Telegraph: NHS Trust taking over trans children care from Tavistock ‘being trained by Mermaids’. And is Stonewall Diversity Champion

[ResisterRex]

Perhaps there was no way to find a part of the NHS that's not trained by Mermaids and isn't a Stonewall devotee. And the fact the Mermaids training is supposedly separate is of no comfort.

This is very far from acceptable.

Any new service must be - and be seen to be - impartial. Nothing else is acceptable.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/13/nhs-trust-trans-care-tavistock-mermaids/

"An NHS Trust taking over care of trans children from the Tavistock clinicc_ is being trained by controversial charity Mermaids, The Telegraph can reveal.
The charity, which is at the centre of a number of safeguarding rows and is currently under investigationn_ by the regulator, will provide sessions for staff at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) starting this month.
It comes as the Trust takes over specialist mental health support for children questioning their gender identity as part of a regional service set up to replace the Tavistock after it was found that its service was “not safe””.
Mermaids’ influence on the Tavistock was cited by some whistle-blowers as one of the reasons why it lost its way, with claims that activists put pressure on clinicians to affirm children’s belief that they were trans and to prescribe potentially life-altering drugs.
The Charity Commission is currently carrying out a statutory inquiry into Mermaids amid concerns over its governance and management.
SLaM has insisted that the training is not related to their roles in the new gender identity clinic. It is the second year running the Trust has had “ LGBT+ awareness training” from the charity.
Medics who blew the whistle on Tavistockk said that the trans charity’s involvement with SLaM is a cause for “concern” and that previous training has been “inaccurate and misleading”. They called for a “completely different approach” at the new NHS service.
...

SLaM, which is a Stonewall Diversity Champion, will provide specialist mental health services at the London clinic, which is being led by a partnership between Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital.
...

It is expected that the new services will begin in the spring. Before taking control, the Trust booked a number of training sessions to be delivered by Mermaids.
...

A SLaM spokesman said: “This training is not related to the development of an early adopter service for children and young people experiencing gender incongruence and gender dysphoria.
“We commission as well as directly provide high-quality professional training courses from a wide range of providers as part of our training offer for our staff to further support the provision of personalised, safe and therapeutic care for young people and adults using mental health services.”"

Are the people who arrange this shit even on the same planet as us? Regardless of whether it's anything to do with the roles or whatever bollocks the spokesperson said, who on earth books ANY training with a company who are under investigation? Idiots.

Mermaids literally made a statement in court that they weren't 'medical people' or experts on anything medical.
Or are they just providing training on how to lie to kids?

Exactly!! I mean who goes looking for training providers and thinks “yep they are the ones I’ll go for, the ones under investigation and with clear safeguarding breaches!”

Unbelievable! This is no way acceptable! Mermaids should be closed for good after all the safeguarding breaches!

shame on the NHS got allowing this madness to perpetuate!

It's been archived:

archive.ph/ZqtjI

More negligence of vulnerable children. Also, I hate seeing the phrase 'trans children' used so casually as if it's a real thing.

FFS

This is just awful. How could it happen?

How could you remove something and replace it with more of the same if not worse?

Cherry60 · Today 21:31
More negligence of vulnerable children. Also, I hate seeing the phrase 'trans children' used so casually as if it's a real thing

Yes, I agree.

I tried to persuade myself towards cautious optimism when they said they were closing the Tavi but I think I knew it would be more of the same shit. I remember the thread at the time and there were a few posters expressing scepticism that the new arrangements would be any better.

Some days , like today, I'm resigned to accepting that the western world is slowly losing its mind and there may not be a way back for us. There are just too many people behaving in completely insane ways whilst identifying as sane. Hopefully I'm wrong and we haven't reached the tipping point yet but it feels like we are perilously close.

FFS. Why the fuck would they do that? On what planet is this an acceptable thing to do?

Also, I'm sure there was something else about the Trust recently.

They really need to re name FWR the Mystic Meg board.

We said when they announced the new NHS trust that they needed to make damned sure they stayed away because Mermaids would be out to recapture and recreate the Tavistock disaster all over again.

And oh look.

We really need to open an account with William Hill and lay bets on all this. We might as well be rich as permanently frustrated at the utter stupidity and/or intentional negligence and irresponsibility towards child safeguarding. And God knows its very, very easy to see all this coming a bloody mile off.

Anyone got contact details to write to the SLaM to point out the Mermaid issues, in case someone has been living under a stone 🙄- eg chief exec or chair of trustees? More letters/emails the better I guess

Sonia Sodha:

twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1614024694188982273?s=46&t=FyorC5DlBvse-iMknRmHtQ

The NHS is on its knees but they’re paying a charity under investigation to train them.

Fuck’s sake.

I thought this would happen but I didn’t think it would be this blatant. No attempt at all to look as if the Cass Review has been heeded.

Who would be responsible for this?

Increase in patient numbers and decrease in staff might not be the only factors contributing to NHS decline... cost management doesn't seem to be in tip-top condition...

I picked up an email contact for the governors from the SLaM webpage

[email protected]

I will be emailing to point out the failings that Mermaids has demonstrated, and asking why they think this organisation is an appropriate training provider; and what learning they have taken from the Cass review and the closure of the Tavi facility

It is unbelievable that the NHS is still using/proposing to use medication and life-altering (I’m not allowed to use a more accurate description) surgery on vulnerable children based on the discredited evidence of the Dutch protocol, which was paid for by the pharma provider….

Why haven’t NICE put a stop to this?

What is the alternative to Mermaids for training? I know there are lots of online resource, links for people to read, but for in person / zoom training? Is Genspect offering anything?

I always think - is external training totally necessary?? Don't places have people internally, who can do this stuff? If it's HR, you'd hope they're competent at their jobs and can do a presentation. It doesn't need to be complicated.

Who is managing the training? I was recently talking to someone whose sister - frontline nursing staff - had to go in a whole day ‘inclusion training’ around NOT using slurs/insulting terms to patients.

So not calling a patient (include your own outdated term for Downs Syndrome here, or using the S word). A whole day.

She told him that the attendees sat there with their jaws dropping.

I assume there’s a lot of money in ‘training’.

Robust thread from Dennis Kavanagh to SLAM:

twitter.com/jebadoo2/status/1614269404975435777?s=46&t=9m-o0sEHaiWFktwVGAGR3A

I do wonder what a FOI request would reveal about the balance of by whom they’re being trained & about what 🤔

Are they a Trust that ran the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism as soon as it became available for example? How much training do they receive on FGM, as the local population the Trust serves includes girls at risk & women who are survivors of it? Hinduism & Islam? (Lewisham has a Temple & a Mosque, not picking faiths at random). Are they trained on the needs of the Irish diaspora as a discrete group (& the various sub-groupings within that)? What training has resulted from the publication of the BLACHIR Report?

What’s the betting that like every fecker else their EDI Training is almost entirely about the LGBTQ; heavy emphasis on the last two letters?

The Chief Executive, David Bradley, now says he’ll review this decision next week (comment made in the back of Sonia Sodha’s tweet:

twitter.com/ceo_davidb/status/1614251290090946562?s=61&t=SQjrEP-mVDip1U4qR2CHCw