“Outing” and “Transphobia”: Informing a parent that her child was being “socially transitioned” by a school/college

[Steve3742]

So, I’m having a problem with my employer.

I am—or was—a Learning Support Assistant at Nottingham College, and have worked for them nearly continuously since 2006.

Last September, I was informed that a vulnerable 16-year-old autistic girl was to be socially transitioned within the college, adopting a male name and “he/him” pronouns. I was also informed that her mother had not been consulted and that this information was to be deliberately kept from her. After unsuccessfully raising my concerns with Safeguarding that withholding important information about her daughter’s health and well-being was a risk for the child, I decided to inform the mother about what was happening. As a result, I was fired.

The college’s decision to hide the social transition of a vulnerable 16-year-old girl from her mother was unlawful and violates both the Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) statutory guidance and the Department for Education’s Guidance on Gender-Questioning Children. Both frameworks are informed by the evidence presented in the Cass Review, which emphasises that social transition is not a neutral act and can be harmful to a child’s welfare, particularly for vulnerable individuals.

Paragraph 208 in KCSiE states that supporting a gender questioning child “should be in partnership with the child’s parents” and clinical advice should be sought.

By engaging in this deception, the college directly breached safeguarding principles. Any collaboration between adult staff and a vulnerable child to withhold information from their parents is a clear violation of fundamental safeguarding standards. My referral to safeguarding referenced all these points but wasn’t acted upon. I raised these concerns multiple times during the disciplinary process, yet they were repeatedly dismissed.

I’m taking the college to a Tribunal for false dismissal (and am gardening to help with that, check the CJ site). But one of the objections raised against me is that I “outed” the child, with all the connotations that go with that, the abuse that gay children often face from unaccepting parents.

I don’t think the two situations are comparable. For a start, the parent already knew her child was gender-questioning, so she wasn’t “outed” in that sense. She was informed, by me, about what the college was doing, not any new information about her daughter. She was told that the college was facilitating the “social transition” of her daughter and, particularly egregiously, that the college was trying to keep this information about their activities hidden from her.

All the relevant guidance, some of which is statutory, states that she had a right to know this. That she had a right to be consulted about it. Indeed, that the college had a duty to consult with her about this. One that it not only failed in but actively tried to subvert by conspiring with a vulnerable 16 year old child to keep their activities secret from her. Conspiracies between adults and children to keep secrets from parents are a huge safeguarding red flag.

Not only this, but it can be argued that a child’s sexuality is the child’s business and, even if the college were to find out about it, they have no reason to disclose it to anyone. Even Section 28 didn’t put a duty on a school or college to inform a child’s parents that they were gay, were they to find out that they were. But the guidance quoted above does include a duty to consult with a child’s parents about their “social transition”, for good reason. “Social transition” involves the school or college making significant changes to the way it operates. Names must be changed, wrong-sex pronouns must be used by staff and students, decisions need to be taken about what punishments, if any, should be meted out to dissenters, and so on. Certainly, this is not a secret – all the child’s fellow students and all the staff in the class will know about it. It cannot be claimed, therefore, that this should be kept from the child’s parents in the name of privacy or confidentiality – such things do not exist for social transition, the nature of it requires widespread dissemination. It is instead, as I’ve already said, a conspiracy – a group of people working together to do something, and to keep their activity hidden from other people.

Nothing comparable could be said about gay children, even in the days of Section 28. This is not the same thing.

What do you all think?

That he'd follow the guidance obviously

Usernamesareboring1

Can you respond to Robinheart who says

I've worked in several schools and I have never come across any "safeguarding protocol" that says we should hide information from parents with parental responsibility.
We only do that if parental responsibility has been removed by the courts (which is pretty rare, for example the parent is in prison or similar circumstances)

I'm assuming youre asking this in good faith so I'll explain. Some guidelines and policies are far more important than others.

It is a fundamental safeguarding principle that we do not hide information from parents with parental responsibility. This is to keep children safe. This overrides less important policies, for example "no emails after hours" is a policy at our school; we can and must override this if required to keep a child safe.

If the school had a policy, say, "if you have a concern about a child, tell the head of year first", this can and must be overridden if required to keep a child safe.

Finally, another fundamental safeguarding principle is that colleagues will not be punished for raising a concern about child safety.

For example, once I had to call an ambulance because I thought a child was gravely ill in my class. The policy is that if a child is ill, generally we tell the school nurse initially. However I made a judgement call that this would produce an unnecessary delay.

It turned out that the child was not as gravely ill as I feared, when the paramedics assessed her. I was not punished for making the call, as I overrode the policy to keep the child safe.

Which he did

Of course you can disagree, I'm just wondering if you do?

Do you also struggle with reading comprehension? Reread my post,or do you need me to quote the relevant bits? 😂

I'd assume poster has read KCSIE which gives guidance on what must and should be disclosed, the difference between them, and how staff can raise concerns if they feel the college or school is putting a child at risk.

Yep. To me it's looking like all roads lead to the DSL. Closely followed by the wider governing body as per para 70.

However, I'm with Datun (and my new Cryptic Thread Buddy) that the OP could lose the case on a technicality that is apparently in the KCSIE, but I've got to find it myself if I want to see it for not following whatever bat-shit policy was in place to promote the idea that maintaining a secret double life for a child (and forcing staff members and students to do the same when in the company of the child's family) is in their best interest.

Let the headlines roll ☀️ Datun I meant to quote your comment that I too would happily pay towards a tribunal that loses in this way. And again if it went to appeal. I wouldn't wish stress on the OP, and it would take a lot of strength to go into it accepting this could be a possible outcome.

But as this thread demonstrates, there will be people who want to focus solely on the OP's adherence (or lack of) to this bizarre approach from the college. Some of whom might say that talking about the child's social transition is "off topic", when from a safeguarding POV it is the topic.

Sorry, that was ambiguous, do you disagree with socially transitioning vulnerable children without their parent's knowledge, is my question.

I agree that you can disagree with the process of reporting that, at the same time.

I meant to add this screenshot ⬇️

I disagree with it in general whether it's with or without their parents knowledge, that's completely irrelevant to whether I want staff at colleges acting against safeguarding protocol. If my child's college was acting against KCSIE guidance I wouldn't be reassured that another staff member broke the guidance to tell me rather than them reporting the college appropriately through the channels, otherwise what does the guidance even mean? Given OP can't answer how the mother responded, she may have felt the same way.

Very clearly explained RobinHeartella

There is in many cases a lot of nuance and interpretation needed

Colleagues and I often disagree about who to best keep children safe within the classroom; we have professional conversations and work together to achieve those aims the best we can.

We are also very transparent about it. It's very important to be transparent. And with parents.

Every time a child is hurt by another child I call the parent without needing to follow any other protocols. (Bar making a record.)

Following the statement that "there are many unknowns about the impact of social transition" (it's not a neutral act) the child was being potentially hurt by the college. Especially without expert clinical / medical guidance.

If you're genuinely working with children and can't bring yourself to read 186 pages about keeping children safe in education, I'm quite horrified.

I disagree with it in general whether it's with or without their parents knowledge.

Blimey. So you're "GC". I hadn't realised I was being shot by friendly fire 😂

If you're genuinely working with children and can't bring yourself to read 186 pages about keeping children safe in education, I'm quite horrified.

Lovely tone you have.

I've repeatedly said I have and the parts you're saying aren't there.

You refuse to highlight where they are.

It's almost like safeguarding is a principal that should be followed regardless of whether or not we agree with someone's motives?

Okay. I was trying to establish if you were disagreeing on an ideological basis, or on an adherence to protocol basis.

Because, and I'm sorry if this isn't the case, but you sound as though you approved of what the school was doing and were searching for a reason to criticise the OP because of it.

Personally, I still think that the massive ideological capture has led to what the school was doing being incorporated as reasonable into protocols, when to me, it isn't.

I understand there's a process to go through, but I also suspect, that it would've been obvious to the OP that it was probably futile.

You will argue that you go through until it becomes futile enough to go further.

edited to add, which I get.

I want the day to come when schools are told they must not socially transition children, either in secret, in public, with or without, their parents consent

Really there isn't anywhere in KCSIE that tell you when you escalate to local authority safeguarding, no where that says how to escalate concerns about your organisation? 🤨

And if you're working with children and would rather concentrate solely on whether a teacher has followed a policy, even though you don't agree with social transition, I too am horrified.

There will be a lot of teachers who haven't read the whole of KCSIE. They only have to read part 1. Many are unaware of the section about gender identity and how that relates to the Cass Report. Again, all roads point to every DSL in every school and college as to whether they have made sure that staff understand the risks associated with social transition, as per KCSIE, Cass and the Gender Questioning Children guidance.

This ⬆️

Your explanation was much better than my exasperated sarcasm.

I didnt say anywhere I agreed with what the school was doing though, I've said repeatedly I disagree with OPs actions. To me, it sounds like people are okay with people not following established safeguarding protocol as long as we agree with them and then where do we stand arguing for the safeguarding of children when we can just disregard it when it suits. It's not enough for OP to have thought it would be futile, and he would have been maker a better case for himself and on principal if he had proved it was.

Yes. We can definitely agree on that.

Where we seem to part ways is that I'm happy to accept that the OP may lose (sorry OP!) because the bigger picture on safeguarding is the risk to children if a school or college wants to collude with a social transition that is kept secret from a parent. Whereas you seem to view any discussion about this as a distraction.

To me, it sounds like people are okay with people not following established safeguarding protocol as long as we agree with them and then where do we stand arguing for the safeguarding of children when we can just disregard it when it suits.

That's an interesting interpretation of this thread.

When that policy is safeguarding, I'm perfectly happy to focus on tea hers following it yes! If you are really horrified that a teacher would and should be aware of safeguarding protocol then that's weird of you, is there anything else regarding safeguarding we can disregard?

Really there isn't anywhere in KCSIE that tell you when you escalate to local authority safeguarding, no where that says how to escalate concerns about your organisation? 🤨

Yes, and I (now) know the numbers of the paragraphs they're described in.

But then, at the end of those, there's paragraph 74. He felt unable to raise it with his employer.

And the only place it's says you may NOT tell the parents of something the college has done, is in reference to a referral to children's services and where that referral might put the child at physical harm.