Have you raised concerns with Girlguiding? Join me!

[AJNorthWest]

I'm a Brownie leader and am currently having a dispute with Girlguiding.

Here is where I'm at with it:

• I emailed my concerns in a comprehensive, rather extensive email
• They responded in a way that did not address any of my concerns, and gave me a scenario, a deadline to respond to that scenario and a threat of "taking things further" if I did not respond in time
• I spoke to a lawyer, Peter Daly (he has given me permission to share his name) who has dealt with this before, and he wrote an excellent response letter to the Chief Exec. Within that letter he pointed out their discriminatory behaviour towards me and my gender critical beliefs (as protected thanks to Maya Forstater). He asked them to answer lots of questions in relation to their response and their lack of response to my original concerns
• She has responded (admitting that the level of volunteer support I received was perhaps "not sufficient", which is a bit of an understatement. One of the things she said in her response was the suggestion of a one-to-one meeting with the Chief Commissioner for my region and the head of the Safe Practice Team

I have not responded yet to the Chief Exec. I plan on suggesting a meeting with herself, with not just me but with a group of leaders and parents who share the same concerns and have been palmed off with the same response. I think it is important that Girlguiding listen to our voices. I suspect their approach is to pick us off one by one, but a group may have a bigger impact. For this reason, they may not agree to meeting a group, but that would say a lot in itself.

So, if you have raised concerns and have been palmed off, if you've been too afraid to raise concerns for fear of you or your daughter being kicked out, if you are a leader, ex-leader or parent of a girl in Girlguiding and you would be interested in attending a meeting with me - please send me a private message. If you are not keen on attending a meeting but you'd still like your voice to be heard, please message me - maybe we could take some written statements with us as well.

Also regardless of any 'leaders' posting to say it's fine, the GG membership consistently voted for the organisation to remain single sex. These 'changes' were made against the wishes of the membership.

And any leader that is complacent enough to think their processes are foolproof really shouldn't be involved in safeguarding DCs and obviously hasn't been involved with any youth organisation for any amount of time or at a high level.

The GG has lost its way and is failing the girls it claims to champion.

Tragically, it will take an incident of abuse with high publicity for them to change their stance.

Yes - it's to do with the enhanced privacy rights granted to those who are changing their gender and name. KPSS have a recent report in which they identified the vulnerabilities within the process -

kpssinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/DBS-Checks-and-Identity-Verification.pdf

I had no idea about this alternative dbs process! I need a dbs in my role and have to declare my maiden name and my married name. That's bloody outrageous and so dangerous!