spent on pushing a particular ideology and disputed therapeutic approach.