Floods in Romania
Parts
of Romania and Serbia have suffered severe floods and the damage
has been considerable. Only one person has lost her life, but
hundreds of cattle were drowned, houses have been inundated
and thousands made homeless.
Romania
is a poor country, and the schools and other children’s
provision in the area have been hit badly. If you have contact
with a charity serving Romania, consider giving an extra donation
to help them set up schools and nurseries again.
If
you are not sure where to send contributions, ask Professor
Toma Mares, the FICE President for Romania, on fice@home.ro
or ficeromania@hotmail.com who has been requesting toys, Lego
etc. to help towards re-equipment.
Words
In
his last In Residence
column, Keith White raised some interesting questions about
the terminology for bringing up, raising, educating or caring
for children. It is not just a question of finding a term for
a new object, such as a DVD, where anyone who comes across them
knows what they are if they are taught the right word. It is
a question of whether the concept is actually understood - (does
the idea actually exist in the culture in question?) - or whether
it has different connotations for reasons of usage or history.
This
struck us in relation to the terms used for children and young
people the other day at a conference in the Netherlands. In
the United Kingdom, we use children
both to cover everyone up to the age of eighteen, as in legislation,
and more particularly for those who are beyond babyhood but
are not yet adolescent.
For
the older ones, we use the term young
people. In the USA and many other parts of the
world the term is youth
for this group, for example in talking of child
and youth care. Although youth is an acceptable
word in youth club
or youth worker,
it often carries derogatory connotations in the United Kingdom.
If you see a youth in the street, you can guarantee that he
is hooded and up to no good.
At
the conference in Holland, the common term in use for children
and young people was clearly youngsters.
My impression is that in the United Kingdom the word is used
occasionally but not frequently in this way, and that, when
it is used, it usually refers to younger children, say ten years
old and under.
The
Oxford English Dictionary mentions this usage but also says
the term relates to young adults and young sailors on board
ship, as well as young animals. You learn something every day.
Montevideo
Calling
Ever
fancied a trip to South America? The distance may be off-putting
for Europeans, but we are told that once one is there, the costs
are very low.
AIEJI
(the International Association of Social Educators) is holding
its Congress in Montevideo from 15 – 18 November 2005,
and if you want an excuse to visit South America, here is one.
AIEJI holds its Congresses every four years, and they are usually
well attended, with full programmes and excellent chances to
network.
AIEJI
has good connections in South America (unlike FICE) and there
is a lot of good child care going on, sometimes in the face
of punitive police and unsupportive governments. Child care
workers in South America are sometimes called on to show courage
in championing the children they work with. Europeans will have
a lot to learn from them.
If
you want to know more about AIEJI or think you might be tempted
to take a trip to Montevideo, have a look at their Spring newsletter
on www.aieji.net.
Unqualified
Social Workers
Did
this term strike you as anomalous? Probably not, because it’s
a term we’ve been used to in the United Kingdom. But it
is now no longer acceptable. The title of social worker is now
protected, and you can only call yourself a social worker if
you are qualified and registered with the General Social Care
Council.
Being
an unqualified social worker is therefore a legal impossibility
in the United Kingdom, and any employers who had such posts
will have had to retitle them. This applies also to residential
social workers, a title which has been widely used in the United
Kingdom, in particular for residential child care workers, over
the last thirty years. Unfortunately, the percentage of qualified
post-holders is not high, and it is reported that employers
have been retitling the posts so that they are not hamstrung
by the requirement to appoint registered workers.
There
is obviously a long way to go if we are ever to get a properly
trained workforce in residential care, and first we still have
to persuade those in power that qualifying training is actually
needed if workers are to be let loose on the most damaged and
needy children.
Changing
Standards
We
are risking trouble, perhaps, by printing these postcards, but
it is an issue worth raising. As a matter of policy, we are
very careful only to print properly authorised pictures of children,
and nothing that can be seen as salacious. The two pictures
shown here are on public sale and are copies of Pears’
soap advertisements from a few decades back.
Pears
had an excellent reputation when they were published and the
pictures were very popular. Presumably, since they are being
re-issued, it is thought that people will still think them attractive.
If they were current photographs, though, there could well be
questions about their propriety.
Does
the sentimental view of children associated with the era when
they were first published make them acceptable? Are we jumping
at shadows if we are concerned? In recent times, fathers have
been worried about bathing their daughters because of possible
allegations. Are we placing unnecessary strictures on ourselves
because of the behaviour of a small minority? Should we feel
easy about printing seemingly innocent pictures of this sort?
Victorian
Values 1
We
are carrying a Soapbox article which indicates the depth of
feeling aroused by Hazel Blears’s suggestion that young
offenders doing community sentences should wear uniforms to
shame them.
We
think this is a half-hearted measure, and that she should go
the whole hog and re-introduce the full raft of Victorian measures
used to shame offenders. The uniforms should of course be striped
and have big arrows on them.
Then,
for offenders who need a shorter sharper shock and a bit of
public humiliation, why not bring back the stocks? All those
outdated supermarket vegetables could be bought up cheaply by
the Government and provided to hard-working citizens to throw
at the yobs. (Did you notice during the recent General Election
that politicians of all parties kept referring to “hardworking
taxpayers”, by implication ignoring retired voters and
slugabeds?)
For
those who are intransigent, there would be the chain gang or
transportation, perhaps to St Helena, as Australia might not
co-operate, or as volunteers to tidy up Chernobyl. And for those
who do not own up to their crimes, there could be the rack.
Of
course, all this would need to apply to adults as well as children.
A quick application of the rack would no doubt have helped the
Hutton Inquiry get to the truth. But maybe politicians would
want to be exempted from the measures they appear to be happy
to dish out to others.
On
second thoughts, we should avoid even the first foot-step down
the slippery slope to punitivity.
Victorian
Values 2
A
hundred and twenty years ago there was a movement for Oxbridge
colleges to do good in the inner city parts of London by setting
up settlements. It is easy to condemn such developments as patronising,
but they were certainly well intentioned, and they alerted a
proportion of the privileged section of society to the realities
of daily life for the poor and disadvantaged.
The
only one of these settlements to survive and offer continuous
service since 1885 is Pembroke House in Walworth in the London
Borough of Southwark. It is continuing to adapt to modern circumstances
and offers a wide range of services to its neighbourhoods.
There
are the usual links with people from Pembroke College in Cambridge
visiting Southwark and people from Southwark visiting Cambridge,
but there are also fascinating projects such as Young Visions,
which is designed “to create opportunities for young people
in Southwark to explore and think through their futures, and
the way Further and Higher Education could provide a foundation
to their professional aspirations”.
There
has also been the Academy of Music, which has used lottery money
to encourage young people in the area to take an interest in
music. They have ten tutors, who provide weekly tuition in clarinet,
saxophone, trumpet, trombone, drums, piano, violin, viola, double
bass, bass guitar and guitar, as well as singing. The London
Philharmonic Orchestra has got involved too.
We
think this is great, a good example of Victorian values which
need to be maintained, and if any critic still thinks of settlements
as being patronising, we suggest s/he has a look at www.pembrokehouse.org.uk
.
Garden
of Eden
Last
month we wrote about children’s books and mentioned Philip
Pullman’s His Dark Materials. One of the interesting lines
taken in the book is to look on the Garden of Eden story not
as the “fall” when mankind was tempted by the serpent,
bit the forbidden apple and was banished from Eden as a punishment,
but as a necessary stage in progress both for mankind as a whole
and for children as they grow up, becoming self-aware and being
challenged to come to terms with their self-knowledge, their
ability for good and evil.
This
approach is a lot more positive, and makes more sense than the
traditional interpretation of the Eden story, but it does not
actually undermine the original. Without access to the scientific
studies of the last two centuries to provide data about evolution,
it is fascinating that the authors of Genesis had managed to
think their way through the stages of creation and the significant
factors in human development such as the development of self-awareness
at such an early stage in the history of writing.
Did
You See?.....
.....
the study of young adults in several newspapers on 3 May, which
showed that only 5 per cent thought that their parents did not
understand them and only six per cent of those still at home
felt the need to get away and leave home? In fact, the findings
suggested that most young adults are pretty ordinary with ordinary
aspirations, which is quite a relief, in the face of the barrage
of news reports saying how awful today’s youth are.
.....
the report published on line by the Lancet
and quoted in the Guardian
(5 May 2005, p.14) which pointed out that 47% of the children
who stayed at home after allegations of physical abuse or neglect
were subject to abuse in the following three years? The detailed
findings suggest that the involvement of professionals reduces
but does not prevent further abuse. However, it is our experience
that children who are abused frequently do not wish to see their
families broken up and want to belong there, despite all the
abuse they endure. They, and those who work with them, face
a terrible conundrum to which there may be no right answer.
.....
the news item about the elections held in schools? Totalling
all the outcomes, the Lib Dems won, with Conservatives second,
and Labour limping home in third place together with the Greens.
Does this augur well for the Lib Dems and badly for Labour in
coming elections? Or is support for the radical opposition offered
by the Lib Dems simply an adolescent phase?
.....
the research undertaken by Oxford University reported in the
US journal Paediatrics
quoted in several newspapers about the improvement in brain
power among children fed essential oils from fish and nuts?
So that is why all the people in their sixties are so intelligent.
It was the cod liver oil they were forced to consume during
the Second World War. And their good behaviour can presumably
be put down to their diet and the lack of junk food available
in those days (Spam excepted).
From
the Supermarket
We’ve
run out of the howlers from the files for the moment. Yes, they
have all been genuine, and if you’ve got any examples,
please send them, suitably anonymised.
Anyway,
we were in a supermarket the other day and bought a couple of
oranges. The entry on the till roll read Loose
orang. What would it read, we wondered, if we
had actually bought an escaped orang utan?
