Childline - Safeguarding Concerns?

[DerekFaker]

James Esses has been looking into Childline and has uncovered some concerning things.

I'll post links to each tweet and the external links in each, and also provide screenshots

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1659222832239222786?t=JaIDuGnbkRJ3AtCI83tvTQ&s=19

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1659222949230964737?t=pEeGpbLB_f8WKzgE-96Q0g&s=19

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/message-boards/boards/threads/thread/?messageid=203288

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1659223091157794817?t=I_5fkF5YNm_D1FotPzZfvQ&s=19

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/message-boards/boards/threads/thread/?messageid=203809

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1659223225736339459?t=YVfSExNZd6RnXrT4jqnNLA&s=19

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/message-boards/boards/threads/thread/?messageid=200451

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1659223351447937029?t=U9zTfakHarWmMKrBDXgzWg&s=19

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/message-boards/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-boards/

You'd think the Mail would be all over this. I'm no fan but it's widely read and more people should be aware of this.

Incredibly weak response by Childline. They obviously don't intend to do anything even though the Charity Commission has started to look in their direction.

It really is appaulling that some kids who turn to Childline because they are being bullied at school for being autistic, gay, or gender non-conforming might find themselves drawn into gender dysphoria probelms instead of receiving help with their actual issue of bullying.

Why aren't we screaming?

Excellent coverage by the Telegraph & horrified comments below the line.
Just maybe these captured organisations will be held to account for their failure to prioritise children's safety?

In the Mail

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12104929/Childline-accused-failing-teens-girls-advised-bind-breasts-gender-chat-rooms.html

Story upthread on front page of Telegraph

Newspaper headlines: Energy bills to 'tumble' and Hunt 'negative talk' warning
www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-65654637

Relieved that this is getting the front page treatment from the Telegraph- should put more pressure on the charity commission.

Absolutely.

Plus I thought that the headline and first paragraph alone are enough to draw in far more casual readers (who have no real knowledge or specific interest in gender affirmative care) than anything else I've seen in the press.

Childline is an institution that many still hold in high esteem. Lots of people with young adolescent children will remember it being set up. Obviously not all of them will read the telegraph but it might catch the eye of those that do.

Awareness of the risks to children is slowly breaking out in to the main stream public conscious. I'm looking forward to Daniel Radcliffe's epiphany. Sadly I don't think we'll get to see it. He'll just have to back away quietly as he's way too invested now in helping to promote the alternative view.... perhaps that's what Emma Watson has done? She's been very quiet lately on trans children and Mermaids.

Well we have been screaming. Into the void, for many years.

It is only very recently that any part of this has had any journalistic interest.
If you look at threads from 2018 and before, we were doing our level best to get journos involved. Some of us spent a long time emailing papers, MPs, local councils (all with fake emails address to prevent us being doxxed) we filled in online forms like for hampstead ponds/various sports, only to have our answers weeded out as transphobic.
Frankly I've done 20+ years of screaming and look how little we've travelled. I'm getting very tired of not being heard.

In case anyone was in an MP-writing mood.

The porn petition. April 2021
https://twitter.com/safeschoolsuk/status/1384234109019463690?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Tweet about man who "met 8yo for sex". They meant rape. They had to delete it. It was of course screenshotted. Sept 2020

https://twitter.com/safeschoolsuk/status/1303746791570104322?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Consent to sex tweet. Deleted and screenshotted. July 2020

twitter.com/lilylilymaynard/status/1285982284353540099?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Their initial response to those raising concerns about the employee in rubber, wanking at work. Work being the NSPCC. Oct 2019

twitter.com/mforstater/status/1182654342307950593?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Before they (the employee in rubber) had even hired Munro Bergdorf, this was all publicly available information:

Sept 2017 www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/l-oreal-sacks-first-transgender-model-munroe-bergdorf-after-all-white-people-are-racist-facebook-rant-a3624911.html

Mar 2018 Labour’s LGBT+ adviser Munroe Bergdorf resigns after controversial tweets

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/589274de-2134-11e8-a25c-0a92182647c9?shareToken=26703e064aaab16f06b63a1a2d131df7

Mar 2018
www.thesun.co.uk/news/5717376/labour-lgbt-munroe-bergdorf-homophobic-tweets-apology/

Feb 2019
www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/43329/1/munroe-bergdorf-desmond-is-amazing-drag-kid-interview

And this is from before Bergdorf interviewed an 8yo "drag kid". Jan 2018. The interview still happened

www.washingtonexaminer.com/letting-an-8-year-old-be-a-drag-queen-isnt-progressive-its-child-abuse

Your many years of screaming is very much appreciated. Had it not been for the foundational screaming, I don't think the Cass Review would have happened. Had it not been for the Cass Review, I could not have taken the reasonable yet hardline stance to safeguard my autistic daughter when she was questioning her gender identity during and before a massive mental health breakdown. I had the confidence to take a much more collaborative and measured approach with CAMHS because of everything that was already in place thanks to all this screaming. Without the impact of the huge effort you and others have put in, I have no doubt that I would have been dismissed as a bigot who was harming my child by focusing on her autism distress at puberty instead of affirming her identity and allowing her to have the puberty blockers she had asked for. She told NHS staff (while I was there) that she had considered suicide. All the dots were there ready to join up that affirmation was the only way.

I'm very aware that my own style on Mumsnet is different from many others' styles. I've been told I'm too reasonable (fair enough, that can be annoying... looking at you Keir Starmer) and also naive (I don't believe I am) but I've always valued those that have been screaming for years because I know how much you have helped. Thank you to all the veteran screamers! 💐

A great set of links. I just clicked on one (I'll look at them all) and nearly spat out my coffee...

An 8 year old boy who is a drag queen with the name Queen Lactatia. I've just been on the male secretion-feeding ("breast-feeding") thread so this was extra raw in its total inappropriateness. Use of a child to normalise complete removal of safeguarding boundaries in as many ways as possible in one go.

Thank you.

I guess sometimes we get a bit fed up of repeating ad nauseum our various answers to the just be kind/oh its harmless/oh but men do woman better/break it down for me "again" ) and I do my fair share of that when I'm able.

It actually helps to know that we managed to prevent one child at least from the worst aspects of transitioning. I wish we had been much more successful and cut this off at the beginning.

I have lost friends over this, that hurts. But it was all for your daughter and all the other daughters that I hope we saved. I cry for those we didnt save. I'm so sorry for all the parents that will go though hell because we weren't listened to.

And im so angry that women are never listened to, it's made me quite political. Which is no bad thing.

James Estes has confirmed that the Charity Commission will be investigating the NSPCC. However given how long that they have been investigating Mermaids with no sign of anything, they will still be doling out dodgy advice to children for years before they are stopped. Time to challenge companies who have links to them, other organisations who donate. We should make a list.

The time involved suggests fear of explaining and facing upto what they have found. I hope I am wrong.

I can't begin to imagine the frustration you have been through at not being heard and the difficulty losing friends over it.

I'm also amplifying my voice, just in a different way. Not better, just different.

A couple of examples of my own way of doing it:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenage-gender-identity-crisis/

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4803711-caitlyn-jenners-new-campaign-against-gender-extremists

I can't think of any specific examples now but I often post about how I really value my conversations with people from the LGBT community who have taken the time to offer me their own perspectives. It doesn't change how I feel about boundaries, but it does mean I'm happy using preferred pronouns (to respect a gender identity belief) unless it's a child or the context warrants biological pronoun clarity. I'm not "happy" from a vulnerable young adult perspective but I can set that aside during every day interactions. My hard lines are still hard lines.

And im so angry that women are never listened to, it's made me quite political. Which is no bad thing.

Totally agree. Me too.

James Esses is determined to hold feet to the fire.

He is making waves.

The charity commission must be captured, at least partly. There's no fucking way you would read the sorts of things that safe schools alliance and James Esses have said about the NSPCC, and not be horrified.

I agree with nils that maybe they are slightly reluctant, because...famously...can open, worms everywhere.

The NSPCC have statutory powers. They are the go to children's charity.

And they didn't have the bloody savvy to realise they had written that children can consent to sex.

Normally, for people invested in child safeguarding, that would a leap off the page and slap you round the face.

Unless, of course, it's all deliberate. And I'm confusing their lack of nounce with something else.

Excellent blog post from StillTish, in case you missed it

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2020/09/23/queering-the-nspcc-final/

Yeah, there comes a point, where naivete just isn't a possible explanation any more.

How many times do you have to tell a charity what's going on before they agree?

they've been giving AWFUL advice for years. Can the adults now please take over?

It's like the Mermaids debacle.

When a major children's charity, taxpayer funding involved, has a safeguarding disaster requiring urgent investigation and action, and when told about it they deny it? And call everyone else sinners who wouldn't have a problem if they belonged to the one true faith?

That is a whole, new, separate safeguarding disaster by itself.

This is political capture in action. This ideology is not compatible with impartiality or safeguarding. Which means that children's charities (police, NHS, schools, anyone else with duties of public service and impartiality) cannot get involved or permit their staff to use their workplace and job and position of trust with vulnerable people to further their personal faith or enforce it upon others. Particularly when compliance to the faith is the price of getting help.

It also has to be questioned: when you safeguarding train someone who is a believer in this faith - as one would assume these staff have, the jury is still out as to whether or not the Mermaids ones were trained as claimed - then it also has to be asked, do they have the capacity to act impartially and to follow safeguarding as opposed to the dictats of their faith in queer theory. Because the two conflict.

It's worse than Mermaids. The NSPCC is the only charity with powers under the Children Act 1989. A point worth making if you're writing to your MP:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/31

As someone else said, they're also the go-to charity for the government. So this is a very serious matter.

This is what the NSPCC, Barnardos and Children's Society put out before the Keira Bell Tavistock hearing:

twitter.com/alliancelgb/status/1313846869186031623?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

06 Oct 2020

www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/joint-statement-barnardos-nspcc-national-childrens-bureau-and-childrens-society-about

"Joint statement from Barnardo’s, NSPCC, National Children’s Bureau and The Children’s Society about gender clinic judicial review

Published on
06 October 2020
As the debate intensifies around Wednesday’s judicial review of the application of the Gillick competence principle to NHS Tavistock Portman’s Clinic’s hormone treatment of under 16’s who identify as trans, Barnardo’s, NSPCC, National Children’s Bureau and The Children’s Society have released a joint statement.
In the statement the charities say:
“As children’s charities, we believe in, support, and stand in solidarity with all children and young people who are trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, or exploring their gender identity. We celebrate who they are and work with them to help them reach their potential.

“On matters of health treatment all children have the right to be listened to independently and have their wishes taken seriously – this includes children and young people who identify as trans and who may be undergoing hormone treatment therapy.
“Many trans children and young people feel lonely and isolated due to a lack of support, understanding, and acceptance. Denying them agency has the potential to compound this and can put them at high risk of mental illness and emotional distress, potentially affecting their long-term future.

“But we also know that with the right support from the adults in their lives, trans young people can lead happy and healthy childhoods. It’s vital that trans children and young people feel listened to, understood and accepted.”"

then it also has to be asked, do they have the capacity to act impartially and to follow safeguarding as opposed to the dictats of their faith in queer theory. Because the two conflict.

If you recall the independent report on Amy Challenor, they concluded he fundamentally lacked the capacity to understand the concept of safeguarding, and hence was incapable of performing his role.

It's clear that many proponents of this stuff reach the same point - maybe they do have the capacity to understand, but they're motivated not to - ignoring, or even better breaching, boundaries is a key tenet of the faith!

And aside from the "anti-boundary" beliefs of queer theory, for some people the level of derangement the word "trans" specifically produces now has to be seen to believed.

It's clear there are a large number of people who suspend all sorts of rational thought whenever the keyword "trans" activates something in the religious part of their brain.

Some of this sounds quite reasonable compared to now.. “trans people have the same opportunities and same rights” as everyone else.

www.oneeducation.co.uk/news-blog/safeguarding-conference-2022-keynote-speaker-krystyna-hebb

"After several years working for the NSPCC delivering their safeguarding programme in primary schools, Rosy joined Mermaids in 2019."

Wow. That is certainly special.

When this medical scandal is blown wide open, there will be all sorts coming out. This isn't quite on par with the money trail (particularly in the US via the insurance companies but also GIDS because of how it was funded) but it's right up there.

And it is very much a when, not if. It feels like we're right on the brink of it.