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A VOLUNTEER banned from a care home for trying to help a resident has branded her exclusion an injustice’.
Janette Timlett had regularly visited Hill House Nursing Home with her dog, Vincent, for almost three years, but she was told by staff three weeks ago that she could not return.
The ban came after a resident at Hill House relayed personal problems to Ms Timlett, who intervened, with the resident’s permission. She suggested to the home’s managers that an independent social worker might be able help with the issues.
The resident’s concerns are believed to relate to a matter being dealt with by Tower Hamlets Social Services, who Ms Timlett contacted on the resident’s behalf.
In January, Ms Timlett appeared in the Boreham-wood & Elstree Times after residents commended her and Vincent for their visits and brightening up their days’.
But last month, care home officials met members of the social services team and decided Ms Timlett should not return to the BUPA-run home, in Elstree Hill South, Elstree. The decision was based on her earlier contact with the Tower Hamlets officials.
Ms Timlett said: “It is an injustice to the residents that a few people at Hill House can have such control over a situation like this. It’s not just about me and Vincent, but it’s the unfairness that’s being done to the residents.
Archive for October 4th, 2007
Banned from care home for caring
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The Derry Diocesan Child Protection Committee has announced the publication of its first annual report outlining on-going work in the safe-guarding of children and young people involved in church-related activities within the Catholic Diocese of Derry.
The report covers the time from the inception of the committee up until Spring 2007, a period which has seen the development and implementation of child protection policies and procedures throughout the diocese. The ongoing work of the committee has been carried out in keeping with statutory and Church guidelines and in conjunction with the newly established National Board for Child Protection and the associated National Office for Child Protection.
The committee acknowledged Tom Maguire, diocesan child protection co-ordinator, and Mary Bradley, diocesan child protection trainer, who provided information sessions and training for parish representatives and clergy. They are continuing to support parishes in ensuring safe environments for children.
Every Parent Matters
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I stand for a Britain that supports as first class citizens not just some children and some families but supports all children and all families.’ UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s commitment in his conference speech to helping all families sounds liberal and caring. But state intervention in cases of desperate hardship or vulnerability has expanded into an increasingly hands-on approach to family life that undermines parents and important personal freedoms. The publication in June 2007 of the Care Matters: Time for Change White Paper by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has drawn attention to the British state’s poor record with regards children in the care system. Children who have lived in care have poorer educational performance and employment prospects than children living in families, and a stronger likelihood that they’ll go on to get a criminal record or sleep rough. Things have been improving, though. The proportion of children in care in the UK has reduced from around 7.5 per 1,000 (ie, 100,000 children) in the 1970s, to around 5.5 per 1,000 (or 70,000 children) today. But even this is to overestimate the numbers who spend prolonged periods in care. There has also been a shift from a reliance on residential provision (or children’s homes) to foster care and kinship arrangements, and increasing success in keeping children with their families. So, awful as it can be, the care experience is not as bad as it once was. But the care system is just one part of the much larger children’s social care system. While the focus on the dire prospects of the 8,000 young people leaving the care system each year is understandable, it leaves unexamined the broader implications of the so-called ‘corporate parenting’ role assumed by the state. The wider Every Child Matters agenda (which informs Care Matters) is ostensibly the government’s response to the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié at the hands of her carers (her aunt and her aunt’s partner) in 2000. But the reform agenda has remarkably little to say about how to tackle child abuse. Instead, the government has turned a rare child tragedy into a far-reaching agenda for change in the provision of children’s services as a whole. There was an explosion of child protection inquiries in the 1970s, sometimes resulting in legislative and structural change. But never before has a government’s response to a child’s death been so sweeping in its implications for all children and families. The new agenda is about prevention, early intervention and safeguarding – in other words, protecting children from innumerable risks to their well-being, not just (or even predominantly) abuse or neglect.
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Scheme includes cards for children that act both as an identification document and a form of protection
Ministers grappling with the technical and political problems of electronic identity cards are looking with interest at the experience of a close continental neighbour. The government of Belgium expects to be the first to issue multipurpose national chip cards to all citizens and residents.
Unlike Britain, where residents will have to be 16 to qualify for the card, Belgians are eligible from birth. The Belgian government has begun issuing stylishly designed blue and green children’s cards both as an identity and a child protection measure. The kids’ card has three functions, says Joachim Van Eyck, project manager at the federal interior ministry.
Next of kin
First, it acts as an ID document. Second, it provides a way of contacting next of kin if the child gets lost or has an accident. Each card carries a phone number that connects to a cascade of numbers registered by the parents. If there is no answer, the call is transferred to a national child-protection hotline. This function was developed in the national outcry surrounding the case of the paedophile murderer Marc Dutroux, who was tried in 2004.
“The first 24 hours after a child’s disappearance are the most important ones,” Van Eyck says. “If you find a child, or find a card, this system means the parents or the police can be notified right away.”
The card’s third function is internet safety: from the age of six, children can receive a PIN allowing them to sign on to children-only online groups.
The children’s card is part of a national programme to replace existing cards with multi-purpose electronic tokens. Some 6m electronic ID cards have been issued to Belgians; a similar card is being issued to 1.4 million foreigners. Local authorities issue the card, valid for five years, at a cost ranging from nothing to 35 euros (£24.30).
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A TEACHER was yesterday accused of sexually assaulting a girl when he told her that her trouser zipper was down in class. The 11-year-old burst into tears when she described the incident to her headteacher at a County Durham primary school. Supply teacher Tony Tsang, 44, a father of two daughters, was suspended without prejudice protesting his innocence, a jury was told. He told a police Child Protection Unit officer that he pointed at the zipper with his right index finger, but did not touch the girl. He said his finger was six inches away from her and she brushed it away, “pulling up her zipper in embarassment”. Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court yesterday: “She said that his hand went inside her trousers and that he touched her pants.” The allegation emerged when a teaching assistant at the school tried to quieten a group of girls in class by asking: “Have you anything to share with me?” The woman said three girls got up and approached her at the front, and one of them said that she wanted to say something to her in private. The assistant added: “I sent the other two children back to their seats. “The girl said she needed to tell me something that had happened before Christmas, that Mr Tsang had touched her. Her voice was faltering and she was obviously showing signs of distress.
Man ‘groomed’ 12-year-old boy
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A “PREDATORY” paedophile who targeted a 12-year-old boy before fleeing to Prague has been jailed for seven years. James McGill, 52, of Queens Promenade, Bispham groomed the child for sex in 2005 but fled the country after he was arrested by police. The court heard how when detectives arrested him for contact with the boy they found he was wanted in Sussex for serious sexual offences against a 14-year-old boy. Officers later traced McGill to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested and extradited to the UK to face trial for charges of serious sexual assault and indecent assault on the victim in Sussex and a grooming charge for the boy in Fylde. Sentencing McGill, Judge Robert Brown said he had shown “serious and wilful predation”. He was caught in an operation led by Blackpool’s Awaken Project, set up between police and social services to keep track of sex offenders and youngsters at risk. Set up in 2003 following the disappearance of Blackpool schoolgirl Charlene Downes, the scheme aims to combine information from numerous agencies in a bid to cut out child abuse. Det Sgt Neil Fowler said this was the first time the project had been forced to chase a suspect overseas. He added: “In our eyes he is a very dangerous and predatory child sex offender. “We are happy with the sentence because it shows that the judge has carefully considered what this man has done and how serious it is.”
Man ‘groomed’ 12-year-old boy
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A “PREDATORY” paedophile who targeted a 12-year-old boy before fleeing to Prague has been jailed for seven years. James McGill, 52, of Queens Promenade, Bispham groomed the child for sex in 2005 but fled the country after he was arrested by police. The court heard how when detectives arrested him for contact with the boy they found he was wanted in Sussex for serious sexual offences against a 14-year-old boy. Officers later traced McGill to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested and extradited to the UK to face trial for charges of serious sexual assault and indecent assault on the victim in Sussex and a grooming charge for the boy in Fylde. Sentencing McGill, Judge Robert Brown said he had shown “serious and wilful predation”. He was caught in an operation led by Blackpool’s Awaken Project, set up between police and social services to keep track of sex offenders and youngsters at risk. Set up in 2003 following the disappearance of Blackpool schoolgirl Charlene Downes, the scheme aims to combine information from numerous agencies in a bid to cut out child abuse. Det Sgt Neil Fowler said this was the first time the project had been forced to chase a suspect overseas. He added: “In our eyes he is a very dangerous and predatory child sex offender. “We are happy with the sentence because it shows that the judge has carefully considered what this man has done and how serious it is.”
Man ‘groomed’ 12-year-old boy
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A “PREDATORY” paedophile who targeted a 12-year-old boy before fleeing to Prague has been jailed for seven years. James McGill, 52, of Queens Promenade, Bispham groomed the child for sex in 2005 but fled the country after he was arrested by police. The court heard how when detectives arrested him for contact with the boy they found he was wanted in Sussex for serious sexual offences against a 14-year-old boy. Officers later traced McGill to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested and extradited to the UK to face trial for charges of serious sexual assault and indecent assault on the victim in Sussex and a grooming charge for the boy in Fylde. Sentencing McGill, Judge Robert Brown said he had shown “serious and wilful predation”. He was caught in an operation led by Blackpool’s Awaken Project, set up between police and social services to keep track of sex offenders and youngsters at risk. Set up in 2003 following the disappearance of Blackpool schoolgirl Charlene Downes, the scheme aims to combine information from numerous agencies in a bid to cut out child abuse. Det Sgt Neil Fowler said this was the first time the project had been forced to chase a suspect overseas. He added: “In our eyes he is a very dangerous and predatory child sex offender. “We are happy with the sentence because it shows that the judge has carefully considered what this man has done and how serious it is.”
Man ‘groomed’ 12-year-old boy
Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0355.htm
A “PREDATORY” paedophile who targeted a 12-year-old boy before fleeing to Prague has been jailed for seven years. James McGill, 52, of Queens Promenade, Bispham groomed the child for sex in 2005 but fled the country after he was arrested by police. The court heard how when detectives arrested him for contact with the boy they found he was wanted in Sussex for serious sexual offences against a 14-year-old boy. Officers later traced McGill to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested and extradited to the UK to face trial for charges of serious sexual assault and indecent assault on the victim in Sussex and a grooming charge for the boy in Fylde. Sentencing McGill, Judge Robert Brown said he had shown “serious and wilful predation”. He was caught in an operation led by Blackpool’s Awaken Project, set up between police and social services to keep track of sex offenders and youngsters at risk. Set up in 2003 following the disappearance of Blackpool schoolgirl Charlene Downes, the scheme aims to combine information from numerous agencies in a bid to cut out child abuse. Det Sgt Neil Fowler said this was the first time the project had been forced to chase a suspect overseas. He added: “In our eyes he is a very dangerous and predatory child sex offender. “We are happy with the sentence because it shows that the judge has carefully considered what this man has done and how serious it is.”
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IT must be the autumn, for this week we have seen more talk of the education “funding fog” and resources “held back” from schools. But this autumn is also the time when children have gone back to smaller classes in schools which have seen unprecedented levels of capital investment. They continue to achieve highly in public examinations: much higher than their equivalents in England. Inspection reports show strong parental satisfaction with schools and with the standards they achieve. So why then the annual complaints that schools are underfunded, and that somehow money intended for schools has gone missing? Local councils all face tough demands on their budgets. Everyone knows that pressure on social services budgets is increasing, roads need extra maintenance and new services such as kerbside recycling have to be provided. There are new burdens such as landfill fines which mean that if targets are not met, there will be less money available for councils and their schools in the future. But the reality is that despite these additional pressures, local council funding for schools has risen by £330 per pupil, well over 7%. That’s three times the rate of inflation. Increases in some individual councils are in double figures. The amount of funding making its way through to teachers and pupils in classrooms is therefore greater than ever.
