Any backdoor to children is a good one

[Tatoumtish]

Look what snuck into my 5 year old's school newsletter.
Looks to be a section to discuss with the young ones.
Adult topics should not be anywhere near children.

And since when are police officers people children know well?
Looks like someone hasn't got the memo on not linking sacred castes to trusted adults. Still peddling the story of trusted police, doctors and priests.

I'm not sure how to push back on it but push back I must. Pointers welcome.

Hiya OP states the child is age 5.

Thanks @SallyForf that makes it fucking ridiculous

Thanks sallyforf. Yes, my child is 5. This said, the newsletter goes to the entire primary school. So from 4-11.

Thanks for the tips.

You cannot have a cohort of people with a shared characteristic, like identifying as trans, used as 'trust criteria'.

Identifying as trans doesn't make you trustworthy anymore than anyone else. Any bloody person can identify as trans.

They've made identifying as trans a loophole in their safeguarding,

It's a safeguarding failure.

I would be asking why they have done it. And how does a person identifying as trans become someone to trust?

Nobody, except parents (and even then it’s not always true), should be considered carte blanche ‘trusted’. This is the kind of misinformation that got Holly and Jessica murdered by their school caretaker.

Children should be told they can trust their teachers while in school, but they should never go into their house if invited in when they just happened to be passing by. The same goes for doctors and police officers. Trust them while in the clinic or when your parents have explicitly told you that you can tell them everything right now. Children should be told that no school staff, doctor or police officer would ever ask them to come into their house, car etc.

It's hard because if you were designing a flyer trying to point children in the direction of who to trust, how would you design it?

I find it hard knowing what to say to my kids. Obviously I hope they never get lost but if they do I tell them to look for another mum with kids and ask for help. I hesitate to suggest a policeman. Because you just never know.

I thought the rainbow flag person was a female, but I guess it doesn't make much difference. I can see the issue with why they are there. The others seem to be in a position of authority (police, doctor, teacher) but as I say, that doesn't make them safe. Rainbow flag person may or may not be safe, but I agree I don't see the logic for them being included there.

I rekon this is right.
Whoever has made it has gone through the list of people who are often discriminated against - older people, BAME people, Muslim women - and included each one, and then thought, "I need to include a gay person, how do I show it's a gay person I'm drawing?"
I hate this weird, tokenistic inclusivity but I don't think it's saying "All rainbow-paraphernalia-weilding people are to be trusted" or "All police-people are to be trusted" any more than it's saying "All hajib-wearing women are to be trusted."

Exactly - it’s just a grab pack of images to meet the brief.

Something like “illustrate with a diverse range of adults so we don’t get told off for implying some group we missed off can’t be trusted”

People in uniform or waving flags who children are not regularly in contact with should not be considered diversity.
It's safe guarding stupidity masquerading as authority and virtue.

And I agree with the poster who said children should be taught to respect them but never go into their homes.

That's what I told mine. Find a lady with children, or go into a shop and tell the person behind the counter. Not foolproof but at least they had a strategy if the situation ever arose, which luckily it didn't.

@pinotgrigeeeeo
Yes I gave mine the same lady with children / lady in a shop advice.

Is the woman in the purple polo neck supposed to be a doctor? With the lanyard round her neck? They could make it a stethoscope for that to be more obvious. I would expect professionals in uniform to be prominent on this kind of poster.

the problem with this is that there is no class of person who is entirely trust worthy, or not. It would be great if all kids could trust their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers, school caretakers etc. the point is that if any child feels at risk from any one of these people in their life, they have to feel able to go to some other one - eg teacher not safe, tell parent; parent not safe, tell teacher. The message to kids is that they should feel that all adults are potentially good people to tell, and telling someone is necessary, and they have to use their judgement, a bit, about which one to tell. This is impossible to show pictorially

I don't think so, they'd have given her a white coat and stethoscope to convey "doctor"! A teacher or a social worker, maybe.

I actually think the person with the rainbow flag is a butch lesbian.

The fact that they understand butch dykes exist is almost as shocking as the rest.

They have a trans flag too

It’s from the teaching resources website which rhymes with ‘winkle’ and begins with T. Some stuff is good, some stuff is shite, but many teachers will just pick something from it without examining its quality. They’ve paid the subscription, so it must be ok, is the way they’ll think. But this is indeed getting stuff through the back door. Very worrying.