I think that I made it clear a few days ago that I do not personally regard home education as a risk factor for the abuse of children. I tried yesterday to point out why some people, especially local authorities, do think of it in this way. It was I suppose inevitable that I should be thought to be agreeing with them!
Dreadful abuse of children is mercifully rare and no more common in home educating families than those who send their children to school. That being so and considering that over 99% of children go to school, it is obvious that the vast majority of abuse is against schooled children. So much is true. However, if you are abusing a child, it is easier to conceal it if you live in a caravan miles from the nearest neighbours and don’t send your children to school.
There was another way that the case of Lianne and Martin Smith raised suspicions among professionals. I mentioned yesterday that there has been a lot of criticism from home educating parents of Olaf Hindmarsh in Staffordshire. After his authority appointed a home educator whose children were being beaten and raped, as Head of Children’s Services in Staffordshire, it rather made many in the local authority a little dubious about home education in general. One can quite see why. Similar suspicions were being raised nationally at about the same time.
It is popularly supposed by many home educating parents that it was the Khyra Ishaq case which precipitated the Badman Enquiry. We must also look at what was going on in Education Otherwise at the same time. Lianne Smith was a regional advisor for EO. She also worked in child protection in Cumbria and was vociferous in arguing that parents were the only ones who should be responsible for the welfare of children. She was a high profile campaigner in her professional capacity against anything like compulsory visits or monitoring of home educated children. In retrospect, one can see why she felt so strongly about this. In the same year that she and her partner fled abroad with their children, Education Otherwise had a radical change of management committee. One of the new people, very prominent publicly for other reasons, ended up as Child Protection Officer for the organisation. She then turned out to have a partner with unfortunate proclivities. Despite this, she remained responsible for child protection, even though many in EO knew about the situation.
It began to look to some people as though the main home education support group in the country was harbouring a number of women with abusive and perverted partners and that this rather tainted EO. I do not say that it did; merely that that is how it appeared to some in both central and local government.
When we criticise local authorities, as I do myself, we must always try and bear in mind just why they are feeling this way about home education. Their fears are rooted not so much in prejudice, but in a perhaps exaggerated reaction to real events.
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"She also worked in child protection in Cumbria and was vociferous in arguing that parents were the only ones who should be responsible for the welfare of children. She was a high profile campaigner in her professional capacity against anything like compulsory visits or monitoring of home educated children."
ReplyDeleteReally? I'd never heard of her before the news about Spain broke. Can you provide links, etc? Presumably her vociferousness included print.
BTW, are you mascarading as mojecosie or is someone else hijacking your blog messages? Strange to see all those messages alone without their comment threads.
http://mojecosie.blogspot.co.uk/
'BTW, are you mascarading as mojecosie or is someone else hijacking your blog messages? Strange to see all those messages alone without their comment threads.'
ReplyDeleteI was also puzzled to stumble across this! As far as Lianne Smith's views go, I think that if you google her and her partner's name, together with "home education", you will come up with a few bits about her. Some people believed that her partner was a home educating martyr. There is also stuff about her on, inevitably, the David Icke site.
I've already done that. That's why I came back to ask you since you've obviously seen more! I assume you have more than David Icke. I really hope you have more than that.
DeleteHere is a bit about Lianne Smith and her views:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ukcolumn.org/blogs/death-martin-smith-nothing-less-murder
So basically your source is conspiracy web sites?
Delete'So basically your source is conspiracy web sites?'
ReplyDeleteNo, my source is local authority officers who heard about all this from people in Staffordshire and Cumbria when the Smiths skipped the country in 2007. You asked for links and so I provided one. Had you really not heard about Lianne Smith's connection with home education and the business with Jo Berry until you read my post this morning?
"Had you really not heard about Lianne Smith's connection with home education and the business with Jo Berry until you read my post this morning?"
ReplyDeleteNo. I said that I hadn't heard about Lianne Smith before the news about Spain broke. I heard about Jo Berry several years ago too.
The only answer to your/LA concerns, as far as I can see, is a complete ban on home education. This would ensure that children are seen regularly enough by an adult outside the family to satisfy these rather vague concerns (except those families that ignore such a ban, of course), since it seems clear that LA visits are unlikely to help. Certainly Jo Berry's family had visits from LA inspectors who noticed nothing. I don't know if or how the Smith's answered informal LA enquiries.
As well as a ban on HE, there should also be home visits for all families specifically looking for signs of abuse (since so many cases are missed by schools). Maybe an annual medical examination would be a good idea?
Delete'The only answer to your/LA concerns, as far as I can see, is a complete ban on home education.'
ReplyDelete'As well as a ban on HE,'
I have never in my life heard anybody, whether from a local authority or elsewhere, argue in favour of a ban on home education. Rather, they try to debate measures which would enhance the rights of children, both to an education and to be protected from abuse. Few home educators seem interested in engaging in a discussion of this sort; their default setting being that the legal situation is fine and that local authorities should back off and stop making a fuss about nothing.
As I pointed out above, when one of the leading figures in this movement to prevent monitoring and supervision of home education turns out to be keeping her children at home so that they may be more conveniently abused by an adult, it dows tend to make local authority officers draw breath sharply and ask themselves what is going on. When the person in charge of child protection for the biggest home education charity in the country turns out to be in a similar situation, it does make people ask searching questions.That the only approach many home educators seem able to adopt in debates of this kind is one of confrontation and hostility, does not exactly help matters.
"I have never in my life heard anybody, whether from a local authority or elsewhere, argue in favour of a ban on home education."
DeleteI have, but unfortunately cannot find a reference to the document now.
"That the only approach many home educators seem able to adopt in debates of this kind is one of confrontation and hostility, does not exactly help matters."
But I have attempted to view this from the LAs point of view and cannot see a solution. LA visits are very unlikely to be helpful as you have already agreed. You have not made any alternative suggests for solutions yourself, you have just re-stated a problem that most people already know exists. Some parents abuse their children. Short of the solutions detailed above, we are unlikely to prevent all occurrences (and probably not even then) and the 'solution' seems way out of proportion to the problem.
The LAs answer to this problem is invariably increased control of home educators (i.e. registration and visits), yet they provide no evidence that this will be effective. If it isn't effective, money that could be better spent elsewhere would be wasted and this in itself could cost lives and result in harm to children that would otherwise be averted if the money had been better targeted.
"As I pointed out above, when one of the leading figures in this movement to prevent monitoring and supervision of home education turns out to be keeping her children at home so that they may be more conveniently abused by an adult"
DeleteYou've yet to show that she was a 'leading figure'. Like anonymous above, I'd never heard of her before she hit the papers because after what happened in Spain. For a 'leading figure' she seems to have kept a very low profile!
'Leading figure' no one had heard of?
DeleteWhen Martin Smith was tried, there was an interview with Lianne's eldest son (the brother of the abused girl) which did mention HE; can't find the link anymore. Back in the day Lianne was a local contact for EO and the "college rep" - but of course this was with the older 2 children, - the younger ones were not really school age when the family hit notoriety.
Deletevideo camera attached all children and parents is the only way to stop abuse.
ReplyDelete''Leading figure' no one had heard of?'
ReplyDeleteAny member of Education Otherwise in the north of England in 2007 would have known her. Actually, when I described her as a 'leading figure', I was also thinking of the world of social services. She attended various conferences and was agitating very strongly among fellow professionals for leaving home educating families alone. She is remembered to this day among many people involved in social services for her championing of this cause. It is one of the reasons that when other home educators took up the cry after the Badman review, some professionals were eyeing them askance.
As for Jo Berry, all I can say is that if people have honestly forgotten that a very high profile member of EO's management committee found herself in a similar fix to Lianne Smith, then I begin to wonder whether some of us are not suffering from some species of amnesia.
Simon.
What gave you the impression that Jo Berry had been forgotten in the discussion here? Are we reading the same thread?
DeleteI remember that home visits made absolutely no difference in that case, so I fail to see how it can be used to support LA calls for compulsory visits. Quite the opposite if anything since it may have given other professionals a false sense of security when dealing with the family. Research has shown that if a professional believes other authorities are involved with a family they are less likely to report any concerns they may have themselves.
I think EO then went on to make a serious error of judgement, but possibly they thought that her experience as a victim would help with this job within EO. Just a thought.
'I begin to wonder whether some of us are not suffering some sort of species amnesia.'
DeleteI'd say that it's more that a majority are keen to aquire and develop a state of collective denialism.
It's been more than obvious that EO and other parties were more than keen to sweep the Smith and Berry cases under the carpet. They've instigated and created the denialism and nurtured a culture of radicalism and victimhood through their anti Badman campaign.
DeleteThey've been actively diverting the attention from them as the problem.
"I'd say that it's more that a majority are keen to aquire and develop a state of collective denialism."
DeleteAnd this lack of knowledge has nothing to do with the court ordered gagging order about the case?
How absurd are the assertions to Simons arguments Are we saying that monitoring educational provision doesn't work, therefore we should dispense with it. Equally social services monitoring doesn't work, therefore let us dispense with that.
ReplyDeleteSurely some checks to child welfare, no matter how flawed they are, are better than no checks at all!!
Lianne Smith has been found guilty of 2 counts of murder. The Spanish court rejected the defence of mental illness.
ReplyDeleteLianne Smith had become obsessed with the idea that her children would be removed from her care by Social Services, and considered that to be worse than death.
A fear of Social Services...
EO has a whole lot to answer to.
"Are we saying that monitoring educational provision doesn't work, therefore we should dispense with it."
ReplyDeleteYes. This has been found to be true in other countries and stopped, New Zealand, for instance. In other countries, research has shown that outcomes do not change in areas with high regulation compared to areas with low regulation.
"Equally social services monitoring doesn't work, therefore let us dispense with that."
Nobody has said that, quite the opposite in fact. It would be better if money currently spent on visiting home educators, the vast majority of whom are innocent, were spent of social workers who carry out more targeted work in response to information provided.
"Surely some checks to child welfare, no matter how flawed they are, are better than no checks at all!!"
Even if it takes money away from other services that would actually help more children? We have X amount of money. Is it better to spend that money on visits to 50,000 children, the vast majority of whom are not in danger (where an annual visit by an ex-teacher is highly unlikely to uncover abuse where it exists anyway), or to spend the money on more and improved visits to families that have been brought to social services attention (like Khyra, the Smiths, Victoria Climbie, Spry, etc).
The other danger of course is the one highlighted by Eileen Munro. If you are looking for a needle, you don't make the haystack bigger by piling in more straw. Research shows that routine investigations of large groups like this for signs of abuse will throw up far more false positives than actual cases (the same is true of medical research, it's a known phenomenon). So social services would be inundated with false positive cases to investigate out and have less time to spend on genuine cases (to say nothing of the stress and upset caused to innocent families).
I can see why you are upset. It would be great to have a nice easy solution to child abuse, but I honestly don't think this is it. At best its a back covering mechanism for LAs, at worst its very likely to harm more children than it helps.
"A fear of Social Services...
ReplyDeleteEO has a whole lot to answer to."
EO didn't cause Lianne to fear the removal of her children by Social Services. It was what she saw during her work as a manager with Cumbria county council's children's services department that caused this.
You know, I can't really think that this was very logical; she wasn't a front line social worker, but in charge of extended services ( ie after school clubs and the like). Further more it seems blatantly obvious that the one thing she could have done to protect her children was to stop living with a paedophile who was abusing her own daughter??
ReplyDeleteI didn't say it was logical, she was/is obviously mentally ill, but it's what she herself claimed. The comment was made in response to a suggestion that EO directly caused this fear of social workers in Lianne Smith. Have you ever known EO as an organisation to suggest that people flee social workers?
DeleteNo, she wasn't mentally ill.
DeleteHer defence team attempted to use that one as grounds for aquittal.
The jury found her guilty of being 'fully conscious' and committing 'abominable and vile' murder.
She was fully conscious that her partner had been abusing her older daughter and chose to ignore that abuse.
You can be mentally ill and still responsible for your actions. Depression is classed as a mental illness, for instance.
DeleteHer defence team attempted to gain aquittal on the grounds that she was not responsible for her actions.
DeleteShe was, and just as responsible for the actions of her partner. She had the opportunity to accept Sarah's complaint, she rejected it.
Nobody said she wasn't responsible for her actions!
Delete'EO didn't cause Lianne to fear the removal of her children by Social Services. It was what she saw during her work as a manager with Cumbria county council's children's services department that caused this.'
ReplyDelete'You know, I can't really think that this was very logical'
I too am baffled by the logic here. If my children were being regularly beaten and raped at home, then I would probably be putting most of my energies into dealing with that situation, rather than campaigning against social services interference in family life! The most charitable interpretation of the situation is the one advanced in the recent Spanish trial; that Lianne Smith wasn't all there.
It certainly is a mystery why so many battered wives and mother's of battered children stay with their abusers.
DeleteThe EO and HE-UK forums are full of messages that feed the paranoia regarding social services.
DeleteThey've been the same for years.
DeleteWhilst an extreme example, this behaviour is well known and recognised. Some relevant snippets from a Sex Offender Awareness Training Seminar run at West Yorkshire Police Headquarters in 1998.
ReplyDelete"An obvious and common goal for a targeting paedophile is to develop a relationship with a single mum."
"While offending, the paedophile will maintain an healthy sex life with the victim's mother so as to 'present' himself as a normal man. He will act like a good husband and draw little attention to any perverse sexual behaviour."
"He will set out to become indispensable."
"In many cases, single parents, particularly those with more than one child, are very busy, tired, stressed, financially insecure and ill-supported individuals who are very often grateful for a pleasant, reliable helping hand. Single parents, therefore, are common targets, often being very vulnerable and easily susceptible to the false kindness and insincerity of the targeting paedophile."
"The paedophile, 'her man', is providing to be good and life without him would be hard to bear as the thought of returning to those dark and hard days is horrifying."
"If the children do complain, the parent may decide that she will ignore the complaints as life is too good with this man and she cannot afford to lose his support."
http://www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/samplechapter/7742/Powell_03-73920800rdz.pdf
"An obvious and common goal for a targeting paedophile is to develop a relationship with a single mum."
ReplyDeleteYes, many of us have been aware of this for some time. Does anybody remember the fuss when it was suggested that home educating mothers might be at particular risk of this type of individual? I won't go into the various reasons for this now, but there was a suggestion that it might be wise to run CRB checks on men in the home who were not the biological fathers of any of the children. This was treated by some in the home education world as a terrible idea, but was intended specifically for scenarios of this sort.
But why pick out HE single mothers? The vast majority of children at this particular risk attend school. There may be a slightly increased risk for HE single mothers, but that's debatable since the attention of the public is likely to be drawn to the family as a result of HE. The report makes the point that paedophiles attempts to appear as normal as possible which would make HE less likely.
Delete"Yes, many of us have been aware of this for some time"
DeleteI have certainly, but your bafflement made me wonder if you were. You expressed surprise that someone would stay with an abuser yet it's a well recognized phenomenon.
'Have you ever known EO as an organisation to suggest that people flee social workers?'
ReplyDeleteNot openly, no. But the whole thrust of the organisation is geared towards keeping any professionals out of the home. Here is a sample letter which EO suggests is used if the local authority gets in touch and requests a meeting;
Dear
Thank you for your letter. Please note that it is not convenient for you to visit
us in the near future, and I would ask you to keep all correspondence in
writing for the time being. I will not be returning the questionnaire included
with your letter as it is not relevant to our style of education.
There is no sample letter for home educators to write back saying, 'Yes, next thursday will be fine'! The assumption is that home educating parents will be refusing to allow people into their homes. The fear and mistrust of social workers is all of a piece with this attitude.
These letters are downloads, meant for use. There's no control over who has access to them, EO does't have any contact whatsoever with many who use those sample letters.
DeleteThat is irresponsible.
What's irresponsible about giving people information about the law of the land? Or do you think that only the 'right sort' of person should have access to correct legal information?
DeleteIf you're incabable of finding the laws for yourself and writing a letter to assert your lawful rights...then you probably aren't the 'right sort'.
DeleteIf you have no intention of ever meeting up with a local support group...then you're probably not 'the right sort'.
DeleteIf you're intolerant of other races, religions and lifestyles..then you probably aren't 'the right sort'.
DeleteNo, the assumption is that those who don't mind home visits don't need help writing a letter! In my experience most home educators just have the visit. And these are replies to education inspectors, not Social Workers!
ReplyDeleteThe Government guidelines clearly make the point that home visits and sight of the child cannot be insisted upon. Is the whole thrust of the government geared towards keeping any professionals out of the home? Or are they just stating the law? Why should EO offer different information?
ReplyDeleteno home visits us for Peter not one in the 9 years we have home educated jsut stick to the law that will do for me wish lA would!
ReplyDeleteBut it's not against the law for LAs to visit home educators, and some home educators prefer visits, finding them easier than reports or finding other alternatives.
Deleteit is agianst the law to visit a home and annoy a family when there have made it clear to the LA in writing that there do not want a home visit!
ReplyDelete"Their fears are rooted not so much in prejudice, but in a perhaps exaggerated reaction to real events."
ReplyDeleteSo would you say that someone who fears all black people after hearing about a couple of black muggers are not prejudiced, but displaying an exaggerated reaction to real events?
Prejudice is the holding of unreasonable preconceived judgements or convictions. Fearing all black people because of the actions of two is prejudice, and likewise, LAs are prejudiced if they assume home educators are more likely to abuse their children because of the actions of two.
Even if it just so happens that two of those they have fears about are volunteers with Britain's most prominent HE support charity?
ReplyDeleteYes. They are still a tiny proportion of the HE population and they are not talking about checking up on volunteers, they are talking about checking up on parents. They don't suggest checks on parents who happen to make use of a nursery or school that has been found to employ a paedophile yet in these cases the paedophile has sole charge of the children in their care - unlike EO volunteers whose main contact is with parents. Why should home educators be treated differently? Isn't that a sign of prejudice?
ReplyDeleteThere is also no evidence that one of the people you are talking about did anything wrong. Unless you think it's wrong to be targeted by a paedophile, effectively to be a victim? By a criminal who had nothing to do with EO or HE at the time.
What would you need to see or hear to make you raise the alarm?
DeleteThere are download sample letters available through the EO website that allows abusers to evade any sort of scrutiny whatsoever. Abusers do not have to be registered as members to access them, abusers do not have to attend meetings to access them...
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly the sort of loophole that abusers exploit.
I'm sure most people do not need standard letters - the Government HE guidelines provide plenty of information on the law.
DeleteIt's obvious that you hold a misguided and naive liberal attitude that prevents you from looking at EO objectively.
ReplyDeleteThey've been actively avoiding issues like this for years.
Exactly how do you suggest EO should vet people before allowing them access to information about the law surrounding HE? Maybe they should ask for a CRB check? Except that's not possible. A police background check? Again, not possible. Idiot.
DeleteI think you need to ask them that question. After all, you pay the membership fees.
DeleteAnd.. do try to get a hold on your aggression issues, it really doesn't show home educators in a very good light.
I'm not a member. But since there is no legal way for them to vet members there seems little point in asking EO. Effectively you want a group of people to take a look at a person, maybe ask them a few questions, and then decide if they are good enough to be given information about English law. How would you recommend they reach this decision? Maybe they could ask the member if they have any plans or history of abusing children? Maybe you are not an idiot, but your views will appear idiotic if you can't explain them any better than this.
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