The attack pattern is tried and tested.

first, say that there is going to be a consultation.
second, find cases (related or unrelated) of abuse or wrongdoing to justify legislation
third, collect responses in a false exercise to ‘gauge opinion’
fourth, ignore all responses that do not support the party line
fifth, introduce the legislation unchanged

The fist salvo has now been fired.

They have found a case that is completely unrelated and irrelevant to home schooling, and are using this as a pretext to bring in the new and onerous regulations.

The ignorant and brain dead journalists are lapping it up and regurgitating it like the dogs that they are.

Not one of them has the brain to understand that people who do foster care are already registered as a prerequisite, and that registration does absolutely nothing to prevent abuse. Secondly, they are conflating child fostering with the care given by parents OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN.

This whole episode, and the way that they are trying to use it as a pretext to bring in controls over home schoolers is COMPLETELY BOGUS.

Lets take this nonsense apart line by line:

HOW COULD THIS BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN?
Date : 21.03.07

The Citizen asked Gloucestershire City Council to answer the following questions:

Concerns were raised in the 80s and 90s about Eunice’s care of the children but they were not acted on. Why?

Initially these children were placed in Mrs Spry?s care by their parents. Once she became a local authority foster carer, we monitored her as required by regulations at the time.

So, they already monitor foster care, and they cannot detect when things are going wrong. Monitoring does not work to prevent abuse. The current mania for registering is simply that; a mania and a gimmick.

Once the court had given her legal parental rights, there was no role for social workers to monitor her parenting.

We responded to concerns reported to us and investigated them. Concerns included:

1) Allegation that children were left alone in a mini bus outside the house. When she was challenged Mrs S said that they were using it as quiet space to do their homework.

2) School expressed concerns about attendance and lateness. Mrs S explained it was because one of the children was slow eating breakfast

The level of allegations that came out in the trial had not been reported before.

Once again, this is all fluff and nonsense. These people are not able to organize or protect anyone. They are not even able to stop people putting garbage out on the wrong days; why do they think that they have the right to control home schoolers, and why do they think that these bogus propaganda tactics are going to work?

The council “inspected” Eunice twice a year throughout the 90s when she was teaching the children at home. Did any of these visits raise questions about the way she was treating them?

The accommodation was seen on each visit, but the most recent visits were made to the barge on which they were staying. There was no suggestion that the care of the children or the living conditions seen were unsatisfactory.

Home education staff do not have the right of access to the home.

And if they did? They would have failed as they always fail. Inspections twice a year are completely ridiculous, and nothing more than a hoop which people are forced to jump through. This is not what the DfES is after though; they want very invasive, total control over home schooling, where they will dictate what you teach to your children and how you do it, and you will be tested on that. Let us not forget that these people cannot run the schools that they are already in charge of. They have no basis for any new regulation, that is why they have to manufacture this garbage as a false pretext. They are incompetent control addicts, pure and simple.

Gloucestershire County Council has previously raised with the DfES concerns that this does not allow effective safeguarding of potentially vulnerable children.

A full national consultation is expected this spring. In the meantime, all staff working in the home education service have received training in identifying potentially harmful situations.

This is utter nonsense of course. These people should be spending time looking after the unruly schools in their catchment areas. Gloucester has a good record when it comes to its schools, but it is exceptional in this regard and the new regulations will apply to you wether you live there or in the worst part of the country. In any case, all of this is irrelevant. Even if the schools were perfect, you should not be compelled to send your child there, and if you choose to home school, you should not be subjected to monitoring, registration, surveillance, testing and any other sort of interference from any government body at either the national or local level.

4. What procedures did Spry have to go through to be accepted as a foster mother and when she formally adopted the children? What checks were carried out?

The process 20 years ago was not as vigorous as the one in place today.

When considering her application there was discussion about the fact that the children had been placed with Mrs Spry by their own parents under private arrangements and had been with her for some time. The alternative would have meant the children would have had to move from what appeared to be a settled home.

None of the concerns that had been raised at this point appeared to justify removal of the children. In fact, staff from a number of agencies working with the family gave strongly positive reports of her parenting.

What no one in the jabbering classes in the UK seems to be able to understand, is that you will never be able to absolutely guarantee that everyone is safe. There will always be crime; crime is a part of human behavior. It is a minority behavior, and the majority, the decent people should not be penalized or have their freedoms curtailed in an insane rush to try and do the impossible. The act of trying to eliminate the possibility of crime makes life itself become less and less worth living. It is only the free man that enjoys life to he full. We must accept that criminals will exist. We must watch out for them, and look after each other, but not give in to paranoia and police state measures as is all the rage in the UK

How often was Eunice’s care of the children reviewed? What did this involve? Why was nothing picked up on?

Visits were made by the supervising social worker and review meetings were held to look at the children?s progress.

None of the information that was known at the time would have led to the ending of the placement.

There is now a requirement for monthly supervisory visits to all foster carers and children and a formal annual review of the foster carers themselves.

And all of this is practically useless, and of course, has nothing to do with home schooling, though you can see how they will try and transfer these requirements to home schoolers. Remember, this war is against not children in the care of strangers, but children in the care of their own parents. It is completely absurd. What they are saying is that parents are not qualified to raise their own children, and need guidelines and inspections from the state to make sure they are doing it right.

This is anti-family, anti-logic, offensive and utterly insane.

After the adoptions and residence orders Mrs Spry became the children?s legal parent, which ended the duty to monitor their care.

There will always be crime, criminals and victims. It is very sad, but we must not over-react and throw out the baby with the bath-water.

How did Eunice manage to ill-treat these children so badly for so long without it being picked on?

Mrs Spry was given legal parental responsibility by the court that effectively ended the involvement of social care services.

Almost as soon as these orders were granted, Mrs Spry removed the children from school, taking them away from the important source of child protection monitoring that schools can provide.

And here is the lie that they inject to start their crusade against home schooling!

Mrs Spry involved numerous medical professionals, denying any one person from building up a picture of the children?s care.

As a result of this, no-one was able to build a complete picture of what was happening to the children.

Everyone who comes into contact with a child has a duty to share information when they have concerns about a child. All agencies have now signed up to an agreement on better information sharing.

See how they just slipped that in there? Appalling. There is absolutely no evidence that if these children were in school that they would have been picked up. It is total nonsense, and no one with even a single working brain cell buys any of this nonsense.

What has been done to ensure this will never happen again?

There is nothing you can do to ensure this will never happen again. Only children think in these terms. Adults understand that bad things happen, and we try and make sure that they do not, but we do not, for example, forbid the playing of golf because some people get hit by lightning every year on golf courses. This is a stupid question from a very stupid person.

Since the Climbie Inquiry (2003), a range of measures have been put in place to improve the safeguarding of children and young people. These include:

That poor girl’s case is being used to justify everything and anything. It is disgraceful.

A requirement that all children are seen and spoken to alone when concerns about them are raised
An expectation that records held by all agencies will contain a clear diary of key events so anyone accessing the records can see the picture at a glance
Appropriate sharing of key information between agencies to ensure that each knows about the others? work with a family
The creation of a Safeguarding Children Board to ensure that child protection remains a high priority

We are not complacent and plans are in place to share lessons arising from this case. What remains vital is that all those who come into contact with children, young people and their families continue to regard safeguarding as the responsibility of everyone.

[…]

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk

What is actually important is that everyone put the facts into perspective. These cases are exceptionally rare. They in no way represent a significant statistic, and should in no way be used to justify or be used as a spur to create new and onerous legislation that will only impact the decent people.

Local councils should put all their efforts not into disturbing the good families of the UK, but in fact, they should be fixing the problems that they already have lost control over.

If they were serious people, this is what their priorities would be, not the creation of the thin end of the wedge of more societal re-engineering where children become the property of the state upon birth.

What I want to know is, who drafted these answers, and wether or not it was done with the help of anyone. All statements from public servants or departments must be by named authors so that we can address them directly. If we do not have their names, then its like punching fog; we cannot get to the root of the problem – the insane people who are making up this garbage.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Home Schooling, Insanity, Politricks.