Take action today – Help make the net safer for children

The disturbing events at Little Ted’s Day Nursery in Plymouth underline just how important it is to support the NSPCC’s Safety.Net campaign – because the Government must act now to make the internet a safer place for children.

Vanessa George will be sentenced next month, but the ease with which she distributed images of the innocent children placed in her care is a wake up call for all of us

We will deliver the Safety.Net campaign to Downing Street in December so please sign the petition now and use the power of the internet for good.

The NSPCC Safety.Net campaign calls for sharing of child abuse images to be blocked, and for children who have been abused, and had pictures or films of this abuse appear on the internet, to receive care and support.

It only takes a moment to click through and take action – but by showing the Prime Minister that this is a priority for the people of UK, you will help make sure the changes that need to be made to keep children safe, will be made.

Support the campaign for a safer internet today

Tags: Abuse, Child Safety, Government, Internet, Little Ted's Day Nursery, NSPCC, Safety.Net, Vanessa George

Children’s services and police are struggling to respond to an ‘overwhelming’* number of domestic violence cases involving children, a new report by the NSPCC and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) indicates.

The report is the first in-depth study to look at how children’s services and the police respond to domestic violence since the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Section 120 of the Act, implemented in 2005, provides the first legal recognition in England and Wales that seeing or overhearing violence in the home can cause significant harm to children.

Children’s services provided no assessment or service in 85 per cent of domestic violence cases brought to their attention by the police in two English areas in 2007. In 10 per cent they were already working with the family and in only 5 per cent of cases referred to them did they provide a new service.

The findings add to concerns that children’s services are being overwhelmed by the high volume of police notifications of incidents of domestic violence in families.

NSPCC Head of Policy and Public affairs Diana Sutton said: “An estimated 750,000 children are harmed by domestic violence every year in the UK. Many will carry the emotional scars long after any physical injuries have healed.

“Children who have seen or overhead domestic violence can face problems at school, mental health problems and long-term difficulties in relationships. These children are the forgotten victims of domestic violence.

“However, our report indicates that large numbers of children may be falling through the local agency safety net despite the many positive changes that have already been adopted by children’s services.

“More needs to be done by the government and agencies to ensure that services are available to support and safeguard children when families are referred to children’s services because of domestic violence“.

Many young people and survivors said they would have liked the police to talk to them when they attended a domestic violence incident and to have removed the perpetrators of the violence from the home immediately.

One young person said: “When they (the police) come straight away, they could like take him away straight away. They should take him away because a mum or a child wouldn’t call 999 just for no reason.”

UCLan professor Nicky Stanley lead report author said: “The children in the study made it clear they needed help. Front line police officers are families’ first port of call to stop the violence at home and they have a unique opportunity to offer children reassurance and information at a time when the home is an unsafe place. They need to be equipped with the appropriate information for children and trained alongside children’s social workers on domestic violence.”

Tags: Adoption and Children Act 2002, Charities, Child Safety, children’s services, Diana Sutton, Domestic Violence, emotional scars, Front line police officers, Government, mental health, Nicky Stanley, NSPCC, the police, UCLan, University of Central Lancashire

Press release
13 September 2009

The NSPCC issued the following statement on Sunday, 13 September 2009 in response to media articles which did not adequately explain the Society’s views on the new Vetting and Barring Scheme being introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“The NSPCC supports the introduction of new vetting and barring procedures and we recognise the government’s commitment to enhancing the safety of our children.

All parents want their children to be safe when in the care of another body such as a school or a voluntary group. The new scheme introduced by the government can provide useful checks that no-one working or volunteering with the group is an offender.

It is reported that 11 million people volunteer and work with children and we need to be sure that the introduction of this scheme will not lead to the withering of this wonderful resource.

However, child sex offenders and other abusers are cunning, manipulative and often deceptively charming. They throw out a smokescreen of lies and deceit to cover up their abuse and they can target child-facing organisations to gain easier access to children.

The current system of criminal record checks is inadequate and can only ever catch those who have already offended. Such checks only provide information at a single point in time and many who abuse have no prior criminal record. Improvement is essential.

We encourage all those who volunteer or work with children to recognise that such checks are necessary and that they are not intended to cast suspicion over the many who give up their time to help children but to weed out the few seeking to abuse them.

The NSPCC has always been clear that this new scheme must be introduced carefully, in a way that does not inadvertently penalise children, weaken community relationships, or provide parents with a false sense of security. The government must now provide clearer and more detailed information about the scheme and how it will work in practice.”

Tags: Charities, Child Safety, criminal record checks, England, Government, Northern Ireland, NSPCC, Press release, Safety, sex offenders, Vetting and Barring Scheme, Wales

AEA has welcomed the first independent evaluation of the Government’s ‘Cash for Care’ strategy and has urged Minister’s to hear what older people are saying and experiencing.

The report has confirmed that ‘many older people supported by adult services do not appear to want what many of them described as the ‘additional burden’ of planning and managing their own support’. It has also indicated that ‘Older people reported lower psychological well-being with Independent Budgets, and suggested that this was perhaps because they felt the processes of planning and managing their own support were burdens’.

Additionally it noted that ‘common concerns of frontline staff were … managing potential risks – for instance paying family members or neighbours (with no Criminal Records Bureau checks) to provide support. Staff were also uneasy about potential harm or risks of financial exploitation arising from users’ choices’.

Gary FitzGerald, Chief Executive of Action on Elder Abuse (AEA), said, ‘An overwhelming message from this evaluation is that the Government needs to slow down and recognise that people are different. What works for one person or group of people does not automatically work for others, and this needs to be built into the process. The Serious case review into the death of Stephen Hoskin clearly indicated that acceding to choice should not result in abandonment1 and we need to be careful that this does not happen.’

Continued FitzGerald, ‘Fundamentally, the Government needs to understand that most adults facing the sharp end of abuse are in no position to be empowered without major frameworks and structures of support. They have been actively conditioned and disempowered by the perpetrator or by the circumstances of the abuse but nevertheless have a legitimate voice that needs to be listened to, heard, and acted upon. The Government’s responses on the safeguarding implications of this report are therefore insufficient, simplistic and bear little reality to the circumstances of abusive situations. They really need to address this urgently!’

AEA has argued that citizens should not be automatically disempowered from choice and control over their lives simply as a consequence of age, disability or assumed inability, but that it instead should be based upon principles similar to those expressed within the Mental Capacity Act 2005, an assessment of ability and risk, and an appropriate infrastructure that encompasses a safeguarding approach.

Concluded FitzGerald, ‘We are concerned that the Government has already sought to weaken the messages of this independent report by implying that the situation has changed and improved. If they are genuine about personalisation then we urge them to throw equal weight behind developing choice and control within regulated services instead of exclusively championing the ‘cash for care’ model. This model represents only one way of empowering people, and for some it can be a reckless option imposed with little regard for choice or control.’

Notes to Editors:

Most elder abuse happens in people’s own homes, perpetrated by family, friends and neighbours. According to the AEA helpline this accounts for 67% of elder abuse;

Under the banner of ‘personalisation’ the Government is rushing through a ‘cash for care’ model of social care, forcing elderly people away from legislatively protected services and into an unregulated environment, governed only by guidance.

The “Evaluation of the Individual Budget Pilot Projects” report is independent, written by a combined team from The University of York’s Social Policy Research Unit, Kings College London’s Social Care Workforce Research Unit and the Personal Social Services Research Unit of Manchester University, LSE and the University of Kent. They are collectively called The Individual Budgets Evaluation Network (IBSEN). The report can be found at the Department of Health website http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/SocialCare/Socialcarereform/Personalisation/index.htm
Action on Elder Abuse depends on charitable donations to work towards its objectives of protecting older people and putting a stop to all kinds of abuse e.g. physical, psychological, financial, sexual and neglect. Please donate by calling 0208 765 7000 or visiting www.elderabuse.org.uk or simply by sending an e-mail to: getinvolved@elderabuse.org.uk

Tags: Cash for Care, Charities, Charity, Elder Abuse, Gary FitzGerald, Government, UK Charity