Before
Christmas
We had an invitation to 10, Downing Street during December, but unfortunately
we were otherwise engaged. Cherie Blair was hosting a party for disadvantaged
children, and the invitation was to witness the lighting of the Christmas
tree. We hope that the thirty children enjoyed their party.
We just want to express our appreciation for Cherie Blair’s
involvement in charitable work with children. She has a busy life,
as the Prime Minister’s wife, as a mother and in her legal work.
Getting involved in charity work is not a requirement. It is not in
her job description. She doesn’t get paid for it. It is a matter
of choice. So, thankyou; the time she puts in is appreciated.
The
Chancellor Speaks
We have made the point before now that this Government has done more
for children than any other in the course of British history. This
was underlined again when Gordon Brown made his pre-budget speech in
early December. It included money for counsellors to help parents and
children in inner city schools, improvements to the Tax Credit systems,
the launch of a youth community service and the introduction of lead
professionals to oversee the cases of children with extra needs. If
services for children and young people are to be properly funded, the
support of the Treasury is vital, and the Chancellor’s interest
in meeting their needs is to be welcomed.
Education,
Education, Education
Do you have the feeling that you have heard that phrase before somewhere?
It’s everywhere at the moment. As we go to press, there is a
major rumpus going on about the line the Government is taking on education,
with large-scale rebellions by back-benchers and even the Deputy Prime
Minister expressing his doubts about the plans being put forward by
Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly.
We don’t propose to go into detail here, but we are concerned
at the amount of interference by central Government in this field,
and the diminution of control by Local Education Authorities. It is
LEAs which are in a position to plan for their localities, to make
the systems work and to devise fine-tuning to deal with individual
cases which do not fit. The Government’s proposals appear to
undermine their power to carry out these roles.
It all seems to be part of a centralising process in which the Government
know best. The Secretary of State, for example, has declared that everyone
must teach reading using synthetic phonics. We would prefer that this
decision was left to teachers. If a whole service and profession is
run by diktat from a central power base, even if it is benign, the
effect will stifle initiative and commitment.
ADSS
RIP
It
was inevitable. With the changes taking place in the splitting of Social
Services Departments into services for children and adults respectively,
it was only a matter of time before the Association of Directors of
Social Services had to split into two as well. The Executive Council
decided to form two linked associations, with the children’s
association opening discussions with ADECS.
Over the last thirty five years, ADSS has played a key role in representing
the services to Government. It has been efficient and effective, not
least because it has retained a narrow membership – Directors
only, and by consulting with them, it was able to represent their views
on the national picture accurately.
Will the Social Care Association go the same way? Its membership
is made up of workers involved with the whole range of client groups.
It could be argued that it would be more effective if it were focused
more sharply by splitting into two like ADSS. Nick Johnson, as the
new Chief Executive of SCA, will no doubt be having to think hard about
this one.
AIEJI
The
International Association of Social Educators, which for historical
reasons is known by the initials AIEJI, has held its four-yearly Congress
in Montevideo. The outcome of its elections for the Board for the next
four years includes a number of people who have held office for some
time, but there are new faces as well.
President: Benny Andersen, Denmark
General Secretary: Lars Steinov, Denmark
Treasurer: Jean-Marc Roethlisberger, Switzerland
Regional Officer : Latin America Ignacio Arcos, Uruguay
Regional Officer : Middle East Emmanuel Grupper, Israel
Regional Officer : North America Martin Mitchell, USA
Regional Officer : Europe Jordi Usurriaga, Spain
Heike Beerman, Germany
Marco Corrente, Italy
Michael Forster, USA
Siv Karin Kjoellmoen, Norway
David Ventura, Lluch
Eusebio Manuel Nájera Martinez, Chile
Paola Scarpa, Italy
Gustavo Velastegui, France
Thomas Vollmer, Germany
50,000
Women
At
one of her recent farewell events on leaving her post as Chief Executive
of the National Child Minding Association, Gill Haynes (with apologies
to the men present) said that one of the satisfactions of the job was
working with 50,000 women.
For those who don’t know about the NCMA, it has a huge membership,
and they are nearly all women. The figure makes the point that, despite
all the attempts to improve equality between the sexes over the last
few decades, professional child care remains an essentially female
preserve.
In youth work, men are well represented. In children’s homes,
there is a mix, but more women than men. In social work women outnumber
men. Nursery nurses are overwhelming women. Very few childminders are
men, and nearly all of them have wives or female partners who are also
registered. One may exist, but we have never met a male nanny? (Would
he have to be termed a billy?)
Does this imbalance matter? Or should we accept that it actually
reflects very fundamental differences between the interests and competences
of the two sexes? It is not a subject on which posturing to make points
helps, whatever one’s angle. It needs careful consideration in
the planning of the workforce, because, if we do conclude that the
balance is wrong, a game plan will need to be established which changes
the basic thinking and expectations of the populace at large.
The imbalance is the result of millions of personal decisions, within
a context of legislation, pay and conditions etc. established by the
community at large. It is individual members of the community who are
the potential recruits to childcare posts and the consumers of the
services on offer, and it is their views which will need changing.
Roller
Coaster – Exciting but Dangerous?
Gill Haynes also said that life as a Chief Executive of a large organisation
is a roller coaster, moving fast, with its highs, but also with sudden
unexpected dips. It is stressful, and people in such posts need their
mechanisms to cope with stress, whether it is consulting their private
gurus, whacking a golf ball or relaxing with a bottle of wine.
Looking dispassionately at the managerial needs of the child care
service, we need people who will work under stress and address difficult
problems without ducking them, keeping a level head while maintaining
the values and attitudes that need to permeate children’s services.
We need them not to burn out, if we are to avoid discontinuity of management
and all the problems associated with a senior manager going downhill.
The question is how we best do this. Most senior managers work punishingly
long hours, and they obtain satisfaction from doing so – seeing
tasks finished, knowing that they have a grasp of the issues, enjoying
the teamwork developed through supporting their colleagues and so on.
It is hard for trustees, councillors and other outsiders to tell them
to ease off. Which bits should they miss out? Will people be happy
if tasks are given a lower priority or are delayed?
Clearly there are approaches which can enable senior managers to
review their workloads and prioritise, but one area which does not
seem to have been considered is the workload placed on organisations
by the Government and quality assurance quangos. We suspect that there
is room for a considerable reduction in stress and quite a large saving
to be made in the workforce if funding systems were made simpler and
there were fewer demands for information.
Our argument is backed up by a crisis in education in London at present.
The situation has become critical in relation to the recruitment of
head teachers. There are long-standing gaps, and some heads are having
to oversee more than one school. There is a message here. When people
enter a profession because of their interest in teaching children,
their job satisfaction disappears if all they are doing is to play
bureaucratic games to satisfy Ofsted and the DfES.
Dehydrated?
We are carrying
an article in this issue about recent research into the state of children’s
hydration in schools. It makes alarming reading. The fact that the
research was funded by the British Soft Drinks Association, who might
be thought to have an interest in the subject, does not invalidate
it. We have heard a number of anecdotes of children being denied the
opportunity to obtain drinks in school. The reason given in one school
was that they did not want the children disrupting classes by having
to go to the toilet. In another case, it was alleged that water was
denied so that children would buy a proprietary brand of drinks from
a vending machine. Whether these anecdotes are true or not, it is a
subject of importance, and requires attention.
Well
Oiled?
Meanwhile,
research in County Durham has shown that children do better if they
have more fish oil, with its omega 3 and 6 content. The study showed
that the number of children involved in poor behaviour was reduced
from 47% to 4%, and that communication skills were improved. The research
was funded by Sure Start, - not the County Durham Cod Liver Oil Company.
So if research is showing that children should drink more water and
have extracts of fish oil, what else should they be eating or drinking?
And what should they be avoiding? Does someone have a perfect diet,
so that they all behave well, communicate superbly, function well academically
etc.?
Other research in Philadelphia has indicated that babies are influenced
by flavours that they pick up from their mothers in the womb or in
milk. So if we want children to eat and drink all the right things,
their mothers should eat and drink them too. It sounds a bit like passive
smoking, only beneficial.
Nothing
to do with Children?
It’s
that time of the year when they put a lot of salt on the roads. Obviously
it’s meant to make the roads less icy, but what actually happens
is that vehicles all turn a rather nasty grey. This has led to a whole
new school of graffiti, especially on “white” vans.
The first ones said, “Wash me”. That was a few years
back. Then someone wittier had a go, “Do not disturb. Potatoes
planted”. A few years back, “Also available in white”
first appeared.
This year I have seen two new ones (ignoring those which are unprintable).
The first went, “Treated with anti-glare paint to save drivers’
eyesight”. (Actually, for editorial correctness, we’ve
added in the apostrophe). The second read, “If you can read this,
you are an idiot”. Probably true if you were doing 90 miles per
hour.
This leads us on to the general question of graffiti. Those quoted
above are ephemera, and will disappear in the next washing. But those
in stronger materials on permanent buildings and fittings stay there
for everyone to see. They can cause annoyance and cost a lot to remove,
so it is understandable that graffiti-spraying is seen as anti-social
or even criminal.
We see it as people wanting to mark their territory – like
dogs and lamp-posts. A lot of our urban landscapes are very impersonal
– wire-mesh fences, grey concrete walls, faceless office blocks
and so on. It is hardly surprising if people want to personalise them.
In some parts this has become a fine art – in Northern Ireland,
for example, where the latest example is a gable end with a big tribute
to George Best painted on it.
But why shouldn’t we do more of it? Why is it all right for
big business to put up adverts everywhere, while local people have
nowhere to express themselves? There have to be some limits obviously,
but why can’t there be areas where it is acceptable to do a bit
of spraying? It could let off steam, provide opportunities for people
to say what they think, and give character to boring parts of towns.
And some graffiti might be so good that people would want to keep them.
Certainly
Nothing to do with Children
Baroness
Lucy Faithfull was one of England’s great champions of children
and she did much for their cause. Although a Conservative peer in Margaret
Thatcher’s time, she retained an independent point of view and
did not shrink from arguing her case. She was charming and kind, and
many people have fond memories of her.
We recall one story she told about a friend of hers whose cat had
died. The lady lived in a small flat in London and had nowhere to bury
her late pet. She did not want to dump it in the dustbin, which she
thought disrespectful to her cherished moggy. She consulted Lucy, who
suggested a variant on burial at sea. So, late one night to avoid attention,
the two elderly ladies took the dead cat in a box, appropriately wrapped,
with a view to dropping it into the River Thames off Westminster Bridge
near to the Houses of Parliament. They paused, in order to say a few
fitting words to express the loss of the animal, and were about to
launch it over the edge when a young jogger passed by, snatched the
box off them, and ran off into the night.....
Please email us, if you were that jogger.
Socialna
Pedagogika
We
suspect that the majority of the readers of this column will not be
regular subscribers to this journal, but we think it deserves some
attention. It is the quarterly professional journal of the Association
for Social Pedagogy in Slovenia.
The most recent issue includes articles on :
- the treatment of children and adolescents with disturbed behaviour,
- education for tolerance,
- failures in social policy among Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia
and Latvia,
- stress among employees in residential treatment institutions,
- using social pedagogical methods in a project in rural Uganda
Understandably, the journal is written in Slovenian, but there are
abstracts in English for some of the articles, and if you want to know
more, why not contact one of the Co-editors, Bojan Dekleva, on bojan.dekleva@guest.arnes.si?
Did
You See?.....
..... that a row has broken out between childcare experts (various
newspapers on 12 and 13 December 2005)? Apparently Sheila Kitzinger
has criticised the “boot camp approach to parenthood” advocated
by others such as Gina Ford. They argue for structured routines and
leaving children to cry till they go to sleep. Sheila Kitzinger sees
babies as social beings and says that mothers should take their babies
into their own beds if they need comforting.
This row is as ancient as the hills, and reminds us of Margaret Mead’s
studies of the different ways that different tribes she studied brought
up their children. Be warm and caring to them, and by and large they
will respond to you in the same way. Treat them more harshly and they
will find ways to survive but they may get toughened in the process.
Most parents look for a balance between structure and warmth; the two
are not incompatible.
.....
the excerpts from letters to Santa received by the Royal Mail, quoted
in the Guardian (17 December 2005, p.4)? Among the gems were :
