ChildrenCount Survey in a world that counts

Here`s the Largs and Millport News:

Tom Marshall

"Concerns have been raised by a local councillor about a controversial children’s survey for 9-16 year olds, which he feels are inappropriate and intrusive. Councillor Tom Marshall  has questioned why the survey includes questions about drug-taking, relationships with parents, thieving, knives, and drugs."

"Speaking to the ‘News’, Cllr Marshall said: `These surveys are akin to unsolicited phone calls that are received and are an unsolicited intrusion into family circumstances. The language is inappropriate for a number of children. Questions regarding thieving and drugs are being presented almost as if these activities are normalised. Many parents would be most unhappy that there is any suggestion that their children are in the minority for not even contemplating these things. Questions on relationships with parents/guardians are clearly inappropriate and could be used to instigate the named person with interventions at some point in the future.`"

"Cllr. Marshall also stated that he thought it was unfair that elected members of the council were not given the opportunity to be consulted regarding the nature of the survey, and its line of questioning ."

http://www.largsandmillportnews.com/news/largs/articles/2014/10/02/511416-largs-councillor-slams-childrens-survey/#sthash.JlfrKm5g.dpuf

　
From ChildrenCount Surveys

"The data – when aggregated up to the population-level – are designed to inform the development of investment strategies to improve child outcomes, guide the selection and implementation of evidence-based services and the design of new innovations."

"The tools generate unparalleled data from approximately 600 parents of young children and up to 10,000 school-age children in a given area. These data are powerfully and dynamically visualised and considered alongside existing data on need and service use."

"The ChildrenCount Surveys are an adapted version of the Evidence2Success methodology developed by the Social Research Unit at Dartington in partnership with the Annie E Casey Foundation and the Social Development Research Group."

They go on to say that there are numerous indicators of child wellbeing within the project. When they narrow down on those that are most predictive of children`s health and development, the following factors are significant:　

　
Substance misuse during pregnancy, late prenatal care, low parental involvement in learning or education, poor family management, inconsistent positive parental discipline, family conflict, permissive parental attitudes to antisocial behaviour, parent stress/aggravation, low parent social support, poor parental mental health, parental substance misuse, poor community environment or social cohesion, relative poverty, overcrowded accommodation.

What kind of interventions or innovative designs are likely to follow the survey when these are the risk and protective factors being looked for?
 
It is not difficult to work out that to improve childhood outcomes, the focus will be on parents, especially those from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. It has been set up that way. So this is a survey with a bias. Because interventions will be targeted at the population level, all parents in a target group are likely to be tarred with the same brush. Personally, I believe that will harden certain prejudices and that will not help children`s wellbeing at all.

It is hard to say how many charities are waiting in the wings ready to provide the monitoring and counselling services. Meanwhile austerity continues; there are going to be more cuts, and children in genuine need are not always going to get the specialist help they require. This is about throwing problems back on to the community and doing things on the cheap. (i.e. sustainble development)

See the Scottish Review: 
 We are sleepwalking into an authoritarian Scotland

The survey has also been carried out in Angus and Dundee.  For a sample of the survey see Dundee ChildrenCount survey

For a glimpse of the bigger picture see `A World that Councts` http://www.undatarevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-World-That-Counts.pdf

Former teacher abused 24 pupils

 

"A former teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing 24 pupils at an independent boys school in Cheshire."

"Keith Cavendish-Coulson, 71, pleaded guilty to 42 counts of indecent assault on boys aged eight to 13 at Terra Nova School near Holmes Chapel."

"The abuse took place in dormitories, his private quarters and in classrooms during lessons between 1973 and 1975. Cavendish-Coulson, of Crookham Common, Berkshire, was jailed for six years and nine months at Chester Crown Court."

"Described in court as a serial paedophile, Cavendish-Coulson, a former French teacher, also pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a 12-year-old boy he privately tutored in the late 1980s."

The court heard he would befriend his victims at the boarding school and then molest them, sometimes in the presence of other children, and his activities were an open secret among the boys."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29932221
 

An open letter to the Home Office

An open letter from Michael H Murrin to the Home Office in relation to the child abuse inquiry appears in childprotectionwhistleblowers.com. It calls for the inquiry to be rebooted as a royal commission with statutory powers in order to determine the truth or falsity of the serious allegations being made about Lord Brittan and others.

He refers to the involvement of the Home Office in the various drafts of Mrs Woolf`s letter to the Select Committee, and goes on:

 Let me make it clear. I am saying there are now substantial reasons to assert that the Inquiry is not impartial, is not independent and the honesty of its last chair has been completely undermined by being under the direct control of the Home Office. This amounts to nothing less than a criminal undertaking to subvert the Democratic process.

　

Mr Murrin points to an early draft of Mrs Woolf’s letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee which failed to make it into the final Home Office draft, in which she said: 

"In my capacity as Lord Mayor my steward has been Colin Tucker a former solicitor from Edinburgh. In 1989 Mr Tucker was prosecuted for fraud. He was later struck off as a solicitor. In 1983 he was involved in an inquiry into an allegation of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, in Scotland, conducted by WA Nimmo Smith QC and JD Friel, Regional Procurator Fiscal of North Strathclyde. The inquiry concerned allegations that senior figures in the Edinburgh legal fraternity, including judges, were engaged in sexual relations with underage boys" 

If this alone were not bad enough Mrs Woolf and the Home Office were also finally forced to admit in her list of interests to the existence of a link to none other than PIE: [Paedophile Information Exchange]...It has been suggested that P.I.E was, in effect, taken over and run by the security services for the purposes of collecting information which has been used to compromise, blackmail and control members and servants of Her Majesty’s Government. It is this allegation which convinces me that ANY Inquiry into child abuse that excludes a specific investigation into P.I.E is nothing more than a cover up.

　
Read more: http://childprotectionwhistleblowers.com/category/news-stories/

It can be better understood why abuse at Kincora boy`s home in Ireland and abuse in Scotland are not being addressed by the inquiry. For those interested in a cover-up, it is best to avoid the links.

　
See also http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/scotland-needs-to-clean-up-its-own-act.html

Promoting mental health

The Children and Young People`s Mental Health Coalition of 14 charities points out that their vice chair, Mick Atkinson, will be speaking at the conference: `Promoting positive mental health in schools,`in November. Their attention is focused on policy in England, they say, as Scotland, Ireland and Wales now have their own priorities within young people`s mental health.

One of the policies the coalition wants to promote is early intervention and targeted support for vulnerable parents to promote babies` emotional development. They claim that 1 in 10 children and adolescents have a diagnosable mental health problem. "Addressing issues early helps individuals and society - that message needs a powerful voice."

http://www.cypmhc.org.uk/resources/promoting_positive_mental_health_in_schools_confer/

We may have our own priorities in Scotland, but the message is the same everywhere you look. Feckless parents failing - or at risk of failing - their children, a massive problem requiring immediate state intervention.

　
In the US, Health and Human Services have released $99 million to improve mental health servivces for young people. Training will be provided for new mental health workers who will help teachers and others to recognise pupils who have, or who are at risk of developing,  mental health issues and problem behaviours.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/09/20140922a.html

Good news for the drug companies.

 

This is Place2Be which works across the UK:

 

"Place2Be provides emotional and therapeutic services in primary and secondary schools, building children's resilience through talking, creative work and play. We currently reach 90,000 children, helping them to cope with wide-ranging and often complex social issues including bullying, bereavement, domestic violence, family breakdown, neglect and trauma."

http://www.place2be.org.uk/what-we-do/

Thousands of charities with their so-called experts have sprung up around children. With so many charities and their volunteers working with children now in place, why are mental health issues supposed to be increasing ?

Sex is normal between 13 year-olds

https://www.brook.org.uk/

 

Here`s the Daily Mail:

 

"Sex between 13-year-olds is a normal part of growing up, according to official guidance for teachers. The online resource for school staff also gives sexual behaviour in nine-year-olds the green light. Drawn up by sexual health service Brook, the national guidance was sent to all schools earlier this year."

"The Family Education Trust – which sounded the alarm over the pack in evidence to MPs on the Commons education select committee – yesterday urged the Government to distance itself from the advice. But it has already been endorsed by the Department for Education and a string of ministers including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg."

"Although it is not specifically intended to form part of sex education lessons, it encourages teachers to view sex between 13-year-olds as normal..."

"Sarah Carter, of the Family Education Trust, told MPs that the guidance was at odds with what many parents would want their children to be told."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2820506/Sex-13-year-olds-NORMAL-says-controversial-traffic-light-tool-sent-schools-teach-relationships.html#ixzz3ICxQDtj5

Whether or not the guidance is at odds with what many parents want is neither here nor there these days since self proclaimed experts have more sway with the government than parents do who are increasingly put under the microscope.

You have to ask: How did this man get himself into the position of an `expert`?

"Simon Blake OBE is Chief Executive for Brook, the UK’s largest young people’s sexual health charity. ...Simon has also worked at the National Children’s Bureau where he held a number of positions including Assistant Director of Children’s Development and Director of the Sex Education Forum. In 2004 Simon was seconded to the Department of Health as an advisor on children’s public health."

"Simon is Chair of Compact Voice, the body that represents the voluntary sector and negotiates the relationship between government and the voluntary and community sector."

"In June 2011 Simon was awarded an OBE for services to the voluntary sector and young people in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List." http://youthsectorblog.com/contributors/simon-blake/

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The child abuse inquiry will fail

From the Telegraph:

"Without a dramatic narrowing of focus, the task is impossible to complete, at least in under a decade or two – and that’s supposing memories have not faded, key witnesses have not died and documents have not been thrown away in the natural course of 44 years. But the other reason why the inquiry will fail is more general: because they just do. Any honest inquiry into public inquiries would have to concede that the vast majority disappoint. They may be the last escape for politicians with nowhere else to turn, the reflex demand of pressure groups and victims – but our faith in them is misplaced."

"The failed inquiry falls into three broad categories. The first sort fails to uncover – or indeed conceals – the facts..."

"The second sort of failure is a report that gets to the truth and clearly expresses criticism, but refuses to hold any person or body accountable..."

"The third category is the inquiry that looks like a success at the time, but is essentially a political kneecapping..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11205648/Whether-Fiona-Woolf-heads-it-or-not-the-child-abuse-inquiry-will-fail.html#disqus_thread

　

`We`re not teaching facts.`

Compare this with an advert for jaffa cakes and what`s the difference?

Raising awareness of global citizenship, getting a `bit of everything`, debating and feeling empowered to make a difference and all of this `evolving from what they did in the classroom` is presented to us as the crowning glory of CfE.  It sounds great but in terms of learning what does it actually mean?

The parent in the video assures us that `getting down to the nitty gritty areas` is still part of the curriculum: that is, there are still some subjects being taught. Some of us might heave a sight of relief at this point. She goes on to assure us that there is a good balance but it is never explained to us why there needs to be a balance between these two opposing strands in the curriculum.

Nothing is defined, of course, because this is an advertisement for Curriculum for Excellence.

Some teachers see through it:

• (1)"The old curriculum was already preparing learners to be effective contributors etc. Now in schools we are wasting time talking about how we are developing rather than actually learning things."
  
  (2)"I personally would like my curriculum to be more aspirational than serving the needs of the economy and the charlatans who exploit the poor to make a massive tax free profit."
  
  (3)"Arrangements for subjects lack any depth in their descriptions. For instance, I have to teach about "processors". What about them? That they exist? What they do? How they work? What sub-components they have? How they work? I don’t know. When posed with this question, the senior assessor – the person responsible for setting the exam – stated (in front of an audience of approximately 250 Computing teachers) "We’re not teaching facts, we’re teaching Curriculum for Excellence... "http://www.moshblog.me.uk/2014/06/07/curriculum-for-excellence-or-excrement

 
The blurb below the video gives us an indication of the project the children are engaged in:

"The United Nations: The Girl Effect - An example of student-led interdisciplinary learning, looking at global issues. "
 
Here`s the message:
 
"A growing body of data and studies have shown that supporting girls and women – promoting their education, their health and safety, their right to plan their families, and more – correlates with healthier families, higher family incomes, economic development, and environmental sustainability. For example, studies have found that: All of this promotes more productive and stable countries – enhancing global prosperity and security and benefiting us all. "

http://www.unfoundation.org/news-and-media/publications-and-speeches/the-girl-revolution.html
 
Simplistic is hardly the word for it.   
It is the UN depopulation agenda which has an uglier face: For example, in the 1970s the Indian government forcibly sterilized millions of women against their will. China introduced its one-child policy in the 1980s. The overt depopulation strategy has been replaced by an agenda centred on getting girls and women into education and work and increasing access to birth control, so delaying childbirth.
 
Here are the big global players behind the `Girl Effect:`

UKaid, Nike Foundation, American Jewish World Service, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Population Council, Save the Children, United Nations Foundation, UNICEF, US Aid, World Bank - to mention just a few.

http://www.girleffect.org/about/

 
The children are not provided with the history, politics, economics, science and other tools to analyse the data. The `Girl Effect` is presented to them as a `given`.  So this is propaganda, not education  -  and the curriculum has been altered drastically to allow it.

Government files have disappeared from national archives

From the Daily Record:

"Government files containing claims of abuse of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children have disappeared from national archives. The secret papers contain allegations of physical and sexual abuse in homes and residential schools over four decades."

"Some of the papers prepared by a task force set up by the-then Secretary of State for Scotland Bruce Millan in the late 1960s were seen by Sunday Mail in 2002. But the vast majority of the papers, relating to abuse claims from the 1930s to 1960s, have never been made public."

"They were requested by researchers commissioned by the Scottish Government to examine the extent of historical abuse involving children in care...Other reports detailed children in care being locked in darkened rooms for hours, kids banned from seeing their parents, and a seven-year-old girl who had her mouth washed with carbolic soap for swearing..."

"Campaigner David Whelan, 55, a member of the joint government and survivors think tank, the National Confidential Forum for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, said: "Those missing files weren’t where they should have been. They need to be found."

"He says the papers may have included claims about serial abuser Jimmy Savile, a regular visitor to Fort Augustus Abbey School in Inverness-shire."

"David, who suffered years of sexual abuse at Quarrier’s Children’s Village in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, in the early 70s, said: "We know there are allegations as many as 20 high-profile paedophiles with links to Downing Street regularly used and abused children in care."

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/revealed-crucial-files-detailing-allegations-4552535


"A LEADING human rights expert has called on the Scottish Government to launch a "forensic" inquiry into historical abuse in Scotland."

"Professor Alan Miller, chairman of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, wants an independent investigation into crimes committed against children in the 1960s, 70s and 80s."

"He believes it is vital to find out what the state knew about abuse that went on at residential homes – particularly allegations of child deaths and the destruction of documents and records."

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/tell-truth-child-abuse-cover-ups-3709010

Melanie Shaw found guilty

 "A jury delivered a shock guilty verdict on paedophile ring whistleblower, Melanie Shaw, yesterday, accused of starting a shed fire and throwing paint on a neighbour’s home in Nottingham, England. "

"Observers watched with incredulity as Judge Michael Pert QC announced the news, resulting in a conviction of arson - reckless as to whether life was endangered, on February 1, and damaging property on June 26. Sentencing will take place in six weeks following a psychiatric report."

"An absence of substantive evidence, coupled with irregularities in the conduct of the trial, has reinforced public opinion that Beechwood Children’s Home survivor, Melanie Shaw, is the victim of a carefully orchestrated establishment set-up intended to silence her and protect a high-ranking paedophile ring involved in crimes against children and child abuse - some of whom are said to have been murdered, committed suicide or disappeared without trace."

Read more http://www.neonnettle.com/news/1304-paedophile-ring-whistleblower-melanie-shaw-sentenced-without-evidence-

See also http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/nottingham-city-part-of-one-in-five.html

Fiona Woolf steps down as head of the Government's child abuse inquiry

Child abuse whistleblowers call on another panellist to go - reports the Times today.

"The former social worker faced calls to resign last night after it was revealed that when she was criticised by an investigation into the death of a young girl, she said that she "would never go through an inquiry again".

"Ms Hearn was criticised in an official inquiry into the death of Lucy Gates, two, in Bexley, southeast London, after neglect and abuse by her mother."

"Ms Hearn, 61, does not mention her involvement in the Lucy Gates inquiry in her letter to the home secretary detailing any relevant issues."

"The whistleblowers also highlighted concerns about Ms Hearn’s connections with social work managers from the Labour-controlled Islington council in north London when there was widespread sexual abuse in the borough’s children’s homes."

"Ms Hearn was appointed to the National Children’s Bureau in the 1990s by John Rea Price, who had been director of social services at Islington council. She later became deputy chief executive of the organisation, where she worked closely with Sara Noakes, who had been in charge of child protection in Islington at the time of the paedophile abuse. The two women wrote a book together about child protection for social workers. "

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4254501.ece