A
report from the Annual General Meeting of the
National Children’s Bureau
A
lot has happened in the last forty years. Ann Sofer, the Chair of
the National Children’s Bureau, thought back to what she was
doing forty years ago. The big news story was President Kennedy’s
assassination, but for her personally it was her experience as a
mother in maternity hospital - the way that the professionals were
trusted, were dominant over patients, and felt that they had no
duty to give explanations to patients. But she noted that while
the adult patients put up with this, the babies expressed their
outrage at the hospital’s feeding regime by continuous bawling,
and on discharge they left the hospital exhausted.
The
big story forty years ago in the field of children was the establishment
of the Plowden Committee. Conditions in many of the schools at that
time were ghastly, and the Committee recommended the establishment
of Education Priority Areas. Ann Sofer’s view was that by
and large the Plowden Committee’s targets had been achieved,
especially in the following two decades, and that conditions in
schools are now demonstrably better.
A
lot has happened in the last forty years. There has been a decline
in deference to professionals and a loss of trust. Now we have consultation,
fora in which views can be expressed, pressure for change from below,
and expectations of consensual decision-making.
The
NCB has reflected that change. Instead of presuming to be the powerful
voice of children, its strapline is now the more modest “making
a difference”. It is a strapline which it fulfils. While remaining
independent enough to be able to speak out when it dislikes the
line taken by the Government, it is nonetheless fully involved in
the drafting of Government policy and guidelines.
Young
NCB
There
have now been young members on the NCB Board for over a year, and
it is NCB practice to involve young people in virtually every aspect
of the Bureau’s work. An encouraging aspect of Government
consultations was that young people were now being involved to give
their views on issues which were not directly affecting them. That’s
proper respect.
Two
of the young NCB members spoke at the AGM of the events they had
organised, their training programmes to help young people to lead
in conferences and workshops, the national media coverage of their
activities, and their work on the image of young people, which had
resulted in the use of the slogan, “Don’t judge a book
by its cover”. They had concluded that everybody judged young
people, (including young people) and some of the judgements were
off beam.
The
Green Paper
Paul
Ennals, the Chief Executive of the NCB, majored on the Green Paper,
Every Child Matters, and spoke of the NCB’s involvement in
the drafting and consultation process. The NCB had assisted the
Government by gathering evidence, holding seminars, bringing together
the key childcare organisations for consultations and seconding
staff to help in drafting. This is good news, though it did not
guarantee that the NCB was happy with every aspect of the Green
Paper, nor that it would not respond in the consultations critically
where it felt it was necessary.
For
example, while there could be nothing but support for the basic
principles enunciated in the Green Paper, there was disquiet that
the fields of youth justice, hospital care for children and play
were all omitted from a document which was meant to be all-encompassing.
The
main concern, though, which was echoed in contributions from the
floor, was that there was a risk of action being rushed, when some
of the proposals needed evaluation of pilots, careful consultation
with professional groups to ensure they were all on-side, and detailed
planning of the measures, such as the comprehensive records of children
and young people. It was thought better for the Government to do
the preliminary work thoroughly than try to demonstrate speedy achievement.
-
What was being learnt from the pilot Children’s Trusts? The
timescale suggested that general implementation was expected before
lessons could be learnt.
- What impact would it have on school management if they became
the hubs of activity for the wider society? Would a new breed of
managers be needed, rather than teachers?
- Could a common assessment system for children be agreed, when
what was required was something that could cope with their whole
childhoods, and not just initial information-gathering?
- And how would the co-ordinatory data-bases cope with children
whose names were randomly changed by parents? Would they have a
single identifying reference number, or a new one for each name?
- Had the role of the voluntary sector been taken on board?
- To whom would lead professionals be accountable?
- Could a single Sector Skills Council be set up to oversee training
for professionals working with children and young people?
“There’s
a lot still to think out; best not to rush it”, was the conclusion,
or the systems might be discredited before they were properly established.
The
Next Forty Years?
The
list of the NCB’s achievements to date is very impressive.
It is well placed to have an even bigger impact in the next forty,
not least because people are taking children and young people more
seriously. There is still a lot to get right, but this Government
has put time and resources both into overcoming child poverty and
into meeting specific needs - tough on exclusion and tough on the
causes of exclusion. We shall wait and see what the Children’s
Bill looks like, but the NCB will no doubt be wading in to ensure
that it reflects research findings about what works and represents
good practice.
