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Thursday 21 February 2019

Organ Trafficking in Syria


Vanessa Beeley was speaking on Going Underground last night about the trafficking of organs in Syria by the White Helmets, a group of first responders backed by the UK government.

Reports by civilians on the ground testify that even children with light injuries have been abducted by the White Helmets and when the children have been returned across the Turkish border scars running down their bodies have shown where organs have been removed.

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Blogger will not allow the video to be embedded but the excerpt should be found below:

https://youtu.be/JsMWPg9Fca4

Sunday 17 February 2019

Poor science


"Disruptive behaviors in childhood are among the most prevalent and costly mental health problems in industrialized countries and are associated with significant negative long-term outcomes for individuals and society. Recent evidence suggests that disruptive behavioral problems in the first years of life are an important early predictor of lower employment earnings in adulthood. A new longitudinal study examined boys from low-income backgrounds to determine which behaviors in kindergarten are associated with earnings in adulthood. The study concluded that inattention was associated with lower earnings and prosocial behavior with higher earnings..."

"Identifying early childhood behavioral problems associated with economic success or failure is essential for developing targeted interventions that enhance economic prosperity through improved educational attainment and social integration," explains Daniel Nagin, professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, who coauthored the study..."

"Findings revealed that the teachers' ratings of boys' inattention -- characterized as poor concentration, distractibility, having one's head in the clouds, and lacking persistence -- were associated with lower earnings when the students were 35 to 36 years old."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190211164015.htm

However, in this study there were no controls for conditions like autism spectrum disorder which are known to affect concentration, attention and persistence and also to seriously affect job opportunities in later life.

This study is useless.

But it does help to target poor kids.

Saturday 16 February 2019

Connections between Named Persons, GIRFEC and ACEs

. WALES
 
SCOTLAND

Sir Harry Burns, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Strathclyde, speaking at a conference: 


"I`m just thinking that there`s a lot of good practice in terms of `Getting it Right for Every Child`and you know working together in Scotland - definitely not starting from nothing in this - those are things happening. But I think that what sometimes happens is all these different agencies are working in silos and we`re doing things, and we`re duplicating what we`re doing, and we had a really interesting meeting with some mental health services and early intervention last week. And they were looking at our training and education and showing us what they were doing in early intervention and they were going into schools and doing some stuff about trauma informed work and we were going into schools and doing stuff about nurturing approaches and we were really having a conversation about the duplication of some of the work that`s going on and I think that in this time of challenging ...resources and how we work together you need to talk to each other more about what we`re doing and I think what`s exciting about ACEs is it`s allowing us that opportunity."

[that is, an opportunity to network and pool resources with a Common Purpose.]

"Because we`re calling it something in education; and social work are calling it something; and health are calling it something else. We need to come together and have a shared language and I`m really excited that this day has been planned alongside Education and Health to develop that shared language so we`re not all going around doing the same thing and duplicating our efforts. And I really hope that is something we can become better at through these conversations."


[i.e. joined up working, joined up data, the total view of the citizen]

A question from the audience: "I`m just wondering what the panel think about taking our youth and engaging them in this whole process. I recently staged a Resilience screening where some young people came and they were really excited afterwards about wanting to take this to young people and to have a screening for young people and their ideas were things like, this could really stop bullying and I was really sort of taken by it and thought, how can we engage our youth? I think of a Ted Talk by someone called George who was a NASA scientist who speaks about how our creativity decreases as we get older. So can we engage the most creative in our communities and get this message out to them? And I wonder what the panel thinks about how we can do that safely without possibly retraumatising. Thank you." 

Harry Burns: "I think that`s absolutely right. Again to come back to the point Alison made. This is not another thing. You know, we`ve had things, you know GIRFEC is a thing and people have responsibilities for delivering that."

[There is no indication from Professor Harry Burns how that may be delivered without also delivering the data gathering `named person`, the person with responsibility, an essential component of GIRFEC which was rejected by the Supreme Court]

"This is about culture. This is about context in our society and it`s a place based thing as much as anything else. So it`s not about a particular department or a particular person that has responsibility for this; this is something that should be second nature to us all, to support people who can`t look after themselves."

[i.e. Essentially he is arguing that all departments should work together, GIRFEC-style, to support people with or without their consent]

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The UNITED STATES points to the underlying thinking behind ACEs which has to do with public/private partnerships and investment opportunities. 

"The evolving realization that investment in prevention results in savings to government has introduced novel private financing strategies for established interventions with predictable outcomes..."

"These emerging financing strategies move human service systems upstream to reduce disease burden and enhance well-being and productivity. By understanding the relationship between interventions, ACEs, and changes in behavioral and general health outcomes as well as overall measures of productivity, a coherent strategy can be developed to coordinate financing, maximize return on investment, and ultimately reduce ACEs and promote health." 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285917301493
Not without the data, of course.

Mental health assessments


The government has announced "one of the largest mental health trials in schools, which will see 370 schools contributing evidence about the best mental health support and wellbeing practices for chidren and young people..."

"New mental health assessments for children entering the care system will be piloted in nine areas. Five approaches will be used in the trials two focusing on increasing awareness in secondary schools through specialist instruction sessions and tools to increase understanding, meanwhile three approaches will include primary schools and take a lighter-touch approach with breathing exercises and mindfulness lessons."

https://dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/02/04/education-in-the-media-monday-4-february-2019/

Meanwhile the Mental Health Foundation in Scotland is pursuing its `Make it Count` campaign, one of the aims of which is that all pupils will take part in a `wellbeing questionnaire once a term to identify and address problems early by 2020`.

That is, mental ill health prevention in schools is useful in the sense that it may be used as a justification for collecting personal data.

But charities and governments keep forgetting that data collection without informed consent conflicts with human rights.


Inclusion in mainstream schools: another review

Only three years after the previous review of the education policy there are plans for another one.

A delaying tactic maybe ? To avoid providing much needed resources to schools?



"The proposal to integrate children with additional support needs (ASN) into primary and secondary schools, rather than educating them separately in special schools, has the support of the United Nations on the grounds it is the right of every child to be educated in their local community regardless of physical disabilities, learning difficulties or social, emotional or behavioural problems."

Thursday 7 February 2019

Exceptional decision to be a `secret`



"A dental student found guilty of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl will face no punishment after being granted an absolute discharge."

"Christopher Daniel, 18, denied carrying out numerous assaults on the girl while he was aged 15 to 17 and she was between six and eight."

"He was granted the discharge by Sheriff Gerard Sinclair after being found guilty at Dumbarton sheriff court at the end of a three-day trial. It means that Daniel, from Glasgow, will not be placed on the sex offenders register and the guilty verdict was not recorded as a conviction."

"The victim’s family were not allowed to see a report sent by the sheriff to the Crown Office explaining his `wholly exceptional` decision, an STV investigation has found."

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/student-guilty-of-sex-assault-on-girl-6-will-not-be-punished-rpzdx6bmv

Education crises: is compulsory registration the answer ?


Channel 4 Monday, 04 February 2019 12:10
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"The Children’s Commissioner for England has called for a compulsory home education register and strong measures to tackle ‘off-rolling’."

"In a report, Skipping school: invisible children, Anne Longfield also said there should be more support for families who home educate, a greater oversight of home schooled children and decisive action against unregistered schools..."

"Some children were completely out of sight of the authorities and ‘off the grid’ with research by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS)/Dispatches showing 93% of councils say they are not aware of all the children in their area who are home educated. When local authorities offer to visit a home educating family, in 28% of cases the family refuses."

http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38016%3Achildrens-commission-calls-for-compulsory-home-education-register&catid=54&Itemid=22

Of course, one of the reasons for an increase in home education is the failure of many mainstream schools to cope with children with additional support needs. [ASN]

Here is an example from Scotland:

"The presumption to mainstream sees all children taught in mainstream schools unless certain exemptions apply. Currently, more than a quarter of the pupil population in Scotland (28.7 per cent) has ASN, an increase of more than 68 per cent since 2012 (in part due to an increase in awareness and identification). This, however, is against the background of 500 fewer specialist ASN teachers and a reduction in support staff, such as education psychologists and behaviour support staff..."

"A lack of classroom support, driven in part by budgetary cuts, means that many of these vulnerable children and young people are not having their educational and social needs met. This is also putting pressure on fellow pupils and teachers, with many of the latter lacking the necessary training to provide the specialist support required."

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See also Legal framework around home education

Sunday 3 February 2019

The disappearance of Melanie Shaw

Brian Gerrish is almost certain that Melanie Shaw is no longer being held in HM prison Styal.

"She`s definitely not been released. We are trying to establish where she is at the moment, but this is very very sinister that we`ve now got people simply disappearing inside Britain`s prison gulag to match those secret courts; the redacted information; and, of course, the violence by the state against its own citizens."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc6qp79Jrho

UK Column News 25 January 2019

For a recap of recent events regarding the Melanie Shaw case see UK Column News 17 October 2018.

Establishment corruption

John Wedger - Police WHISTLE-BLOWER on CHILD ABUSE in UK [AV9]

"I am a retired Police Detective who specialised in child abuse investigations. Whilst serving on Scotland Yard's Vice squad I uncovered a well organised and established child prostitution network involving children aged 9-14 years, all of which were subject to care orders. I disclosed the sheer extent of this vile criminality and those involved. I was then threatened and bullied in an attempt to silence me. I made an allegation of corruption against a senior police officer for the cover up and as a result I endured an horrendous campaign of bullying. I nearly lost my home, job, liberty and placement of my children for my efforts as a whistle-blower."

"I now work with victims and survivors in order to help them gain the justice they deserve as well as campaigning with other whistle-blowers to change the law to give us the adequate protection we deserve."

"I served for 25 years in the Metropolitan Police. I also brought up four children alone. I have gained international, national and local recognition for my role as a whistle-blower. I now work with anti child abuse campaigners , victims/ survivors of abuse and police whistle-blowers."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyvpuwb08RA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR22mRMQaANFkPWYNRiJPFl7fth02cFQ-v2GzuMyhUr_wSI9L0Nq671lzwY