Monday 11 November 2013

A self-fulfilling prophecy



We saw yesterday that many of the more well-known individuals and organisations connected with home education in this country are known to each other and share a common ideology. There is no harm in this, as long as everybody knows it and takes it into account when listening to what is being said. The danger comes when  new home educating parents who know nothing of this, begin to research the subject online.  Because not only do these people share an ideology, they also have an alarming propensity to lie their heads off when once they are mounted on their hobby horse. This can have catastrophic consequences for the unwary parent. Let me give an example.

Here are three quotations by two people, both of them prominent in the world of British home education;

There is an increasing tendency for welfare officers and social workers to become involved with home-educating families from the outset

I have heard examples of parents discussing the wisdom of taking a child to an emergency ward when they know that a visit will be noted and passed on to the social services

 Experience suggests that parents known to authorities do come under undue pressure to return  children to  school  and this pressure  sometimes  extends to maliciously contacting social services to put further pressure on the parents to ‘cooperate’.  


The first of these statements is by Paula Rothermel and the other two by Mike Fortune-Wood. Rothermel’s appeared in an academic journal and Fortune-Wood’s are to be found on his website; Home Education UK. There are two things to observe here. The first is that these statements are wholly false. There is no local authority in the United Kingdom which involves social workers with home educating families from the start, Casualty Departments do not routinely contact social services when a child is treated and local authorities do not maliciously contact social services, simply to force a child to return to school. This is the first point. The second is that any new home educator scouring the internet for information about home education would be very likely to stumble across pernicious nonsense of this sort and not realise that the man in Wales running the largest home education website in the country is on first name terms with the psychologist in Switzerland who wrote in the academic journal. They certainly would not know that she was reading any comments which the parent posted  on the private internet list connected with the Home Education UK site. In other words, they might think that all this mischievous stuff about social workers originated from two entirely separate sources and was therefore more likely to be true.

Now an anecdote to illustrate the harm that what one might describe as the mainstream home education scene in this country can wreak on the lives of home educating  families. A home educating parent who spent a lot of her time on the internet and believed implicitly the old wives' tales being peddled by the likes of Paula Rothermel and Mike Fortune-Wood, had occasion to take her six year old daughter to hospital. It was  technically an emergency, although one involving a fairly trifling injury. Because she had made the most strenuous efforts to avoid being known to her local authority and had been led to believe that social workers were limbs of Satan and would force her to send her child to school if they heard about her,  she drove to a hospital in another  part of the city. Not only that, she gave a false name and address.  Possibly, she had read what Mike Fortune-Wood had written about this; although I don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that she was fanatically keen to remain, ‘under the radar’ as home educators call it.  Her story unraveled and she then openly admitted her real identity and the child was treated. She thought no more about it, until two social workers turned up on her doorstep the next day. Yes, she not only become known to her local authority, but also became embroiled with social services. This was nothing to do with home education. Had she just gone to her local  hospital and given her proper name, nobody would have cared. Her misfortune was a direct result of reading the kind of malicious rubbish which I quoted above.

14 comments:

  1. Was that a made up story or an actual case? Where did you find out about it?

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  2. True story! I heard about it because practically all our relatives and friends are either teachers or social workers. It was in Manchester, where my sister has lived for the last thirty odd years. One can see why home educating parents don't like their children being interviewed alone! The mother gave a phony surname and stumbled over the spelling. Somebody asked the daughter while the mother was occupied and then the cat was out of the bag. When asked outright, the mother then blushed and got muddled up, before giving her real name and address. The crazy thing about the entire episode was that nobody would have cared in the least about the kid being home educated. they're usually too busy in casualty to worry about such matters. The problem is that this trick of visiting different hospitals under various false names is very popular with both Munchausen's by proxy parents and also abusers who are afraid that they will become too well known at their local hospital. If you want to attract the attention of social services, you could not come up with a better way of doing so. The social workers didn't know much about home education and took a history; being amazed at the lengths that anybody would go to to avoid them.

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  3. Worn out Webb says"The crazy thing about the entire episode was that nobody would have cared in the least about the kid being home educated. they're usually too busy in casualty to worry about such matters."

    The hospital staff can refer children parents to social services if their where unsure about the law on home education thinking as many do that all children should be at school or if their wanted to just cause trouble for the family it does not take more than a few minute for staff at a hospital to phone or email social services over a concern.
    I always been up front and told any one who asked that i home educated our son Peter and do not have any meeting or home visits from Hampshire LA and a SAO was served on us but we just carried on home educating referring all inquires from the council to our county councilor Dr Ludow

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  4. I have more than once remarked, Mr Williams, that you act very much like some sock puppet of mine; popping up to illustrate my points for me. Anybody wishing to see the sort of credulous dupe programmed by people like Rothermel and Fortune-Wood could do no better than read the above comment.

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    1. are you saying that it takes hospital staff a long time to refer a family to social services and if so why as it would only take a quick phone call or email to alert SS

      are you also saying that a family should not contact its county councilor for help with its LA?

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    2. 'are you saying that it takes hospital staff a long time to refer a family to social services and if so why as it would only take a quick phone call or email to alert SS'

      You carry on, Mr Williams! You are making my point very forcibly; the point being that idiots like Paula Rothermel and Mike Fortune-Wood manage to create an atmosphere of paranoia among weak minded individuals like yourself.

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    3. Worn out Webb says"among weak minded individuals like yourself".

      Dont think we weak Webb saw off a SAO with no home visits or a meeting with our LA not bad for some one who weak LOL

      answer the question are you saying that it takes hospital staff a long time to refer a family to social services and if so why as it would only take a quick phone call or email to alert SS'

      Good new is the further Maths A level course is going really well for Peter along side the A level physics bet your pleased about that?

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  5. "I heard about it because practically all our relatives and friends are either teachers or social workers"

    What an oddly constrained set of friends and family.

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    1. 'What an oddly constrained set of friends and family'

      I'm not sure about that. very often, certain professions run in families and this also tends to affect their social life. For instance one might find a doctor, whose daughters become nurses and whose friends are mostly other doctors. I've seen the same thing with scrap metal dealers or even farmers. Still, I suppose that making a personal remark of that sort is easier than addressing the substance of what I said in the original post.

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  6. The hospital staff can refer children parents to social services if their where unsure about the law on home education thinking as many do that all children should be at school or if their wanted to just cause trouble for the family it does not take more than a few minute for staff at a hospital to phone or email social services over a concern.

    More rubbish from Williams. Mrs Cheshire Cat is a nurse who has worked in A & E and feels a bit aggrieved at these comments. She would like to know why nurses would want to ‘just cause trouble for the family’. Does Mr Williams think nurses are all trouble causers?
    Finally I think peter is doing well at college despite home education rather than because of it.

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    1. Are you saying Hospital staff never refer children parents to social services? of course not all nurses want to cause trouble but some could due to lack of understanding about home education most people still believe that all children go to school and are blissfully aware of home education and that it is legal in England.
      I remember few years ago at a chess event number of parents would ask me is it really ok to home educate and what about the authority how do you go about it i was surprised at how little these parents knew about home education same with Joe public many people have no knowledge of home education thinking all children go to school.

      interesting enough the college teachers said Peter was well prepared for the A levels thanks to the teaching i had given him which was very nice to hear. I used to print off mock GCSE and A level papers for maths and physics for Peter to work on then go thought it with him to see where he gone right or wrong! that is the beauty of the net all that knowledge just a click away.

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  7. No. There are obviously occasions when nursing staff do refer children but the amount of time needed to deal with these cases means that staff don’t simply do it 'just to cause trouble' as you suggest.

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    1. who knows but just like in life you get bad staff who may do this a phone call or email to SS would soon set the ball rolling and of course you get good staff who go the extra mile to help you when your ill

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  8. Cheshire Cat wrote:

    "Finally I think peter is doing well at college despite home education rather than because of it."

    Given the state of maths and physics education in state schools, I doubt that Mr Williams and his methods could do any worse. I hear that most physics teachers aren't physics graduates, and that would fit-in with what the schools turn-out (A* A-levels are no guarantee of a decent science/maths education).

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