Named Person review won`t stop damaging state interference

"John Swinney missed his chance this week to do the decent, honourable thing and scrap once and for all the hated state guardian (named person) scheme."

"Instead he restated both his and the Scottish Government’s commitment to this authoritarian move against families and vowed to bring forth new legislation before the summer."

"Contrary to continued misrepresentation of this legislation, the named person is not a child protection measure."

"It is set well below that threshold of a likelihood of serious detriment to the child’s welfare and instead focuses on an, as yet, undefined concept of wellbeing..."

"The factors, which are known under the acronym SHANARRI, are that the child or young person is or would be: `safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, and included`. These factors are not themselves defined, and in some cases are notably vague: for example, that the child or young person is `achieving` and `included`."

"So the revision to the named person legislation will not address the existing subjective nature of wellbeing assessments that form the basis of named person and GIRFEC..."

"Over the last few years many families in Scotland have had to face the grave consequences of the conflation of these two distinct terms as the GIRFEC state machinery mobilises against them over practitioners’ gut-feelings and subjective judgments."

"The Young ME Sufferer’s Trust (Tymes Trust) has received calls to its advice line from Scottish families faced with such inappropriate and ill-judged interference from the state based on nothing more than wellbeing worries."

"None of the families we have advised have, on further investigation, been found to have been at fault, yet they have suffered the harmful and damaging effects of investigation and reporting to and by the state."

"Nothing in Mr Swinney’s statement to parliament was aimed at addressing this abuse of power and disparity in authority, that currently take place under GIRFEC, in which parents and families are seen not only as the source of all society’s ills but the very shackles that hinder their own children from achieving their full potential."

Read more at http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/blogs/named-person-swinney-must-think-again-as-the-fight-goes-on#UvIaoc7cj819gHVX.99