Wednesday 15 December 2010

Secrecy

Between September and December 2009, Ofsted circulated questionnaires in and visited fifteen local authority areas with a view to finding out the views of home educating parents on a wide range of topics. They spoke face-to-face with a hundred and twenty parents and a hundred and thirty children of home educators and received the views of many more via their answers to the questionnaires. It was a worthwhile project. Among other things, this research uncovered evidence of offrolling and also the fact that parents of children with special educational needs were being discouraged from deregistering their children from school by the threat of withdrawal of all support services. One mother was told that it was a case of 'school and services or home education and no services'.

You might have though that nobody in their senses could possibly have been opposed to a survey of this sort, but you would have been wrong. Across various Internet lists, those in the local authority areas concerned were being urged to boycott the whole process and refuse even to speak to any of those conducting the research. It was broadly hinted that those who participated would be no better than Quislings.

Even when somebody very sympathetic to home education such as Pula Rothermel tries to find out what home educators want and how they feel about home education, 80% do not wish to answer any questions. A social worker doing an MA contacted Mike Fortune-Wood recently and expressed a desire to contact members of Home Education UK in order to find out what their objections would be to the involvement of social workers in their lives as a way of safeguarding their children. Now speaking personally, I would not have seen the need for any social worker to come within a hundred miles of my family when I was educating my daughter. I would have welcomed an opportunity to explain my reasons for feeling this to be unnecessary. I would have been happy to have the chance to set the record straight on this question. Mike Fortune-Wood's reply to this person deserves to be quoted in full;

'The problem with your question is that it is overly provocative.

The very idea that children need to be 'seen' by a SW to be safe is of
itself offensive. it is in any event beyond any legal requirement and an
infringement of article 8 of the ECHR.

I'm not sure that I feel comfortable with someone asking my members under
what conditions they would be happy to have their human rights infringed.

There is neither a duty or power for either a child protection department or
an LEA, or a merged child services department to undertake any such checks.
Neither can I imagine that routine checking of HE families could possibly be
of any use.'

Now I will say nothing of the horribly paternalistic attitude shown here. Why not simply publish this person's email address and leave it up to others to either contact or not contact this individual as they see fit? Perhaps Mike Fortune-Wood is not confident that 'his' members would make the right decision about this!

This is indeed an' overly provocative' question. That is the whole point. The questions posed for theses of this sort are often very controversial; one recent one was 'Are social services a necessary branch of local government or would the situation be improved by a return to individual philanthropy of the sort common in Victorian Britain?' The whole point is that the question might be devised not in order to prove a point but often to argue against it. Without knowing the precise wording of the title of this piece of work, it is impossible to know what the thrust of this person's argument was likely to be. Even if we assume that she was going to argue that home educated children needed to be seen by social workers, surely here is a perfect opportunity for parents to put their case and counteract such an idea? Why would anybody not wish to engage in a debate on this? There is certainly a strand of local authority thinking which believes that social services should be keeping an eye on home educated children. Many parents do not agree with this proposition; why not explain why parents are against this?

The reluctance of home educating parents to take part in research or answer questions about their lifestyle hardly helps their cause. The person who contacted Mike Fortune-Wood has probably gone off thinking that home educators are as secretive and closed as the Plymouth Brethren or Amish. Is this impression really helpful? Most parents of children at school are open, even boastful and proud, about their children's achievements and their own style of parenting. I simply cannot see why giving somebody the brush-off in this way could possible be a good idea.

21 comments:

  1. I objected to the Ofsted research because the questionnaire was badly designed. The research also appeared to be done in a rush. My LA wasn't sent a covering letter to send out to parents, and there wasn't time to organise a face-to-face meeting.

    Mike F-W's version of the research question posed by the SW was a little different to yours, Simon, and I think he was perfectly justified in questioning the apparent underlying assumptions. A research question that doesn't clearly identify the variables it is examining will be misleading and probably a waste of time and resources.

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  2. 'Mike F-W's version of the research question posed by the SW was a little different to yours, Simon'


    Mike Fortune-Wood said;

    'I've Been approached by a student SW (doing a masters degree in SW) who
    wants access to HE families to discover what would be necessary to encourage
    families to allow SWs access to their children to ensure they are safe.'

    I said;

    'A social worker doing an MA contacted Mike Fortune-Wood recently and expressed a desire to contact members of Home Education UK in order to find out what their objections would be to the involvement of social workers in their lives as a way of safeguarding their children.'

    I see little difference.

    'A research question that doesn't clearly identify the variables it is examining will be misleading and probably a waste of time and resources.'

    We have no idea what the wording of the research qustion might have been. Another reason for knowing more about this.

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  3. Simon wrote,
    "Now speaking personally, I would not have seen the need for any social worker to come within a hundred miles of my family when I was educating my daughter. I would have welcomed an opportunity to explain my reasons for feeling this to be unnecessary....

    This is indeed an' overly provocative' question. That is the whole point. The questions posed for theses of this sort are often very controversial; one recent one was 'Are social services a necessary branch of local government or would the situation be improved by a return to individual philanthropy of the sort common in Victorian Britain?'"

    If they had asked something like, 'is it necessary for social workers to have a sight of home educated children to ensure they are safe', I might agree. But this wasn't the question. They wanted to, 'discover what would be necessary to encourage families to allow SWs access to their children to ensure they are safe'. The need for social worker access is assumed and and not up for debate so you wouldn't get your opportunity to put them right, except maybe in answer to the 'any other suggestions or information' type question at the end after you've answered loads about how to gain access to families.

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  4. BTW, feel free to delete my message on the last post about your address if you wish.

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  5. 'Anonymous said...
    BTW, feel free to delete my message on the last post about your address if you wish. '

    One is forced to ask whether this is somebody who wishes to discuss home education or merely a creepy stalker boasting of his exploits in hunting down teenage girls! Do get a grip, Anonymous.

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  6. Old Webb says-Why would anybody not wish to engage in a debate on this? There is certainly a strand of local authority thinking which believes that social services should be keeping an eye on home educated children. Many parents do not agree with this proposition; why not explain why parents are against this?

    Becuase once you are seen by a Social Worker it goes on a file that you are known to Social services this can flag up a concern in itself with all sorts of staff also the Soical Worker may not like home education and be looking for evidence to back up her dislike of home education once the soical starts to write staff about your family this will be used in evidence in a court of law against you so our advice is do not EVER allow a soical worker into your house! this way NO evidence can be used against you! Soical workers can not be trusted keep well away from them!

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  7. I dont think it's wrong to be secretive. I wouldnt want to give social workers amunition that they could use against me.
    Call me paraniod but if I told them what they would need to do to gain access to my children, they might then in turn use that infromation to actually try and gain access.Maybe not, but I wouldnt want to chance it.
    I wonder if it is the same with people and LAs. If they have a deep seated dislike, disregard or general disapproval of officials, they may feel that it wouldnt be a very good idea to talk to them on the off chance they act on the information given.
    Its difficult because I also see your point about building bridges and understanding between us and officials, and I do agree to an extent about trying to co-operate. But I think these doubts and fears are valid reasons not to talk with officials.

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  8. Who wants to build bridges with those lieing toe rags? you got be joking? lets destroy them with our complaints! everyone write in and complain to your LA tell what a crap job there do for home educators! you should write in c and complain?
    any one seen that lieing dog Jack Cawthra ex LA staff?

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  9. Quoting Simon:

    "Mike Fortune-Wood said;

    'I've Been approached by a student SW (doing a masters degree in SW) who
    wants access to HE families to discover what would be necessary to encourage
    families to allow SWs access to their children to ensure they are safe.'

    I said;

    'A social worker doing an MA contacted Mike Fortune-Wood recently and expressed a desire to contact members of Home Education UK in order to find out what their objections would be to the involvement of social workers in their lives as a way of safeguarding their children.'"

    There's a big difference between both of those above - the SW is implying that (all? or just HE?) children need to be seen by SWs in order to be safe, and asking how s/he can convince parents to allow it.

    Simon's turn of phrase impies the SW is asking what HE families objections are into having SWs rountinely check out our kids! Maybe if this had been asked they might have had more response.

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  10. very good news Webb look that 35'000 will include LA staff LOL
    Unemployment in the UK increased by 35,000 in the three months to October to 2.5 million, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

    It is the first time that the jobless measure has risen for six months.

    The surprise increase was driven by public sector job losses, and pushed the unemployment rate up to 7.9%.

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  11. Simon wrote,
    "One is forced to ask whether this is somebody who wishes to discuss home education or merely a creepy stalker boasting of his exploits in hunting down teenage girls! Do get a grip, Anonymous."

    Or a concerned mother of a daughter the same age as yours who just happened across the information after following links from Twitter discussions? This can hardly be called hunting; it was accidental and couldn't have been easier! There is even a link to a street map highlighting your address! Have you found any other person on Facebook who includes their full name, address and phone number? Certainly no politician, journalist or similar is going to risk this. The fact you suspect me of being a creepy stalker is another reason for taking more care with personal information as I'm sure there are plenty out there in internet land!

    There are plenty of pages out there with advice about internet safety. Maybe you aught to read some?

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  12. I'll also add that I was quite shocked when I read it. I even clicked through to many other Facebook pages to see if this is typical and if I'm just being paranoid, but no, I failed to find any other page with a telephone number or street address. At most people seem to give email addresses or Twitter links but even this seems rare. In hindsight I should maybe have contacted you via your email address, but from past experience you would probably publish it and claim someone was secretly stalking you - can't win really - but I assure you I posted out of concern and am happy for you to delete all of my comments about this issue if you wish. It doesn't matter to me but of course it does draw attention to the issue.

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  13. 'The fact you suspect me of being a creepy stalker is another reason for taking more care with personal information as I'm sure there are plenty out there in internet land!'

    I am not overly impressed by your apparent concern. If you were really worried about the possibility of my daughter being at risk of attracting unwanted or dangerous attention, then you would hardly have gone out of your way here to explain to everybody how they might go about tracking down her personal address. I have not the least doubt that this is being done maliciously.

    ' but I assure you I posted out of concern and am happy for you to delete all of my comments about this issue if you wish.'

    Since you made the comments, you could delete them yourself if you wished.



    'I'm sure there are plenty out there in internet land!'

    Perfectly true, although not restricted to 'Internet land'. The personal addresses of many of those who comment here can be found without any great difficulty. People appear in local newspapers which mention the name of their street and then publish online editions. It would be simple enough to cross check those details through the electoral register and then go onto google earth. A good question would be, why would I do that? Why would I attempt to track down a seventeen year old girl's home address and then try to look through her window using google earth? You deny that this is the behaviour of a creepy stalker; we muct agree to differ on this point! One wonders what Shena Deuchar, for example, would say if I posted on the EO list saying 'I know where you live Shena, I've even being peering in at your window using google earth. Creepy, or what? I am also baffled as to know what this has to do with home education, which is after all the point of this blog.

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  14. Uh...Anonymous? I don't have my address on facebook. I've got my phone number, which, contrary to your opinion, is very common to see on facebook, and I say that I live in Loughton, which is pretty much common knowledge, but...as far as I know I have never had my address on facebook. Even if I had, I'd like to point out, this is also relatively common practice, and doesn't make your looking up my house on Google Earth any less creepy. Just saying...

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  15. Ah, apologies. It was on my facebook page where I'm standing as Eastern Representative on the Young Labour National Committee, separate from my personal facebook page. It was there in case any Labour people wanted to get in touch with me. Now removed, but I'd like to reiterate the fact that I feel distinctly uncomfortable with what you've done.

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  16. 'Since you made the comments, you could delete them yourself if you wished.'

    How would one go about deleting one's own comments from your blog, please?

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  17. 'How would one go about deleting one's own comments from your blog, please?'

    When I make a comment on another blog, a little symbol of a dustbin appears next to it. This means that I can delete the comment if I change my mind about it. I assumed that this would be the case with everybody, but maybe it is just for those, like me, who have blogspot accounts.

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  18. Nope. No such icon on your blog.

    I agree, my own blogspot blog has these icons. Because yours does not, I had assumed that you had disabled that function on yours.

    Several times I've regretted saying something a particular way and wished to remove my comment and re-write it, but that has not been possible.

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  19. ' I had assumed that you had disabled that function on yours.'

    What possible reason could I have for doing that? I have no idea where this setting would be and I suppose that it is possible that I might have disabled or more likely not enabled it. I am reluctant to meddle with the settings though, because the last time I did so, I inadvertently deleted some comments, thus triggering a new conspiracy theory!

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  20. Simone wrote,
    "Even if I had, I'd like to point out, this is also relatively common practice, and doesn't make your looking up my house on Google Earth any less creepy. Just saying... "

    I think you'll find that use of Google maps is quite extensive and only takes a second. Nosiness is also very common. Why would you consider nosiness creepy?

    "Now removed, but I'd like to reiterate the fact that I feel distinctly uncomfortable with what you've done."

    Err, that was the point. I wanted you to realise how vulnerable you make yourself by publishing too much information. How many people out there have done just as I have but not let you know? Glad to know my efforts were worth it and you have removed the information. Does this mean that you did need warning about it's presence? If I hadn't gone to they 'trouble' (a few seconds and a couple of clicks) to use Google maps and comment on your house, would you have taken my warning seriously? Your uneasiness is a sign that you gave too much information out. You have absolutely no idea how many other people have followed the link from Twitter to that Facebook page and done exactly the same.

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  21. They are many sample of effective questionnaires in different website that could fit for any types of studies and researches.

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