A social worker's view on the Badman Review

http://www.radical.org.uk/barefoot/heducation.htm

Social Work and Home Education

Growing calls for greater regulation of home education need a social work
response. Social workers are being asked to exercise greater controls over
families who reject state education and keep home educated children under
closer surveillance. This move is authoritarian and inconsistent with social
work values and should be strongly resisted.

One of the proposals of the Badman Report and accepted by the government is
that local authorities should be given powers to prevent parents from
educating their children at home if a child’s 'safety' is in question. These
draconian powers are completely unnecessary and represent a step too far in
the direction of greater state intervention in family life. Children deemed
to be 'at risk' may be forced into school to allow them to be more easily
monitored. These changes would effectively put the local authority and home
educating parents in opposition to each other and create a great deal of
unnecessary stress for home educators. All this would be done for the sake
of improved child protection. In reality, the proposed new arrangements
would not result in better child protection and may actually cause more harm
than good.

A key question hinges on the meaning of the term 'at risk' and whether a
social worker should become involved. Social workers carry dual
responsibilities - for welfare and protection. In the welfare role the focus
is on the child's development in the broadest sense and in providing
appropriate services. Social work support is only provided with the
voluntary agreement of parents. In the child protection role the social
worker has powers and duties defined by the 1989 Children Act which includes
powers to investigate suspected abuse and neglect and, if necessary, powers
to remove the child if it is 'at risk of significant harm'. In this role
social workers can use their authority to adopt a firmer, more persuasive
style of working to reduce the risks and prevent the need for the child to
be taken into care.

If a social worker becomes involved with families where the child is home
educated it is inevitable that consideration will be given to whether the
child would do better in a state school. However, the social worker is not
an expert in education and should therefore take great care to avoid making
any 'educational' judgements. The social worker should bear in mind that
many children are failed by the state system and consider the emotional
impact on the parent-child relationship of enforced school attendance.

Recent legislation has scrapped the long-standing principle of
non-intervention with home educators and social workers are now required to
take a greater interest in the education and welfare of these children. In
addition, government guidelines are deliberately blurring the boundary
between child welfare and child protection. This has made the role of social
workers more complicated and caused some confusion about their legal powers.
On occasions, social workers inappropriately use child protection powers in
situations where there are 'safeguarding concerns' and questions are now
being raised about whether such powers are legally enforceable. Social
workers must ensure that their compulsory powers are only used in situations
where the child may be at risk of 'significant harm' - and relevant case law
shows that evidence of abuse or neglect must be substantiated.

Many problems have arisen in child protection work because the
'safeguarding' role has broadened the scope of the work but created enormous
confusion throughout the education system about what the term actually
means. There is a perception that families are sometimes treated unfairly
and professionals use 'safeguarding' to mean whatever they want it to mean.
It is not surprising that home educating parents are alarmed at the prospect
of social workers with greater powers visiting them.

The current system for protecting children from abuse and neglect is
well-established and there is no evidence that additional legal powers are
required. Although recent scandals have shown high-risk cases not being
picked up that is more due to the system being overloaded than anything
else. It is often the reluctance of local authorities to make use of their
existing legal powers in high risk cases that is the problem

Apart from the threat to civil liberties there are serious questions to be
asked about whether local authorities should be taking on additional
responsibilities at a time of financial cutbacks. There is a workforce
crisis in child protection social work and many frontline workers are
already struggling to cope with large caseloads. Extending the social work
role with home educators is definitely not a priority while high-risk cases
go undetected.

*Hilary Searing*

You can read Ben's account of the Welsh 3,000 here.
http://baptistwithasmallb.blogspot.com/2009/07/15-peaks-challenge.html3. Crib Goch – 0530

"From Crib y Ddysgl we came to probably the most dangerous part of the walk. Even in dry and sunny weather Crib Goch is not particularly safe, but in wet and misty weather as on this morning it is very dangerous. On one occasion I found myself edging out onto a ledge to my left with a sheer drop below wondering why I was doing this."


This particular quote fills me with dread.

Welsh 3,000

http://www.justgiving.com/benjaminlowery/
Ben and Daf are doing the Welsh 3,000 at the moment, they will be climbing a third of the height of Everest, if you would like to sponsor them just follow the link. They are raising money for Clwyd Special Riding centre. I am thankful to the Lord that the weather isn't as hot as it has been, although it is very wet.
They were dropped at the bottom of Snowdon last night, they will then climb all fifteen peaks, John sent me an e-mail to say they had completed the first leg of their journey at 7.30 this morning.

A Godly example of womanhood

Jenny Sanford's Statement
South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford issued the following statement Wednesday after her husband's admission to an extramarital affair:
I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.
I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.
I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husbands infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.
This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.
I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.
Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.
This is a very painful time for us and I would humbly request now that members of the media respect the privacy of my boys and me as we struggle together to continue on with our lives and as I seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family.

Badman report

I have been building myself up to post on this very important topic, the government review is published Mr Badman has spoken you can read the entire review here
http://ahed.pbworks.com/HomeEdReviewReportPlus#TheReport
The Government accepted and have started the consultation on the same day
http://www.info4local.gov.uk/documents/consultations/1252801
Here are some articles
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/5508165/Parents-should-educate-children-as-they-wish.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/5508165/Parents-should-educate-children-as-they-wish.html

The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article6493072.ece?Submitted=true

HSLDA
http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200906161.asp


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=101371

Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/23/home-schooling-early-years-education

Latin

Here is a fantastic site to help your children learn latin http://www.cambridgescp.com/
it is just a brilliant way to teach latin and classical civilisation. But even better than this WJEC are planning to accredit an exam on the Cambridge latin books. This will be exam only and so will be brilliant for home educators. You can read the spec here. http://www.wjec.co.uk/index.php?subject=167&level=15&imageField2.x=35&imageField2.y=12
So come on you budding classicists get learning.

Homeschooling article

Here is a very nice article on homeschooling. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=94543