I came across this article in the news and I couldn’t help but post about it. Essentially, this English school attempted to bring in a policy whereby children who did not bring in their lunch money would not be given lunch that day and would be given bread and butter instead. While I admit this is better than simply not feeding them, it is still a horrific policy.
The problem I have is that it singles these children out. It may be that they had the money and simply forgot it, and that one day of not having a proper lunch would not do a huge amount of harm, though I can imagine it would be very embarrassing. The worry I have is for those children whose families struggle to pay for these meals.
At £2.10 per child per day, I can see that it adds up – £10.50 a week, and that’s just for one child! For these children, not being included with their peers could become a regular occurrence and other than being a humiliating experience, it could be worse for their health. Surely it is better for a child to have a substantial meal in the day than this proposed alternative, a meal with the proper nutrition and enough to fuel them for the rest of the day. I also think that it should be pointed out that for some children their school meal is the main or only source of healthy food and understanding of good choices, to remove this could be disastrous!
Luckily, I am not the only one who sees this in the same was as I do, after complaints from parents, the school had about-turned and agreed not to introduce this policy! However, I still find it worrying that they ever thought it was sensible, fair and inclusive in the first place. Essentially it would be punishing children for something usually out with their control!
If you would like to read it, then please see below:
On Friday, my group and I were asked to role play a meeting, each of us received a piece of paper with our character and some extra information on it. We were role playing a meeting about a child called Jack who has various issues and we had to try to find a solution to. The characters were:
Jack’s Mum
Jack’s Dad
The Head Teacher
The Class Teacher
The Health Visitor
Jack’s Mum’s Social Worker
It was really interesting to watch the scene play out. I was Jack’s Dad and I knew that Jack was not receiving enough care from the mother, that the mother had lost her job and that this was for stealing.
Among all the other discussions I found myself focussing in my head that the mother was clearly not capable of looking after Jack and, as one of Jack’s issues was stealing at school, I thought this behaviour had been learned from the mother. In the end it turned out that the mother had not been stealing but had lost her job due to too many absences because she was not coping. This really got me thinking, and what I realised is that nobody in that group had all of the information. Because of this, there was not an easy way of making the necessary decisions.
If this was a real-life meeting, I would imagine that the mother would feel ganged-up on by the father and all of the various professionals. Our group decided that Jack should go to stay with his dad to allow his mum to get back on her feet, but I know that in reality this would not have been so easy a decision and the mother would not have let this happen so easily.
What I have learned from this activity is that there are always two sides to every story and we need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Another observation I made was that Jack was not included in any decisions we made, and it seemed that none of the adults had even asked him his opinion. This shows that there is a real need for childrens’ voices to be heard by those who hold the power to make huge changes in childrens’ lives. I will keep this in mind when it comes to my own practice, and in the classroom while teaching.
Nearly every time I log into Facebook nowadays, I am faced with yet another post about the Named Person Act. Somebody always has a problem with it, often people who are not children and do not have children themselves! The same thing happened last night, a good friend of mine bemoaning the legislation, and now I am going to put my own opinion across!
To be fair on some people, simply being told that your child has a ‘Named Person’ surely sets off alarm bells. I don’t have children myself, but I can completely understand how a parent may feel, it does sound like there is someone who is in charge of a child over the parent, so I can see why they may panic. I asked my mum recently and she said “No one has my child’s best interests at heart more than me”. The problem comes when people stop there and don’t put any effort into finding out.
First, I’m going to try to explain what exactly the Named Person Act is and what it offers us. The role of the named person is to support children through the various trials and difficulties of their childhoods, be that moving school, bereavement, disabilities or something more serious. They are a point of contact for the children and families they work with. Before starting school, the named person is a child’s health visitor, and once they start school it will usually be the head teacher at their school, or possibly their guidance teacher.
The Scottish Government’s Website explains:
“What will a Named Person do?
The Named Person will be available to listen, advise and help a child or young person and their family, providing direct support or helping them to access other services. They can help families address their concerns early and prevent them becoming more serious.
They can also respond to requests for assistance from other services in situations where this may support the child’s or young person’s wellbeing.”
Does it say that the named person will take over from parents? Does it say that they will have children removed from their families? Does it say that the named person is in charge of the child in any way?
The answer is definitely no to all of these questions.
Now, my own understanding of a ‘named person’ is that the named person is the individual whom anyone who is concerned about a child can go to to share their concern. This means that concerns are shared with the appointed professional, who then has a full and more rounded picture of the life of the child in question.
For example, say a child’s teacher notices something in a child’s behaviour changes, then the school nurse notices something that causes them to have a concern, a social worker involved with the family is made aware of a change in the family’s circumstances, and finally then the child tells their scout leader something that raises their concern. If this information is not shared, the circumstances could become worse and cause something significantly more serious to happen. The Named Person’s role is to receive this information and build up a picture of the life of the child and inform the relevant professionals, deal with the problem themselves, or simply keep the information on record for future use.
To find out what people think of the legislation, I asked a few people I know for their opinions, here are some of their responses:
“Good idea for vulnerable children to give them neutral support if there are other professionals involved with the child. Not necessary for all children”
There are countless services out their like social workers, Childline which do similar things & I think improving those services would be much more beneficial”.
“I can’t see it being that effective compared to other services”
“a total waste of time”
“it undermines the parents and from what I can tell grants the person access to confidential information about the family and they have no say in the selection “
“I don’t see how this will actually help identify vulnerable individuals when everyone has a state guardian”
“affront to the freedoms of both parent & child”
“we shouldn’t operate on the presumption that all parents need monitoring”
“I guess they are a good thing but if people didn’t understand what level of involvement they would have then I could see why they’d be against them.”
This clearly shows that, while not everyone is in complete opposition to it, most people are not open to the legislation at all. I think that it is essential now to educate people, specifically parents in what this legislation is all about and what it means to them. The GIRFEC documentation refers to the role of the named person, saying:
“The Named Person also needs to help children and families feel confident they can raise concerns and talk about their worries to people who will listen and respect their point of view and work with them to sort things out”
This means that parents need to be informed that the named person is there for them and is not just a faceless professional who’s going to turn on them when things become difficult.
Ultimately, you and your families will probably never need to use your child’s entitlement to their named person, but who are you to deny that right to others, people who need the support or in extreme cases – intervention. To me it is essential the children have as many professionals looking out for them and their wellbeing as possible, and it is equally important that they understand this right and know that they are entitled to all the support they need. As I have already said, the ‘Named Person’ is not there to make parental decisions on behalf of children, but to co-ordinate people and resources, if the Scottish Government are guilty of anything when bringing in this legislation, it’s a poor choice of name for it!
Since today was our third day back after the Christmas holidays, I thought it could do with a post about the beginning of the new module. The module is about Interagency or Multiagency working. This, as you can imagine, is highly important for teachers. In the most basic terms, it means professionals in the lives of the children: teachers, police, social work, healthcare workers, community learning officers… The list goes on but those are some of the main ones.
We have been split into groups of 7 or 8. We are to do group activities and go on community visits together. Having met and discussed this with the rest of my group, I am feeling really confident in our ability to work collaboratively with this group. This is a massive benefit, as we have been told that this is not always the case. Clearly, as professionals, we have to simply work with the other professionals in the childrens’ lives – obviously, we cannot allow children to be put in danger just because we do not particularly like their social worker. I believe that the same logic applies here, as we cannot just decide not to work with each other because we do not like each other. I think that it is essential to remember this throughout the module with the group and to reflect on any issues arising.
I think that the main goal for the module is to keep up with the lectures and tutor directed tasks. Of course it is always good to keep up with these things, but for this module there are 6 other people who will be relying on my to do my share of the work in order to be able to do do their own or to learn their own materials. I also would like to set the goal of building a relationship with the remainder if the group, as I have identified the need to be able to speak to each other openly and honestly, especially if any problems arise between us. Towards the end of the module, I will update this post to see if I have managed this.
