FFS: Woodcraft Folk Rainbow Camp

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Is it just me or is this a bit of a safeguarding fail?

TLDR: This camo is for LGBTQ + allies, age 10-17, no parents, mixed sex/age sleeping, mixed sex/age toilets and showering.

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"What ages is the residential for?
The residential is open to anyone aged from 10 to 17'

"Do young people need to be accompanied by an adult?
The residential will be led by experienced staff and volunteers. All staff and volunteers are safeguarding trained and have enhanced DBS checks. Group leaders/parents are not required to stay at the centre for their children to take part"

"How will sleeping arrangements be decided?
We will discuss with participants what they are most comfortable with and allocate sleeping spaces accordingly."

"How will toilet, changing and showering facilities be arranged?
There are two toilet blocks on site. It is expected that we will be the only campers on site for the weekend. On arrival, signage for these will be changed to “with urinals” and “without urinals”. These are to be used at their convenience and for all campers who wish to use them. There are two identical shower blocks, which will also be used for all campers. There is an accessible toilet/shower, which will be freely usable."

[Edit: spelling]
[Edit 2: clarify for LGBTQ + allies]

I've just found the ad on the public Facebook group.
Lloyd Russel Moyle is an admin on there, the guy who looked like he tried to intimidate Miriam Cates in parliament and had to make a none apology.

A bit of a safeguarding fail?! It's announcing its fail with klaxons and bells! Who in the right mind would allow their child to be unsupervised at such a place?

In plain sight.

This is absolutely disgraceful.

So it sounds like they’re planning to deliberately change male and female loos to mixed sex signage which apart from questions of legality will be deleterious to girls but not to boys.

It does sound like an invitation to nonces, yes!
Although, I went on a few Woodcraft camps and hostel stays as a kid and the hostels were always big dorm rooms and not sex segregated, with kids from around 6-15. We were all in sleeping bags and it was very innocent (from my experience at least).
I think it’s the whole LGBTQ angle that feels dodgy. Why would you be classifying children by their sexuality? Adults have no business interfering in that.

I wonder if they realise they’re homophobic - removing safeguarding measures for those with the protected characteristic of being gay (I think the PC of sexuality also extends to those who associate with people in that group before anyone says the inclusion of allies means they’re not discriminating on the basis of sexuality.)

Is any parent really going to mad enough to let their kid go?

Is any parent really going to mad enough to let their kid go?

It would be good to think they wouldn't, but an astounding number of parents let their kids go to drag queen story time and pat puppies at Pride

Mixed sex showers for teenagers. What could possibly go wrong?

Bloody hell. That’s a very worrying age bracket as well as all the mixed-sex everything. I don’t know what can be done though - especially as any organisation or institution you report it to would probably be tq+-captured and unwilling to criticise or investigate something with that label on it. (Which is why it is such a handy label for some people with dodgy intentions and for dazzling the clueless into co-operating - not casting that aspersion on this particular camp as we don’t know, but the risk is there)

Woodcraft Folk are bonkers IME. Took DS once because we naively thought it would involve actual woodworking. It was uncontrolled chaos with leaders and parents pleading weakly with rioting kids. I discussed the ethos and aims of the org with the leader as we looked on (DS didn’t want to get involved as he was quiet and shy and had been anticipating woodwork!) and the leader smugly explained that it was like brownies or cubs but better as there were “no boundaries”. I pointed out that was resulting in some kids getting hurt. He told me it was wrong to step in and tell them what to do. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Goodbye woodcraft folk.

We took DS1 to the under-5s Woodcraft folk once . The kids were told to run around the room pretending to be butterflies. He put his best 'wtf' face on and we never went back. Followed by many happy years in Scouts and the ATC.

You’ve read that wrong - parents are allowed, but they don’t have to attend.

As a Woodies leader about ten years ago, we definitely had sex-segregated sleeping accommodation on camp. Most of our leaders were teachers so knew how to do a risk assessment.

Good luck at the planning meeting for that camp. Allocating the dorms alone is going to take about 2 hours. Then people are going to be ‘not comfortable’ with the arrangements throughout the weekend.

As usual with Woodies, they are imagining children are basically small adults who can articulate everything they are feeling with adult language, adult consistency and adult perspective.

Ah. The only people I know who were involved in Woodcraft Folk were enthusiastic adopters of 'no boundaries' as a parenting strategy (yes, really).

They didn't believe in giving their children any rules, just thought that they would work it all out for themselves.

You'll be unsurprised to hear that the children developed what I would genuinely suspect are strong psychopathic traits.

Poor kids, really. Deeply, deeply destabilised.

We did a lot of outdoor and practical stuff at our Woodies. Beavers was all colouring in. As always, it depends entirely on the leaders.

The people I know who are into the Woodcraft Folk are completely TWAW/Billy Bragg is a hero/pronouns in email types. This, shocking as it is, doesn't surprise me at all.

Ahh I feel compelled to defend WCF here!

(For reference, Billy Bragg is a bit of a tosser and pronoun declarations are not a neutral act).

My experience of Woodcraft Folk has been brilliant! Not at all chaotic, our group leader is an absolute inspiration in running a tight (yet also fun and kind) ship.

Activities are hugely varied: from traditional, to practical, to caring (for ones feelings, each other, the environment). All alongside an endless selection of extremely fun group games. They're also great at arranging affordable trips and activities for the group, many of whom aren't from privileged backgrounds.

When we first got involved it was exactly what I wanted for my kids: fun, co ed, inclusive (the old meaning of that word), no swearing allegiance to the king. My local group still is all that thankfully!

I'm heartbroken that the leaders of an organisation for whom being secular is so fundamental, have fallen for the latest patriarchal religion on the block.

"led by experienced staff and volunteers"

Who presumably have already agreed not to object to boys watching girls shower and that boys can sleep in with girls whether the girls like it or not.

I wonder where the volunteers will be sleeping?

My periods were horrible as a teenager, really difficult to manage. I can't imagine how I'd have coped with the idea of this.

I was going to say I just wouldn't go on the trip, but I was a child so I wouldn't have had a choice - my mum would have made me go!

We loved WCF years ago. They were brilliant with my autistic daughter who was and is an extreme extrovert! The leaders were lovely if a little bit Christian hipster (not a criticism) but this sounds like a nightmare.

Why would a 17 year old want to socialise with a 10 year old?

DBS certification is pretty worthless

If no adult or group leader is present, will the 10 year old be with a load of random adults they don't know?

If they have had SG training they must know it's a non starter surely

And that gave me these vibes....

Some of this does depend on the exact facilities. Individual shower cubicles that you change within the cubicle do not need to be sex segregated whereas open changing should be

Would you let your 10 year old daughter walk unaccompanied to an individual shower cubicle with a lock on the inside and 17 year old males walking about in the same vicinity? I wouldn't.

The age group bit is bizarre. One of the things I liked most about Woodies was the tightness of the age groups. Pioneers which I led is only 10-12 year olds, Venturers 13-15 IIRC. I never went near Elfins (6-9) once ds was through them, though I helped out when he was one.

Desire any defence of Woodies that I give, and despite being officially in the LGBTIA classification, I would t have touched this camp with a bargepole, along with being a bit upset that it was felt a separate camp was needed (apart from anything else, running a camp costs an incredible amount of money - actually that’s probably why the age group is so different).

I used to think this would end in some awful safeguarding disaster after which the establishment would see the light, but while that disaster is inevitable, I don't think now it will stop anything. It'll all just burble on. The age of safeguarding has been and gone. Like women's rights; it was the best it will ever be in the 90s and it's on the way out again now.

The only thing to do is for responsible, thinking parents, to keep their children the fuck away from these organisations.

I think it could depend how it was managed. I've seen camps with a pretty wide age range, but actually the groups didn't really interact much, and wouldn't have been using sower facilities at the same time.

And like a pp I've seen camps where everyone (within an age category) slept in an open room, with several leaders.

The reasons I've seen it done were more practical though, when it was a lot of kids sleeping in a hall because that is what was available. Or only one shower area for the group.

I find the idea of a camp for pre-pubertal LGBT+ kids quite problematic though before any of the rest of it.