Category: In The News

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Nurse Suspended for Protecting Boy in Aberdeen

I read the news this morning, and I really couldn’t believe what I was reading.

The Scottish Daily Express reported that a community nurse was suspended for taking a boy aged between 3 and 5 and keeping him safe.

She had spotted him jumping in and out of a car but with no adult around.    She had an appointment, so left a note on the car to say where they were and went round the corner, taking him with her.  A few minutes later, the boys dad showed up to pick him up.  He was grateful to her for looking after his boy, as he had been away from his car longer than he anticipated.

Now apart from the dad being one massive idiot, it’s not an uncommon thing for parents to leave their little kids in cars to pop to shops.  It might be silly, or reckless, or any number of things, but parents still keep on doing it.  This boy had got himself out of the car and was jumping around near a busy road.

According to the report the nurse had “displayed serious failings in child protection.”

The article says that she stayed with the boy for a while, but being late for an appointment round the corner, she felt she had to go.  Rather than abandoning the wee boy, she took him with her for a couple of minutes.

It also said that she told her bosses what had happened, and then the police were involved and she was signed off work and not allowed back.    She was handed a 6 month ban and will have conditions imposed when she gets back to work for 18 months, until “she is deemed to no longer be a risk to the public.”

Yes, I know there are societal rules to follow when we deal with the public, and no, perhaps she shouldn’t have taken the wee boy to her next appointment and should have phoned employer and police instead, but her sense of justice in not being late for a client is the same sense of decency that she displayed by not wanting to leave the boy alone, or have her client think she hadn’t turned up.

I also know that there are ways that the medical profession are probably told to deal with protection issues, but for heaven’s sake, in an emergency, surely there should be a little leeway and sense to allow a good Samaritan for taking care of a wee one that could have put himself in danger.

It was a bit silly to take the boy away from the car, and yes, she should have called the police, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes we just have to trust in other people.  Common sense has to prevail somewhere in this.  I can’t see how any of it makes her a potential risk to the public.   Possibly a disciplinary matter for removing from scene and taking to a client, but danger to the public is a bit strong.

No wonder so many people just walk on by and leave ill people or lost kids to their fates.

 

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Misery, Pain and Trauma in the News

Reading the news can be a troublesome event.  Before I even open the app, or the newspaper, or even switch on the radio, we’re faced with mostly the stories of the darkest deprivation and the most miserable things that can happen by the worst sorts of people on our planet.

J#m#y S#v#le

This week, the news has spent a lot of time focussing on him and the goings on of abuse at the BBC over the centuries.  I did watch the Panorama programme on Monday, and it horrified me.  I was by no way reassured that they thought investigating themselves using Panorama would make them look better.  I came away disgusted and appalled by the BBC and by many celebrities in our midst, past and present.  The fact that it was common knowledge that he was what he was is pretty much sickening.

I’m also astounded at the amount of direct accusations with absolutely no doubt that he did it all.  If they are all so sure, why on earth didn’t they step up to the plate years ago?

And the argument of culture doesn’t really add up as it hasn’t ever been acceptable in my lifetime to abuse children in your trust, and I was born in the sixties.

Everywhere is talking about it as if it’s a done deal and yes I find it sickening and vile to have happened at all, but what I am even more disgusted with is what looks like the extent of the enablers.

Those who knew he liked really young girls and didn’t push it.  Those who didn’t want to risk their own precious careers to take on the mighty icon of British good that he was seen as.   Those who didn’t do background checks (if there were any back then) before giving him unrestricted access to children.

The enablers should all be lined up and answer for the consequences too.

April Jones

I still look every day to see if she has been found.  A little girl who did nothing wrong, and was outside her home playing with friends when she was cruelly snatched away.  How the families cope I don’t know.  Every moment must be a nightmare.

Ben Needham

Back in the news.  Police digging up the land where they stayed when he went missing.  Will it bring up an answer to the double decade old question.  For the family’s sake, I hope so.

Daniel Rigby

The 2-year-old boy whose life was cut short with 91 separate injuries to his body.  There are no words.

Dog Fighting

The SSPCA launched an appeal today after a dog was found in Aberdeen with injuries that were likely as a result of illegal dog fights.  I listened to the story on Northsound on the way home in the car today with the kids, and I pulled over to hear it all.   The poor girl with old injuries, and fresh ones had obviously been either kicked out or managed to escape wherever she was.  On one hand I was pleased she is away from wherever she was, but on the other hand, so sad to listen to what her life must have been like.

She had multiple scars to her face and body.  About 2 – 3 years old, so still young and living a life of trauma.  I was in Huntly a few weeks ago and was advised never to leave my dog alone, even in a garden as there were dog nappers going around.  They didn’t know I didn’t live in Huntly, but still.  It looks like it is going on everywhere.

People

I do have to remind myself that people who do these things deliberately are in the minority and that people are on the whole, very good.

Has it been a very bad news few weeks, or is it just that the news are reporting more and more of the worst of the worst?

Or are people really getting worse and more selfish and abusive due to our culture?

Who knows, but it certainly is depressing reading.

 

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Child Abduction, Fear and Abuse. Help find April Jones.

The news this week has not been good.  Along with countless others, I’ve spent a lot of this week refreshing my news app on the phone to see if little April Jones had been found yet.  Sadly, she’s not been able to find her way home to her parents, and even more sadly, there has been criticism levelled at the family for allowing April to play outside at 7 pm.

Let’s put this into perspective.  The family live in a small community surrounded by open countryside, and where everyone knows everyone else.  The kind of community that I grew up in.

I wouldn’t let my children out to play late where we live, but I did growing up, and in a community like the Jones live in, I would have happily let my kids out the front at 7 pm.   This is key.  April was outside, beside her home, and picked up by someone she must have trusted.  What difference does the time make?

And pushing the criticism further away, we are really against it when we realise we have to protect our kids from people they know and trust.   I read a blog post yesterday, kindly sent along by Claire Jessiman, The Foodie Quine, that really tells it like it is.   Checklist Mommy from the US, talks about “Tricky People.”

She says “Tricky People are the New Strangers.”  I really would recommend that everyone who feels the slightest bit anxious about abductions and child abuse to go and read it.  It’s also quite light hearted for such a serious topic, which is rather endearing.

In reality, the people who groom kids tend not to be strangers in the eyes of the young.   Checklist Mommy does the same thing that I do.  She tells her kids to go to the nearest Mum with kids for help if they get lost, or something goes wrong.  It’s not actually very likely that they’re going to come across a policeman when they need it.  I’ve told my kids that for a long time, as it seems to be the path of least danger in my eyes.

Checklist Mommy goes further.   She talks about  Patti Fitzgerald of Safely Ever After.  A passionate woman with a vision that we all do need to listen to.

Realistically, our kids have a higher chance of being abused by someone they know than being abducted by a stranger.  The shock and horror when children like April Jones are plucked from the bosom of their loving family can cause us to react badly when we consider our own choices in how to approach our chats with our kids.

One of the things she says, that struck a chord with me was that nobody is going to offer to babysit for free so we can spend time to ourselves.  It really is telling that people don’t want to babysit for the good our own health.

Being suspicious of every adult around our kids is probably a healthy way to go, but we do have to balance that with being sensible.   Looking out for oddly given gifts and special treatment is just good parenting.  If the warning signs are making you uneasy, it’s perhaps time to make a difference.

The red flags and warning tips at Safety Ever After are really good advice.  We could do with a little of that kind of advice coming through our schools.  Sadly, we only seem to have stranger danger alerts.  How much are our kids missing about the dangers that exist for them, how will they learn that they have to take precautions with ALL adults, and not just strangers?

At the end of this all, social media is powerful.  An abducted child has a high chance of being killed within the first three hours of the abduction.   It was about three hours between April being abducted and the first social media appeals for help.   Lost Kidz is a personal Amber Alert system.  It means that the news of an abduction can get out quicker, and share the information with people who can begin to watch out for unusual signs in the area.

I’ve had the odd heart pounding moment when I’ve lost sight of a toddler, but how that feels when the child does not come back after a few minutes, I have no idea.   I do know that many children up and down our country this week will have been hugged tighter at bedtime.

The Lost Kiza website says:

“The Lost Kidz App has been developed to enable parents to send out an alert to other parents in the area if their child goes missing. The alert includes a current photo and any relevant information about the child, allowing an anxious parent to recruit the help of everyone in the vicinity to reunite the parent with their child.”

I have downloaded the app.  I think this could be a powerful social media intervention.   I like the fact that it has a four star rating already.  I like the fact that a lost child can be reported quickly, and the word spread.

Jersey based Stephen Fern created the app after watching a TV documentary about the abduction of Jaycee Lee Delgado – its created  big waves across America, and is spreading across the world.   Eyes immediately looking out for a child in danger.

I’ll continue to refresh my news screen, and hope that April and her family are re-united again.  It’s been a hard week for all parents to cope with the raw fear of abduction, but for April’s parents, this must be a living, walking nightmare.

Best wishes to April and I hope she finds her way home soon.

 

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The Duchess of Cambridge Topless Photos. Why I think it’s more serious than it seems.


© Morfeo86ts | Dreamstime.com

Lounging in a private home, in a secluded location, you’d think it was pretty safe to top up your tan in France, and make sure there are no unsightly bikini lines.  Looking around on our own holidays, we tend to worry if our bums look bigger than the people sitting in the next loungers, but as a rule, we never have to worry about much more than that.

It’s pretty poor that the media has decided to pick on the newish Duchess of Cambridge just as she goes on a tour to promote our country and represent the Queen.   Catherine and her husband, Prince William, must be fuming in private over the topless photos, but they’ve put on a brave face and managed to carry on, admirably.  Some say they get paid to do a job, and yes, they do, but come on, they’re people first and foremost.

If the papers would just shut up about the issue and not keep harping on about who is publishing them, the pictures would have away and dried up in the news without all this sensation.

The media have made a circus out of it, and not publishing the photos seems to have become as lucrative as publishing them by default.  Is it try to gain the support of people by getting them up in arms, or is it really bypassing the real issue that should be being dealt with?

Don’t think for one minute that I am a fan faring, flag bearing royalist, because I’m not.  I have no real like, nor dislike for the royal family – I don’t know them.  Saying that, I really can’t abide seeing someone being the subject of abuse, no matter how small the minority are who are perpetrating it.  Yes, I think our media are just big bullies, but there’s also more to it than that.

Why Catherine got her boobs out at all is a mystery to me, since once they are in the public eye, there really is no privacy.  I guess the couple felt safe, but there really are some things people need to give up if they are to stay in the public eye.  It’s not fair, but it is playing safe.

I have to say, even indoors, covering up your boobs might be a good idea if the curtains are open.  I remember back to when Prince Charles was photographed coming out of a shower if I remember rightly.  He had expectations of privacy there.

What about when Sarah Ferguson thought she was safe with the toe-sucking incident she got crucified for.  Considering she and Prince Andrew seemed to have already been split up in private, the outcry there was incredible, and I’ve no doubt left her scarred for life.

Rambling might be the order of the day here, but I do think the issue not being talked about is a bigger one.  Catherine’s boobs worry me not a jot, they give babies food for heaven’s sake, and there are plenty of boobs out on most beaches.   I do think “good on her” for keeping a happy face while she is on tour.

The thing that does come to mind with me, is one of the photographer.   He had a long-range camera.

What if it had been a long-range rifle?

On public tours and events, the areas are scoured, and staff are on standby to check the routes.

There’s no hiding for a sniper as they’ll be found in seconds (I am guessing).

In a private villa, in a remote place, they were vulnerable.  I find that more newsworthy than a young woman getting a tan.

My whole point is that the papers seem to be more engrossed in fighting each other over being the top dog of papers that “haven’t” printed the pics, than they are of discussing the potential danger the couple faced.

 

 

 

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Undercover Elder Care on Panorama – Abuse of our Elderly – Rant Corner

I’ve just finished watching the Panorama programme about Elder Care, where a woman tells her story of how her mother with Alzheimers was abused by the very people who should have cared for her.

Suspicious about bruises that had appeared on her mother’s body, she recorded video footage from a hidden camera which showed her mum being more or less thrown into her bed at 5.30 pm by two carers from the Philipines.  They talk in their native language and manhandle her poor arthritic body disgracefully.

Several carers come and go and don’t really speak to her.  The TV is switched on and off for the carers benefit and in the morning, she is bathed by the same carers who saw her last 13 hours earlier, slapping her hands away when she protested in pain.

One carer complained about the low wage at about £6.50, so what we have is a culture of angry people taking care of difficult patients that the carers really can’t be bothered with.

The breakfast carer ignores Maria, and she is speed force-fed by a carer who doesn’t speak to her.  The carer puts on the TV to watch it for herself, and switches it off again when she leaves.  Maria is left to stare at the ceiling for most of every day.  They treat Maria as no human should be treated.

Maria’s daughter said that she had lived in that environment for a year.

Although against company policy to have a male carer alone with a Client, a single male carer treats her roughly, twists her arm, hits her and swears at her.  There is no compassion, no care, and no help from the people she needed to help her.

He lifted her by her head and when she cried out, he slapped her in the face.  He hit her 6 times in while he gave her a wash in the morning.  Recruited from overseas to work as a nurse, he was trusted, and failed the woman he was paid to care for.  Maria, unable to shout for help, in permanent pain from her arthritis, and a victim of sustained and deliberate abuse, was a helpless victim and an easy target.

By the end of that programme, I found myself crying for the predicament Maria (and the hidden sufferers) find themselves in.

I’ve touched on abuse in homes before, when I blogged about the Castlebeck Affair, and I recognised that it is likely this type of thing goes on in care homes up and down the country, but Castlebeck had warning signs that people ignored.

This is from a home that had a good reputation.

Why did the home allow this to happen?

Ash Court responded that the abuse Maria suffered was an isolated incident.  Well, I’m not going to apologise for saying that an answer like that really doesn’t give me any confidence that our kids, elders and disabled are really being protected from abuse when the Companies are employing cheap labour who can hardly speak the language, let alone have proper training to care.

The CQC report doesn’t seem particularly helpful either, and this is where I struggle.  Those of us whose relatives need residential care need to know our people are being cared for.  It’s inexcusable to say that if they had found abuse they would have taken action.  The majority of hopefully isolated bullies carry out their abuse when nobody else is looking.  Where this gets worrying, is that it was 5 different carers in 2 days carrying out the abuse.

I do strongly believe that all carers involved in looking after any of our people should be paid a fair wage to attract good quality carers.  They should also be able to speak the language of the people they care for, to a good enough level to be able to communicate with the people they are looking after.  The last stipulation should be that they have a minimum specified amount of training on how to treat vulnerable people.

When I was much younger, I once walked past a care home and an elderly man was banging on the window and shouting help from a second floor room.  Instead of acting, I walked past as I saw a carer enter his room, thinking that he would be properly cared for by the staff.  I want to kick myself for that now, as the care home had a bad report a short while later.  I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

I am glad that my grandparents were both cared for at home.   My mother drives me batty at times, but I would struggle to let her stay anywhere that I think she might not be looked after.  I also know that for every bad care home, there are probably dozens of fabulous ones, but we don’t know what is going to happen when we put them under someone else’s care, do we?

As a teen, I did some work in an old people’s home for my Duke of Edinburgh Award.  Yes, I hated most of it.  I was very young, and in a place that stank of wee and poo, and with old men and women ordering me around.  I wasn’t disrespectful, even when an old woman called me her servant, although I tried with all my might to avoid helping out in her room.

I did enjoy the common rooms and talking to the residents when they had lucid moments, and reliving some of their lives with them.  I regularly helped an almost bed ridden cancer patient get his illicit baccy supply, and I’d get him up into his chair and wheel him out for some fresh air while he puffed his lungs black.  It was a sad day when I turned up for my shift and he was gone.

For many vulnerable inmates and residents, there is nobody to care.   For goodness sake, even our prisoners get treated better than lots of our vulnerable citizens.

Controversial, yes, truthful, yes.  I am not ashamed of that.  There must be valid reasons for the human rights of our care home residents to be treated with respect, and have their time filled and occupied by people who actually know what a heart is.

The concerns in my Castlebeck Panorama blog post haven’t changed, and every story like this just puts the notch of anxiety just that little bit higher on the top list of things to worry about for special needs children through their lives.

People are so cruel, but others are so kind.  I don’t believe in the retribution from God things, or all things happen for a reason.

The only things I believe people have to fear from in this world are :

1 – Other People

2 – Other People

3 – Other People

4 – Natural Disasters & Unforeseen Circumstances

I don’t actually blame all the carers who find themselves in this vicious cycle as they’ve generally been failed too.  They are often put into situations they have no idea of how to act in, and often work unsupervised, untrained and very understaffed.

I do completely blame the stupid money grabbing greed of the corporate investment and capital finance world who insist on making care a business with huge profit margins to make.

If the corporate big wigs took less profit, carers could have more training, go through more rigorous recruitment schedules and see care as a “career” and not just as a temporary stop gap that they fully resent until something better comes along.

I also appreciate the wonderful carers who do exist out there, and for whom people who act like those in Ash Croft and Castlebeck give a bad name.  How must they feel to see what goes on in the no hope homes?

Yours disgustedly at seeing more evidence of senseless abuse.

Scottish Mum Blog

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100 Posts of 100 Words for Save The Children

Save The Children #Healthworkers

 

 

  • After a tweet from Blue  Bear Wood , I have taken up the challenge that she sent me, to write a post of at least 100 words for Save The Children.
I don’t have a great healthcare story to tell, but I do agree with the support needed cross our globe.  In our modern world, some children in the UK suffer as much as some children do in Countries overseas.  That doesn’t mean that we should ignore either of them, and although it is more fashionable to support overseas causes, there are reasons that we all need to be seen to support them.

The vaccination programme what we take for granted in our country is one of the main reasons that our children thrive so much.    In our country, the problems arise from non vaccination choices by uninformed parents, but overseas, the choice in most cases, is simply not there.
  • On Tuesday 20th September, blogger Chris Mosler, will attend the UN General Assembly in New York with Liz Scarff  from Save the Children.
  • They intent to try and secure the support of our Prime Minister, David Cameron, to play his full part in solving the health worker crisis.
  • The target is 60,000 signatures on a petition by Tuesday.    As I write this, the petition stands at 41,946.    Can you help increase the total?
  • Sign the petition here:  sign the petition

The challenge set by @HelloItsGemma to see 100 posts of 100 words linked up by Tuesday.

Write your 100 words about a great health professional you have encountered in your life. Add a link to the petition and either link or add in some information from Save the Children about the #Healthworkers. Link up here

I pass this on to

@welshmumwales
@andie_u
@cazbattweets
@plasticrosaries
@kateab
@allabouttheboys
@superamazingmum

 

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Abuse at Winterburn View, Castlebeck (Panorama) It Needs MORE Than Arrests

Anyone who knows me is going to know what I am going to say about this hospital.   The abuse at Winterburn View, the Castlebeck Private Hospital has shaken me considerably.  These abused people are CHILDREN.  They are in big bodies, but they are CHILDREN.    Picture your two, or three, or four year old being treated like that.

I came home from a fabulous show last night, watching the Shaolin Warriors in Aberdeen (blog post later in the week), and saw some tweets in my inbox about a Panorama Programme that had made people cry.  I also got the impression that it involved special needs and vulnerable adults with learning difficulties and autism.  Watch the programme on Iplayer HERE

I quickly booted up BBC Iplayer at 1am and began watching.  It was riveting viewing, and once I had switched it on, I couldn’t switch it off again.   It was very much more than I had expected when I began to watch.   The extent of the abuse shown on the documentary had me speechless.    I thought they might be talking about a few punches, a couple of isolated asssaults, and that would have been bad enough – but the extent of it, I have no words to express.  The lad who carried the cameras has stamina and strength to be able to keep going back and into that environment.  Thank goodness for his perseverance to help those vulnerable people, who are hopefully all now safe.

How those abused people felt, I cannot even begin to imagine.    The final scenes with Simone were so bad that it makes me despair.    Our children tend not to tell the truth, or not know the difference between truth and fantasy,  so I can fully understand her parents dilemma when she told them she was being attacked, and they didn’t believe her.  Special needs children suffer from the boy who cried wolf too often.  How her parents feel now, knowing that on this occasion she was telling them what was actually happening to her, rather than imagining something from watching a film or playing a video nasty I have no idea.  I do know that they will never forgive themselves for it.

The Care Quality Commission (CTC) quite frankly seemed toothless.   They came across as paying lip service to form filling and happy with well behaved staff once the door was unlocked to the locked wards.   There was no evidence of activity schedules, or plans for moving back to the general public (from the documentary) – yet, they thought that was nothing to be concerned about.  That should have raised a country sized red flag.  And as for not taking notice of the complaints made by a respected member of staff in the field, Terry Bryan – it shows how little anyone really cared.

One programme later, and it all comes out of the woodwork.  Castlebeck should be taken to account for this.  It is NOT enough to say they are “sorry,” or they are “ashamed”.    If they cared, they would have investigated before they were publically held to account by Panorama.

It is NOT the sole blame of the carers behaving badly here – it is the management of the home who allowed the environment to move in that direction.    And while I am at it, where were the social workers under whose charge the patients should have been assisted?  Why aren’t social workers head rolling on this as well?  Why was the ward locked with no family allowed in or out?   That speaks volumes.   The doctors who must have been aware of unrealistic levels of accidents, bruises, injuries and trauma, but turned a blind eye.

Bored special needs people will strop, they will have tantrums, and they will use language without thinking of the consequences at the time.   Punishment does not lead to better behaviour, or make them think before they act in the future.

I am horrified that Castlebeck have so many other establishments out there.  I just hope there are responsible staff in those.

I am not niave enough to think that Winterburn View is the only place in the UK where vulnerable people are being abused, but I do expect the watchdogs to be on top of them, and keep it to a minimum.    Some of the abuse they suffered on camera had the potential to kill.  It was systematic, targetted, and daily.  How could they miss that?

As a parent of a special needs child who will grow up into a special needs adult, and who might at some stage in his life, need adult care outwith the home for extended periods of time – I am sick to the stomach.

Yes, those of you who are parents of neuro typicals are going to see that it’s shocking, distressing, and that it shouldn’t happen, but social care is never actually going to be something that you have to consider, or be subject to  for your children.

We are knocking on the door of respite for the first time ever, and as a family we need it to start to cope with him long term at home.

The thought that my most vulnerable child could suffer at the hands of bullies like that is already making me think twice about where he goes.  He is growing up and needs to see more of the world outside his home cocoon, so I work though it.

As a grown up, I have to be realistic, and try to see the good in people.  Sadly, through circumstances, potential and his educational experience, all I see is the potential for harm.   When any male teacher, or charity worker deals with us, I don’t think “nice man”.   I look, smile, ask questions, engage them in conversation, and through gritted teeth, accept that I must trust him.   I do look, and I try VERY HARD to find something that makes me uneasy about him (or her).   When he leaves with a carer, my heart beats fast, and I panic fleetingly in case I have just handed my child over to a psychopath.

I also know, that if the day comes that my son accuses one of his carers of hitting him, I am not going to know if it is the truth, or if he is imagining a film he saw ten years earlier, or if it was a dream that has upset him.    The only thing I would be able to do is remove him from the carer, as leaving a situation like that until proof was found could be too late.    What about when we are no longer able to look after his interests.  Then, he is at the mercy of strangers, social workers, doctors, management and staff.

  • Our world saddens me.
  • My lack of trust in strangers, neighbours and friends saddens me.
  • I don’t know how to live with that fear.
  • We must live with that fear and we must trust strangers, neighbours and friends if we are to have fulfilling lives.
  • We must live with the consequences.
  • We must make it better for those who are still in places like Winterburn View.
  • We must reach out and help those who cannot help themselves.
  • We must NOT turn a blind eye.

I am not relieved that these patients have been moved to “safety”.  I am sick to my stomach about it.  Physically.

Their lives will now never be healed.  They will mostly lack the ability to reason that the danger has now passed.  The rest of their lives will be spent in fear.

Will they be moved to a place that is any safer?

How many other “Winterburns” are there out there?

And before  I end this – what do I think of the reporter that did not intervene during that last horrific day of abuse in fear of blowing his cover?  I love him for outing it, but also can’t understand why he didn’t immediately go to the police.  What about the BBC who allowed it to keep going until the programme aired – they also fostered allowing it to happen for those days.

I would like to think the last footage was filmed on Sunday, someone please tell me that was what happened.

UPDATE:
I have just heard that filming was Feb / March.   That also saddens me.   That was another 2 whole months after this footage was taken – BEFORE they were rescued.

Bloggers With Excellent Posts
Benefit Scrounging Scum – Imagine You Were Four #panorama

The Small Places – Last Nights Panarama – Anatomy of a Scandal

A Boy With Aspergers – Behind Closed Doors

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Gagging Orders / Superinjunctions

I really don’t care at all about the supposed footballer and his inability to stay faithful to his wife. It is sad to say, that if we, (the general public) were to judge by the frequency of news stories and infidelity, it seems almost an expectation of the job WAG.

I don’t understand the argument about the unfairness of him silencing the girl because he could afford to. She knew what she was getting into. She wasn’t hoodwinked into believing he was young, free, and single.

What does bother me is the ridiculous effect it is having on the perception of us as a country.

Someone needs to explain to me how someone can be prosecuted, or jailed for telling “the truth” about someone, when they have not been part of the injunction, nor have been notified that they are under the order.

The media, I can understand. The woman silenced, I can understand. But don’t the people who are subject to the order need to be personally notified of what they are not allowed to talk about? Doesn’t that then mean the injunction breaks the law?

How can you personally notify millions of people all over the world that they are subject to an injunction, because then you have to tell them what they are not allowed to talk about. I missed my personal mailing. I wonder if anyone else got one.

And how can twitter reveal the users of the accounts when you can register using throwaway email addresses. You can use web cafes’ and unregistered mobile phones. Wouldn’t those first few pioneers in the dishing the dirt have stayed untraceable?

The lawyers and the courts are making us into laughing stocks with these orders.   Now the tax payer is also going to have to fund the costs of upholding these empty orders.  

What a waste.

I think about the care that has been taken away from our worlds abused, disadvantaged and disabled, and consider the publicly earned money that these piece of dross legal gravy trains are are going to cost us, and that makes me very angry indeed.

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Education Cuts & Protecting the Vulnerable – Budget 2011/2012 – Aberdeen

 

10th November was the day that the council in Aberdeen voted once again on the budget  cuts.

The statement is here for anyone local to Aberdeen http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/council_tax_benefits/council_tax_home.asp

As with the other statements which will be being released up and down the country, they make for quite light reading, touching on issues, and promising to deliver on what looks like good practice.

Some of the main priorities in Aberdeen are :

  • providing services for the most vulnerable people;
  • ensuring all schoolchildren reach their potential;

Initially, the council were planning to remove 50% of the PSA (Personal Support Assistants)  in classrooms across the city, in both primary and secondary provision, and that is in an area where inclusion has been heavily carried out with PSA support.  This was after already losing 300 at the last round of cuts.

There are children being excluded for not being able to cope now.   How much is that going to increase when more support is taken away, is anybody’s guess.  Excluding is easy where the staff cannot, and will not take responsibility for the issues that arise from placing children inappropriately.

Our children in mainstream schools now share classes with the ASN children who would, probably in our generation have attended the stand alone special schools, or childrens institutes in the area.  We have a high PSA ratio in our schools, as they are now there supporting the children who need help.  I have heard many excuses surrounding why they should be cut, from people outraged that they are pinning up things to make classes look pretty, to sitting “babysitting” children with bad behaviour.

Both of these arguments are irrational.  Yes, teachers could pin up the sticker charts, the projects, the work that the children are doing, but then we are eating into teaching time.  What do you really want??    And as for the “babysitting……..    From my perspective, in a school where there are children not coping, there will be bad behaviour.

The other options for those children struggling without support are limited to quietly not receiving much of an education, and exclusion.  With the right support, they are living a full life, and integrating with the school.  I thought that was the whole point!!!!!!!   Maybe I misunderstood the point of integration / exclusion all these years.   Any arguments, or issues people have with PSA’s should be taken up with the individual headteachers who allocated them, and they should not be not used to denigrate PSA’s overall.

One of the options tabled was to cut music in schools and another was to amalgamate two secondary schools, which was sensible in terms of the school roll.   Both of these options raised high profile campaigns, that parents AND the children themselves fought.   The councillors very quickly decided that these options were going to cause them some problems, and might likely affect their future election prospects.  Both issues were taken off the table.

Taking those issues off the table, meant that for education, there needed to be cuts from somewhere.   The other potential eduction cuts that run deep in Aberdeen included

  • Increasing special school class size from 1:7 to 1:10  (this means losing approx 27 ASN specialist teachers)
  • Cutting PSA’s between 50 – 100%  in mainstream  (we are talking possibly 300 more support staff)
  • Not fulling educational psychologist positions (so reduced access to support for additional support needs)

Now, I am not being unreasonable to say, that doing all of this up front, without the training of the staff who are left to cope, is madness.  All I can see are the unsupported children struggling, and with no prospect of assistance.  These children then add to the social care system, but sorry, that is being cut as well.

And in the process, hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country are being made redundant in the name of paying back the debt our banks got us into).

Now who, in the cutting process, is going to be left to pay the debs off?

The demand on benefits is increasing with the redundancies.  With less money to spend, more people are having to give up their small businesses – oh wait, that means yet more on benefits again.

Now forgive me for being pessimistic, but the people making these decisions don’t live in the real world.  They live in their comfortable, well paid little bubbles, with their comfortable and well paid little friends, living their perfect little lives, with nannies, cooks, cleaners and bottle washers on tap.

Those of us in the general public can’t fight the upper classes, but we have  to live with their bad choices.  I have nothing but respect for the parents in the constituencies who decided to boycott school for a day in protest at the education cuts.    All power to them.

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Cuts to Services for and of the Disabled

With one special needs child, and two others who need some assistance at school, but who cope with a little extra support, it fills me with horror to read the stories of what is going on around Scotland this year.  The support staff from different authorities seem to be targetted.  The cuts are savage, and directed at the welfare of the disadvantaged population. 

When other cuts, such as music have been mentioned, people have been up in arms and complaining about it in huge numbers.  It is sad that ASN children are not seen as an attractive enough issue to warrant the public rising up to protect them.

I am ashamed of my country, my government, and my local council.

There, I’ve said it.

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Disability Injustice and Cuts to Services

I was absolutely astounded to read the case of  Riven Vincent, but not surprised.

In case you have not yet heard of her, or read the news over the last couple of days, she has asked social services for residential care for her daughter, as she can no longer cope at home.    She asked for additional respite to help her, and it was refused. 

For one, I am not surprised that this has happened, and I do believe that it is going to happen more and more often as the cuts that the Government send down to local councils bite.  In my own local council, there are several cuts to disability and ASN childrens services which have been given the green light for swathing cuts.

People who have never lived with severe disability, or mental illness, have actually no idea of what stresses they and their carers are often under.   The long term effects of people who do not access help are far reaching.

1.  On average, it can take years for requested services to come into effect.  Thats if they are offered at all.  Contrary to popular belief, it is quite difficult to be allocated a social worker for a disabled child, even if you ask for one.

2.  DLA to which disabled people are entitled, make applicants jump through hoops, and expect people with disabilities to manage to complete a novel sized application form intelligently.   Many give up trying to get it. 

3.  Parents with disabled children are often not in a position to fight for their children, as they are exhausted by the day to day caring.  They are an easy target.

4.  If services, respite and additional care is not offered when it is needed, suicide rates and passing off to care services will increase as people cannot cope in their homes.

The fact that Riven Vincent has asked for her daughter to go into care is not surprising.  She has other children to look after, a huge workload with Riven, and being denied enough support for her to be able to nurture her family properly.  

I do not pretend to understand how hard it is for her with a doubly incontinent child, not enough incontinence pads, and insufficient support to allow her to care for her other children.  I know how hard it is for me with my family, and my heart goes out to her, and those like her.

She gets no sleep, and it cannot carry on like that.  I have huge respect for her, and the fact that she has asked for help shows how strong a lady that she really is.  

Leave the political stuff aside.  This is a family that is struggling, who asked for help and were denied. 

I wish Riven Vincent all the luck in the world, and I hope that she gets all the help she deserves. It sounds like an awful situation that she can neither move forward, nor backwards from, unless someone takes charge to help her.

Moving the blame back onto local government is a disgraceful cop-out.

Thats my opinion.

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Overweight Children – Whose Fault ??

I switched on the TV tonight, and the programme that I stopped at was the Half Ton Teen on Living Channel.  The mum states her child is her reason for living, but she is the one going to the supermaket and buying all the hugely fatty foods that her son is eating.    The doctor thinks that the teen is eating 30,000 calories a day to keep him like that.

The biggest problems he has are his mother and father.  The programme calls his mother the “enabler”.  I find it distressing to watch his parents asking him if he was going to “do it” this time (lose the weight and have surgery).    She is the one buying all the junk he is eating, and I felt like flinging the skin of the tangerine I was peeling through the TV at her.

I see this on a much smaller scale at home as well.  There are children locally who are struggling with their weight.  I feel so sorry for them on a day to day basis, as most children (and adults) want to be part of the group, and accepted, and weight can be a factor that excludes children from the “in” groups.  

Most overweight children are at the mercy of their parents food and lifestyle choices, and I do feel sorry for them.   I have been lucky in that I have three children, of who two are very thin, and one is average for his age.  All my children are able to eat a lot of food without becoming obese, and for that I am thankful. 

I also have my children do a lot of exercise as I don’t want them to spend their lives as I have, constantly fighting to either get to, or keep my weight at a normal level.    With the computer society, and parents keeping children inside when they can’t be there to watch them, it is difficult to find the right balance.  

I do also think tendancy to put weight on has a bit to do with our genes, and our state of mind at any one time, and that it is difficult to put the blame decisively on any one person or place unless we know the circumstances.  I am not exactly stick thin myself, but when I see an overweight parent of an obese child filling up a grocery trolley with chocolate and stodge, I feel so sad for the children.