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It’s not often you end up thinking ‘if only they’d listened to Max Clifford’. But earlier this year, Max gave an interview to the Guardian where he said the advice he’d have given the family of Alfie Patten, the 13-year-old dad who wasn’t, was “don’t go public, don’t talk to anybody.” Perhaps I’m naive, but I’ve always thought Max Clifford is at least honest and upfront about his work, and often talks a lot of sense. Max recently repeated this sentiment, saying: “There’s no way that this should have been brought into the public domain – but it was.”
At the heart of this story is a little boy who has been pushed to grow up too fast, and a set of circumstances that led to his face being splashed across the front of the country’s biggest selling tabloid lying next to a baby, called Maisie, that he had been led to believe was his.
We now know that Alfie Patten isn’t the father; the girl in question is only 15 herself and yet it appears may had sexual intercourse with several other young people. This fact only came out after East Sussex County Council failed in its attempts to keep an injunction in place to prevent any mention of Maisie’s father being mentioned. The real father was just 15.
The Alfie-not-the-father story had already been carried by the Daily Mirror, but noone else ran with it and the Mirror pulled the story from its website (caught by Martin Belam) because of the legal restriction. There are still other restrictions on the reporting of this story.
The Sun, that broke the story initially, denied paying Alfie’s parents for the story. Instead, they’ve set up a trust fund to support whoever ends up looking after Maisie.
The Press Complaints Commission is investigating whether Alfie’s parents were paid for the story; and presumably a wider issue of why this story was deemed suitable for publication. Even if he was the father, Alfie wasn’t the youngest father in Britain (that honour goes to a 12-year-old from my home town of Bedford).
As every single young person involved in this story is under 16, and the story centres on their sexual activities, this then makes them all victims of a crime, given that it is illegal to engage in a sexual activity with anyone under the age of 16. Slightly perversely you can be both a victim and a perpetrator of this law, as there is no exemption if both parties are under 16. Nor does the sex of the victim or perpetrator matter. Nor whether it was consensual or not.
Here’s what the PCC code says about children who are involved in sex offences: “The press must not, even if legally free to do so, identify children under 16 who are victims or witnesses in cases involving sex offences.” It then goes on to say: “In any press report of a case involving a sexual offence against a child… The child must not be identified.” It’s difficult to find any room for interpretation in this rule.
So, maybe I’m alone in wondering whether the initial story should have been run, let alone splashed across the front page? Apart from the fact it simply wasn’t true, it also totally broke the PCC code. We know there is a teenage pregnancy problem in this country, and individual cases help humanise a story, but don’t the press also have a duty, as stated in the PCC code, to treat those under the age of 16 involved in sex offences as victims?
But, if this all seems a little depressing, I’m glad that Alfie was reported to have said how he wanted to be a good father to Maisie. Too often, young parents are demonised as uncaring and unwilling to give their children a proper upbringing. Amie’s comment at the bottom of this story should be mandatory reading for everyone who thinks teenager parents aren’t committed to giving their child the best start in life.
(I actually had a long think about naming people in this story, as this would be breaking the PCC code in itself. As Alfie Patten’s name is so well known, it was difficult to see any justification in not mentioning it, but I’ve not named anyone other than the baby).
Image courtesy of superkimbo in BKK. Used under licence.
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Monday’s papers covered the news that Bear Grylls is to become the new Chief Scout, taking over from Peter Duncan. Most of the coverage has been positive; shame on the Daily Mail for their rather churlish attack by leading on his TV-fakery claims (claims that indirectly resulted in him getting the Chief Scout job).
BBC Home Affairs editor Mark Easton picked up an interesting part of this story when he looked at whether changing work patterns are the reason that Scouts, like every other youth organisation, are struggling to recruit enough leaders to satisfy the demand from young people. (He picks up on an issue I’d written about ages ago – that young people would love to participate in activities if only there were the adults to run them).
But I think he’s swallowed the Scouts line a little too easily – there is an obvious reason why they don’t want to make too much of the negative stereotypes that Scout leaders have had. If you don’t think CRBs deter volunteers, read the comments here.
Mark’s argument is that in “the olden days”, when workers worked 9-5, they would be able to get home and dutifully go off to run their local scouting group. Nowadays, with flexible hours, and work eating into more of people’s leisure time, the ability to volunteer in this way is impossible.
There is probably an element of truth in this. But Mark assumes that Scout leaders were office workers, and I’d wager that in much of the country they often were blue-collar workers, working in shifts in factories or trades where you stopped working when you’d finished the job.
We might have a culture of more flexible working, but that works both ways. Again, I’d wager that 30 years ago most companies wouldn’t have had a CSR section of their annual report, nor have a volunteering policy or recognition that skills developed outside the organisation can be extremely beneficial to what the employee does whilst at work.
And whilst I’m sure there are companies where if you asked your boss if you could leave half-an-hour early to help run your local Scout troop you’d be told exactly where to go (and it wouldn’t be in the direction of the Scout hut), I’d reckon the number of employers who would be receptive to the idea is increasing not decreasing.
So, I think both Mark Easton and the Scouts are missing the point. If people wanted to volunteer for their local Scout group then there are ways and means of making it happen. I just think the role isn’t attractive enough: there are too many negative connotations associated with it, there is too much red-tape, there are old-fashioned attitudes in the Scouts that just don’t sit comfortably with the young adults that the organisation needs to attract. But I don’t think this is exclusively an issue with the Scouts, I think many of the points equally apply to other youth organisations.
All that said, I wish Bear the best of luck in his new role; he’s young and enthusiastic enough to push through radical changes and make the Scouts an organisation that people want to volunteer for.
Image courtesy of wwannaby. Used under licence.
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I spend an interesting afternoon yesterday at the Hammersmith HQ of Haymarket Publishing – the publisher of the youth sector magazine Children and Young People Now. They, along with the National Youth Agency, were launching a report identifying initiatives around the UK that aim to counter the negative public perceptions of young people.
I was a last minute stand-in for a colleague, but I was glad I went: catching up with the inevitable small group of people who work in this field. It was great to see (if not talk to) Fiona Blacke, the new Chief Exec of the NYA and recent Twitterer.
The discussion was useful, but it was preaching to the converted, and although I agree with UKYP’s Andy Hamflet that it’s great to see people coming together and starting a movement, we need to engage a much wider circle if we want to make a difference. It needs to be young person led, yet adults have to stand up and be counted when it comes to challenging the negative perception of young people by the media.
But, without doubt, the comment of the afternoon came from Lisa White at 11 Million. She said her colleagues had been discussing the horrific Baby P case, and a similar story that is going to become major news over the next few months concerning a recent incident in Doncaster.
The public have been rightly outraged at the abuse that Baby P (who we can now know was called Peter) suffered during his short life. And yet what Lisa argued, and a sentiment I totally understand, is that had Baby P survived, or had the abuse been inflicted on him in his teenage years, then the public’s sympathy for him would have waned the older he got. The words “suffered physical abuse as a child” is a phrase that we read far too often without thinking about what that actually means.
As Channel 4’s excellent Lost in Care programme highlighted, kids who are permanently taken away from abusive parents aren’t always placed into a loving, caring adoptive family. Baby P was young enough to still be attractive to potential-parents, as most adoptive parents go for children under five, but they also, on the whole, avoid children who have physical or mental health problems.
Had Baby P not been adopted, he would have most likely been fostered. Children can be placed in a foster parent for periods of up to six months. If Baby P was two when he was taken away, he would have been moved a minimum of 32 times before his 18th birthday. And, because of a lack of suitable foster carers, those moves would regularly be into other counties or cities. That there are children who come out of extended fostering reasonably stable is an enormous credit to them.
Baby P may have one of the 10,000 children placed into a care home. Unlike the rest of Europe, the UK prefers fostering over care homes (although that is starting to change, particularly with the introduction of social pedagogy). Many young people, particularly teenagers, live in collective accommdation rather than with individual families.
Children in care fall massively behind their peers when it comes to educational attainment. According to the DSCF 14% of looked-after children received five GCSEs A-C in 2008, as opposed to a national average of 65%. Children in care also are twice as likely to offend than the national average, and half of young people in Young Offenders Institutes have been in care.
The kids the Daily Mail see as feral are often the kids whose lives began in a similar vein to Baby P. Abused by their parents, taken into care, let down by the state and aged 18 kicked out on to the streets and told to fend for themselves. That’s not justifying the actions of out-of-control children, but there needs a more sympathetic approach to their plight.
Photo courtesy of DrGaz. Used under licence.
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Although this possibly is outside the remit of this blog, I’ve been caught up in the discussion about whether the voluntary sector needs an ombudsman (an independent person who helps resolve issues between an organisation and individuals). With recent proposals for compulsory volunteering for young people, I think this discussion is very timely.
Rather randomly, I originally got involved because my colleague, Patrick Daniels, is one of the directors of the Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM), and had launched their new website. He wanted people to try the poll he’d added, and so I did. The question was ‘The case for a volunteer ombudsman is strong‘, and I’d ticked agree because that was my initial reaction.
It turns out that the AVM don’t share my view, and there has been opinions in the trade press and on blogs about whether a volunteer ombudsman is the right way to go. There’s an interesting discussion in this week’s Third Sector (reg. required). I think John Ramsey from AVM makes some valid points about the problems of formalising an external complaints procedure, and the desire to use resources to improve standards rather than to create a system of regulation is a laudable one.
That said, I still think there is still significant inadequacies when it comes to protecting volunteers. Perhaps the argument is about semantics-I’m not sure a volunteering “ombudsman” is necessarily the right term-but I still think a standardised external complaints procedure would be a good idea.
Jon says that research suggests volunteers generally felt satisfied with their volunteering, and I’ve no reason to disagree with that. However, most consumers are probably generally satisfied, but that doesn’t negate the need for Trading Standards, the OFT or media outlets like Watchdog, You and Yours or the consumer rights experts that appear in weekend papers. Without knowing the details of how this survey was conducted, volunteers generally self-identify, so those people who leave having had a negative experience of volunteering may not class themselves as volunteers.
From personal experience, there have been a number of times I’ve left volunteering opportunities as a result of bad practice or what I deemed unacceptable behaviour. What prompted me to leave was not necessarily the negative experience, but a feeling there was little I could do about it that would create change within the organisation. And I don’t think I’m alone in having that experience.
Although there are hundreds of ways to volunteer, away from the big cities it’s likely that there are limited opportunities for someone interested in a particular issue or skill. Therefore, I don’t think it’s as easy as saying if a volunteer doesn’t like the organisation, they should simply leave. Equally, whilst I think the independence of the voluntary sector should be protected; there is a genuine moral concern about an organisation that dominates a particular sector being able to remove volunteers without any form of accountability.
My idea would be to have an independent organisation that conducts an annual audit on the state of volunteering and promotes good practice. They could receive evidence of malpractice from individuals (or other organisations) that helps form their report. In the most severe of cases organisations would be named, and the complaint and subsequent investigation written up in the style of Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin. It would detail what the complaint was, a response from the organisation responsible and a commentary from an independent panel (not a judgment as there wouldn’t be a formal code to base decisions on).
In his Third Sector piece, Jon Ramsay says one problem would be the limited sanctions an ombudsman would have on an organisation. But I think it would a massive impact – a commentary that reflected badly on an organisation would be picked up and noticed by their funders, benefactors and the public alike. Look what happened when Intelligent Giving highlighted a lack of accountability at Children in Need. The result was a radical change to its accountability procedures. I do think something similar for volunteering could really make people take their volunteer management seriously.
I imagine it’d be similar to the Fundraising Standards Board, which investigates instances of bad practice around giving money to charities. They have a complaints procedure that comes into play if an organisation’s own system doesn’t produce a satisfactory result. The main downside of the FRSB is that it only investigates charities who are members.
That’s not to say all this should come at the expense of promoting good practice, and there needs to be development of incentives such as those best company to work for surveys (of which Patrick and I work at the best charity to work for, apparently). But assuming that the quality of volunteering is going to rise without fixing what is wrong is, I’d argue, somewhat naïve. Some organisations, with large reserves of money and a good public image, won’t necessarily have the motivation to change unless there is an independent assessment of their volunteering practice.
Image courtesy of dhueur. Used under licence.
