1. The CfC Council ( The Board of FICE UK )

The Caring for Children Annual General Meeting was held on 19th June 2002 at Prospects for young People in Wrexham. After the formal business Keith White spoke about the need for society at large to attach more importance to children, which was afterwards published under the title The Last of the Others? in the July edition of the Web Mag.

The following Officers were elected for a period of two years.

Chair: Keith White Vice chair: Richard Rollinson
Treasurer: Karen Vitler Secretary: Kathleen Lane

( Under the CfC statutes I have reached the limit of the time for which I am able to hold the office of Secretary, but I have agreed to serve for one year only, or less if someone else can be found to take over my workload ).

Caring for Children now has a strong Council and we look forward to moving into a more active phase of work in the coming year with the following personnel:

Keith White Director of Mill Grove in South East London.
Richard Rollinson Regional Director of the Peper Harrow Foundation
Karen Vitler Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University
Kathleen Lane Former Tutor at the University of Huddersfield
Marion Thorpe Social Worker
Ewan Anderson Honorary Visiting Professor, York University
Stephen Lloyd Director of The Hesley Group
Stephen Elliott Co-Director, Prospects for Young People.

2. The current social and political context.

Colleagues may remember that the last report from the UK included material about the Laming Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie and the aftermath of the death of Lauren Wright. As a result of the lessons learned from the deaths of these two little girls, more systems will now be put in place to ensure greater co-operation and information-sharing between Health, Education and Social Services agencies at local level to avoid children's injuries being overlooked.

The recent weeks have been dominated by news of the murder of two ten-year-old girls from a quiet little village in Cambridgeshire. Its name was known to me only because, when I was a trainee teacher, fellow students were sent to Soham Village College on Teaching Practice. Now the names of the girls and the village are known around the world and thousands of people from every corner of the world where there is access to the Internet have been sending messages of sympathy to the bereaved families.

Their disappearance, the frantic search for them and finally the discovery of their dead bodies has cast a deep shadow over what should be care-free summer holidays for all school children in England and Wales. It has raised issues about how much and how close supervision children should get. We know that it is not healthy to stay in doors with computers and TVs. We know that children should be outside enjoying fresh air and taking exercise, learning road sense and developing an idea of taking responsibility for themselves. Even so, I found myself getting irate when I saw young children out on their own while the search was going on. But then I recognised the dilemma. Is more caring to encourage children to develop in a wider context, or is it necessary to keep them indoors, or within parental sight, because of the hideous dangers they might face alone ?

The ideal, of course, would be for all adults to recognise their caring responsibility to all children and to stop abusing them emotionally, beating them, starving them, and killing them accidentally or on purpose.

It would seem that this is another occasion when a system for checking on individuals who are working close to children failed. Of course any system is liable to fail and is only ever as good as the people who operate it. We do not need more systems. We do need a complete revolution in the way in which we regard children world-wide.

One other global issue which must concern us all because of the potential impact on the future generations is the constant beaming into our homes of images of aggression and violence of factions around the world and the renewed threat of war in the Middle East.

The things which are happening to children at home and abroad are simply not acceptable and perhaps as FICE members we should all be more active in our role as Peace Messengers.

3. The Web Mag

The Mag continues to grow from strength to strength, due to the dedication of the production team. The present management arrangements will change at the end of the year and vigorous attempts are being made to find sponsorship for the next phase of the development.

The same dedicated team is presently working on the FICE Web site. We hope that it will be as successful as the Mag has become. But as with the Mag members must be prepared to contribute items actively, in order to keep readers interested..

The massive use of the Internet by people after the deaths of the two little girls from Soham
demonstrates what an impact this medium can have. The CfC Council all hope that the new site will be well used and will lead to a great expansion in the work of FICE.

4. PEP

There are two more applications from German candidates being considered by potential hosts at this moment. The webmag has, of course, been used to publish reports of previous placements.

5. Congress 2004

Keith White and Professor Ewan Anderson are participating in the planning process with colleagues from Scotland who aim to offer the FICE Congress 2004.

Personal footnote.

This is my last UK Report and Berlin will be the last FICE Federal Council which I shall attend on behalf of the UK. For the last ten years it has been good to spend a short time each spring and autumn in a different place, but with the mostly same colleagues, who are all special in their own way. I shall look forward to a whole new series of Footloose in FICE articles by a new author, to keep in touch with how things are going.

I would like to thank the many colleagues with whom I have worked over the years for their friendship and tolerance of the eccentric English.

Kathleen Lane
Secretary CfC
FICE UK

22nd August 2002