for the

Family

for the

Youth

for the

Future

Bulletin 122: Winter 2005/2006

In this issue:

Also: special news update:

Annual General Meeting and Conference

The 2006 AGM and Conference of the Family Education Trust will be held on Saturday 24 June 2006 at the Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, London W1.

Further details will accompany the Spring bulletin. Please note the date in your diary now and plan to join with us if you are able.

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Doubts remain over children’s database

The Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, issued a statement on 8 December 2005, outlining the government’s further plans on the establishment of an information sharing database for children. In part, it states:

The index will be a simple basic online system containing:
– minimal identifying information for each child; name, address, date of birth, gender, and contact details for parents or carers. Each child will also have a unique identifying number. In almost all cases this will be a scrambled version of their Child Reference Number (which all children are allocated when a claim for child benefit is made);
– contact details for their educational setting and GP practice and for other practitioners or services working with them; and
– where a practitioner judges it appropriate and necessary, an indicator showing that they wished to be contacted by other practitioners because they have relevant information to share, are taking action, or have undertaken an assess-ment in relation to that child. 

No case information will be held on the index. Children, young people, or, where appropriate, their parents or carers will be able to ask to see their records and to challenge any inaccuracies, in accordance with Data Protection Legislation.

There will be a single central index with its data partitioned into 150 parts, one relating to each local authority in England . A central index will ensure that the system works for children who move areas or who access services from more than one area. Partitioning the data will ensure local authorities take the lead in maintaining the accuracy of the data for children living in their area. To avoid double-inputting of data and to ensure high standards of accuracy, information on the index will be drawn from and updated through existing systems. It will use proven technology.1

Range of sources

It is proposed to draw information from a range of sources, including child benefit records, NHS numbers and local education authority records, and then to cross-reference them in an effort to ensure that the database contains the most up-to-date information.

The project is currently in ‘Design Phase’ with thought being given to ‘sourcing’, ‘cleansing’ and ‘data matching’ with a view to it being fully operational by the end of 2008. When Family and Youth Concern suggested to the Department for Education and Skills that there appeared to be considerable scope for error, given that children are moving house, and changing schools and GPs all the time, an official responded that the children’s database would be only a quarter of the size of the DVLA database which contained very few errors.

Misplaced confidence

It may be, however, that the Department’s confidence in the DVLA database is somewhat misplaced. During July 2005, Home Office Minister Paul Goggins reported a disturbingly low level of accuracy in databases used by the police. In response to a parliamentary question about the proportion of alerts from the automatic number plate recognition system which have been false positives, Mr Goggins replied that:

During Project Laser Two, the evaluation of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) usage, a total of 101,775 vehicles were stopped by the police. This study showed the following accuracy levels of databases used by the police:

Local force databases—83 per cent.
Police National Computer (PNC)—79 per cent.
Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA)—40 per cent.2

Notes

1. Hansard, House of Commons, 8 December 2005 , col 114WS.
2. Hansard, House of Commons, Written Answers, 11 July 2005 , col 759W.

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In loco parentis: a badge of honour to be discarded or restored?

In the Education White Paper, Higher Standards, Better  Schools for All , the government proposes to implement the recommendations of Sir Alan Steer’s Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline and give teachers increased powers to discipline unruly pupils by:

  • introducing a clear and unambiguous legal right for teachers to discipline pupils, including re-affirmation of the right to restrain pupils using reasonable force, backed by an expectation that every school has a clear set of rules and sanctions;
  • extending parenting orders, so that schools can use them to make parents take responsibility for their children’s bad behaviour in school;
  • expecting parents to take responsibility for excluded pupils in the first five days of an exclusion, by ensuring their children are supervised doing schoolwork, with fines for parents if excluded pupils are found in a public place during school hours;
  • expecting headteachers collectively to develop on and off-site alternative provision for suspensions longer than five days, with all exclusions properly recorded;
  • requiring local authorities to make full-time provision for permanently excluded pupils after five days; and
  • making discipline a key factor in evaluating school performance.1

The White Paper contains no less than 459 references to parents and places a strong emphasis on widening parental choice. However, for all the fine words about putting ‘the parent and pupil at the centre of the system’ and putting ‘parents in the driving seat for change’, the White Paper also proposes to replace the in loco parentis principle with a clear and unambiguous legal right for teachers to discipline pupils, independent of any delegation of parental authority.

The reason cited for the proposed change is that, ‘many heads and teachers have found that their authority is being challenged by violent and threatening parents, who question their decision to punish, detain or suspend badly-behaved youngsters’ (para 7.8) and the need to ensure that ‘no parent can again question a teacher’s authority on this matter, when he or she is acting reasonably’ (para 7.9).

Weakened principle

If that were the only problem, it could be addressed by schools requiring parents to endorse their policies on discipline prior to registering their children. But, in reality, there is more to it than that. The Steer Group on School Behaviour and Discipline notes that the in loco parentis principle has been weakened in two specific respects in recent years:

(a) by the introduction of legislation permitting detentions and exclusions without the consent of parents; and, more significantly,

(b) by the ‘Gillick competence principle’. The Steer Report cites the House of Lords approval of Lord Denning’s formulation in Hewer v Bryant , regarding the authority of a father, to the effect that, ‘It starts with a right of control and ends with little more than advice’.2

In other words, the real problem is that the authority of parents has been undermined to such an extent that the in loco parentis principle has been robbed of much of its original meaning.

Historically, the term has been used to emphasise that a teacher is responsible for taking the same reasonable care of a pupil that a parent would take under the same circumstances. The phrase in loco parentis embodies the nineteenth century common law principle that a teacher’s authority is delegated by a parent insofar as it is necessary for the welfare of the child. A court held, in 1893, that ‘the schoolmaster is bound to take such care of his pupils as a careful father would’.3

However, in the words of Graham Clayton, the senior solicitor of the National Union of Teachers, ‘Once, being in the place of the parent counted for something. It was the mark of respect, a recognition of a teacher’s professional skill to be in the stead of a parent. But somewhere along the line it lost its gravity and has become an obstacle.’4 Mr Clayton thus has no hesitation in supporting the proposed demise of in loco parentis and granting to teachers authority and responsibility by virtue of their status as teachers rather than as parent substitutes.

Respecting parental authority

For ourselves, we cannot help thinking that the government has got it the wrong way around and that the better way would be to pay proper recognition to the authority and responsibility of parents. In that way, in loco parentis might begin to mean something again. After all, it is parents who are legally responsible for the ‘efficient full-time education’, suitable to the ‘age, ability and aptitude’ of their children of compulsory school age, ‘ either by regular attendance at school or otherwise’.5 In addition, the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been incorporated into UK law under the Human Rights Act 1998, insists that:

In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.6

The principle of in loco parentis is in perfect harmony with these legal provisions and should be maintained. The more that parents are undermined and marginalised, the less responsibility they will take for their children’s discipline and education, and the more they will be inclined to regard their children’s learning and behaviour as the responsibility of schools and other agencies of the state. The result of this will be that the number of irresponsible parents will increase rather than diminish.

Notes

1. ‘Higher Standards, Better Schools for All: More choice for parents and pupils’, DfES, October 2005, p82.
2. ‘Learning Behaviour, The Report of the Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline’, October 2005, p94.
3. ‘Education, the Law and You’, NUT notes, October 2005 http://www.teachers.org.uk/resources/pdf/Teachers_Law_Oct2005.pdf
4. Graham Clayton, ‘Teachers qua teachers’, in The Teacher , December 2005.
5. Education Act 1996, s.7.
6. European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2 of First Protocol.

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Confidentiality policy challenged in High Court

Manchester mother, Sue Axon, went to the High Court in November to challenge government guidance which allows doctors to provide abortion or contraception advice to children under 16 without their parents’ knowledge.

During the three-day hearing, Philip Havers, representing Mrs Axon, argued that Department of Health guidance issued in July 2004 contravened the law lords ruling in the case of Victoria Gillick in 1985 which insisted that it should only be in exceptional circumstances that underage girls are treated without the knowledge and consent of their parents.

Changing standards

The government argued that in stating that ‘it would and should be highly unusual for a doctor to advise a child without the knowledge and consent of parents on contraceptive matters’ , Lord Fraser was not making a legal statement, but merely reflecting the prevailing standards of the time. Much, however, had changed during the intervening 20 years and since it was no longer unusual for girls to have underage sex and seek contraception without the knowledge of their parents, Lord Fraser’s remarks no longer applied.

When Mr Havers suggested that the rising rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) indicated that perhaps the government’s pursuit of confidentiality policies as a key strand of its teenage pregnancy strategy was not working, Philip Sales on behalf of the government responded that the rising STI rate demonstrated the success of the strategy since it furnished evidence that confidentiality policies were encouraging more young people to come forward for testing and treatment.

The ‘autonomous rights’ of the child

In an extraordinary intervention, Nathalie Lieven, representing the fpa (formerly the Family Planning Association) asserted that the view that parents know what is best for a child is out of date and represents a traditional paternalistic approach that is out of step with recent social changes. She declared, ‘Children have autonomous rights that must be protected by the courts.’

Miss Lieven argued that parents are no longer necessarily the best people to advise a child on contraception, STIs and abortions, and they have no right to know if their children under 16 are seeking treatment. She expressed particular concern about the influence of parents who had ‘strong views’ about underage sex, abortion, or teenagers having babies, and held that there was no reason why parents should know if their children did not wish to tell them. The autonomy of the child needed to be respected, and in the event of any clash between the right of the parent and the right of the child, ‘the child’s right must prevail’ , she insisted.

Parents are the best judges

In response, Philip Havers was confident that ‘the vast majority of people in this country would support the proposition that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the best judges of a child’s welfare are his or her parents’ . He added that most people would be astonished to be told that view was out of date and asked rhetorically, ‘If parents are not the best people to advise their child – who is? Is it the fpa? Is it social workers? Or who?’

Shortly before the High Court hearing, Brook launched a campaign entitled, ‘Wise up! Your rights on sexual health’ to protect and promote the right of young people to confidential advice and services. The campaign is being backed by the National Youth Agency, the General Medical Council, the Royal College of Nursing, the UK Youth Parliament, Action on Rights for Children, the fpa, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

At the time of writing, the High Court judgment is still awaited and is anticipated shortly.

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‘Morning-after pill’ figures cause concern

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, the proportion of women obtaining the ‘morning after pill’ from chemists or pharmacies has almost doubled from 27 per cent in 2003/04 to 50 per cent in 2004/05.

When the morning-after pill was first approved for use in the UK during the 1980s, the Department of Health gave assurances that it would be used only in exceptional circumstances and would remain a prescription-only drug under the control of doctors. Yet, over the past five years, growing numbers of women have been purchasing it from high street chemists, just like a form of contraception. Strictly speaking, however, the ‘morning-after pill’ is not a contraceptive because it is taken with the intention of preventing the implantation of a fertilised egg after conception has taken place. This raises obvious ethical issues that women are generally not made aware of.

While guidance from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society recommends that pharmacists make a thorough assessment of the situation of the woman seeking the morning-after pill and suggests a number of counselling points to cover in a one-to-one consultation, in practice pharmacists rarely have the time to devote to this.

The guidance also states that pharmacists should give advice on so-called ‘safer sex’ to minimise the risk of sexually transmitted infections, but since as many as 46 per cent of women seek the morning-after pill because of condom failure, such advice is clearly of limited value. The truth is that any sexual activity outside the context of a lifelong and faithful marriage carries with it the risk of contracting an STI.

An emerging body of evidence suggests that the easy availability of the morning-after pill is lulling young people in particular into a false sense of security, encouraging a more casual attitude to sex, and exposing them to increased risk of STIs.

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Special offer – two books for the price of one!

When John Clare, the Education Editor of the Daily Telegraph devoted a recent column to highlighting some explicit sex education materials being widely used in secondary schools, he received an unprecedented response from concerned parents and grandparents, who were desperate to know more about what was being presented to their children and grandchildren.

Few parents, it would seem, are aware of the extent to which sex education has become an ideological battlefield on which war is being waged for the hearts and minds of their children.

It was to raise public awareness that we published Valerie Riches’ book, Sex Education or Indoctrination? It traces the historical and philosophical roots of the sex education lobby and carries a message that every parent needs to hear, about the way in which sex education and confidentiality policies are being used to undermine the influence of parents.

If you already have a copy of Valerie Riches’ report, why not purchase another copy to pass onto a friend?

For every copy of Sex Education or Indoctrination? ordered at £5.00 + £1.00 p&p, we shall be pleased to send a free copy of the very informative Institute of Economic Affairs title on the teaching of HIV and Aids in Schools (rrp £10.00) while stocks last.

 

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BOOK REVIEWS

Mentoring Marriages: Use your experience of the ups and downs of married life to support other couples

Harry Benson, Monarch 2005, 256pp, £7.99. ISBN 1-85424-699-2.

In this book Harry Benson encourages ordinary married couples to take up the challenge to open their homes and share their good and bad experiences of marriage with engaged couples, newly-weds, or the already-married who are struggling.

He contends that any happily married couple can provide a series of weekly support sessions to another couple. Their role is not to act as experts or analysers, but simply to facilitate discussion between the couple about areas of potential conflict, such as money, work and children, in order to open up a dialogue between them.

Harry Benson maintains that this can be easily achieved using a prepared inventory of questions and remembering some simple ground rules for good communication such as avoiding put-downs, scoring points and thinking the worst of the other, and encouraging couples to paraphrase one another’s comments to show that they are really listening to each other.

While some may find the promotion of such a programmed approach off-putting, the underlying principle of ordinary married couples giving time and effort to encourage others to lay or restore solid foundations for their marriages is to be welcomed. The chapters on good communication skills, while necessarily brief and sketchy, are nevertheless thought-provoking.

Harry Benson runs the Bristol Community Family Trust and is committed to the promotion of lifelong and exclusive marriages as the surest foundation for a stable society.

‘Marriage is good for us,’ he declares. ‘Marriage works. The mindset and behaviour that accompany marriage produce all sorts of social benefits and protections that cohabitation and divorce typically do not. Married people are more stable, happier, healthier and wealthier, and live longer than any category of unmarried people… We reject marriage at our peril.’

Nicola Wells

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No Man’s Land: How Britain ‘s inner city young are being failed

Shaun Bailey, Centre for Young Policy Studies 2005, 56pp, £7.50. ISBN 1-905389-16-7.

 

In this first publication of the youth wing of the Centre for Policy Studies, Shaun Bailey writes about his experience working with a community initiative seeking to help disaffected and drug-addicted young people on the North Kensington Estates where he was himself brought up.

He describes very vividly the culture of drugs, sex, violence, crime and dependency and relates his indebtedness to the determination of his lone-parent mother who ensured that he developed the sense of responsibility that saved him from succumbing to the considerable peer pressure to offend.

Children on the estates are left to raise themselves and given adult responsibilities before they have the emotional stability to deal with it. Low levels of parental supervision and low parental expectations give rise to high levels of crime and high teenage pregnancy rates. Girls commonly mistake sexual intimacy for affection and, while they invariably express regret for their early sexual activity, many find themselves as single mothers struggling with loneliness, depression and mental health problems.

Their behaviour is not entirely impulsive, however. Shaun Bailey explains:

People with our lives, in our circles, understand you are better off if you are a single parent. It has reached the point where a lot of people who are not single parents present themselves in that manner because it makes financial sense. If anybody thinks that people like us don’t sit around and have these discussions, they are deluding themselves. We soon figure out which way it will make us the most money. And that’s an example of how we are trapped by government policy. Because it discourages us from raising our children in nuclear families…

If you talk to young people, they all support marriage. There are very few who say they wouldn’t get married, especially among women. But they are used to not being given that commitment (p21-22).

Liberal attitudes and policies come in for sustained criticism: schools are failing children by not giving them boundaries, the removal of religion and ethics from the classroom has been a disaster, an approach that tries not to offend anybody is doomed to failure. The education system is so focused on examinations that it is failing to give the less academic pupils skills for work, and sex education combined with confidential contraceptive availability is condoning underage sex and undermining parents.

According to this front-line youth worker, the answer is not more government initiatives, but projects that originate from within the community itself. Shaun Bailey describes the health project he was involved in setting up on the estates four years ago and, by means of case studies, illustrates its success in reducing crime and drug use and in helping young people find work.

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Family Structure and Economic Outcomes

Patricia Morgan, Economic Research Council 2004, Research Study No 20, x + 61pp, £10.00.

In this closely reasoned study, Patricia Morgan documents the economic consequences of public policies formulated in antipathy to the marriage-based family for more than two decades. She shows how the retreat from marriage imposes burdens not only on the immediate family members involved, but also on society at large.

Mrs Morgan holds that the relationship between family structure and poverty is not as simplistic as often suggested and argues that policymakers have been mistaken both in equating poverty and lone parenthood, and in providing fiscal incentives to lone parenthood that present it as an ‘option’ that is ‘equally valid’.

The idea of treating a married couple as a single financial unit is greeted with hostility in official circles, yet Patricia Morgan observes that reduced dependency of women on men has coincided with increased dependence of whole families on the state. For the lone parent, only a partial independence is possible.

Ironically the pursuit of ‘equal opportunities’ has served only to create further inequalities as the trend towards double income households has left lone parents even further behind than under a one main breadwinner system. In order to reduce the extent of cyclical poverty, Mrs Morgan calls for the development of policies that favour interdependence within the family rather than punishing it.

The fact that marriage is not simply a private affair with private consequences is demonstrated by a consideration of the impact of current policies on a range of issues including male employment levels, crime, education and the environment.

Patricia Morgan describes marriage as ‘a highly economic arrangement, of continuing and paramount importance for the production of material well being, fostering many benefits that are so hard to construct elsewhere’. She laments the lack of appreciation shown towards just how much is at stake ‘when the state pulls the policy levers against marriage and two-parent families, and facilitates movement from a relatively cheap and efficient form of living and child-rearing to comparatively expensive and inefficient ones’.

Norman Wells

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The Tina Project – a novel

 Adam Grace, Family Publications 2005, 251pp, £8.50. ISBN 1-871217-54-7.

This exciting novel defies pigeonholing or assigning to a genre: it is part thriller, part science fiction, part political novel and wholly pro-life and gripping. Britain is portrayed as on the brink of financial ruin, there are no longer enough taxpayers to fund welfare benefits, and a £10 billion black hole has appeared in the national economy. A Whitehall mole tips off an investigative journalist, Howard Mitchell, that a top-secret think-tank has come up with the answer. It plans to shrink the ‘underclass’.

The hideous social engineering project is code-named ‘Tina’ (an acronym for ‘There is no alternative’). It is led by an internationally famous figure whose identity the mole dare not disclose. The reporter is incredulous, until a fatal motorway ‘accident’ alerts him to a cynical scenario that makes economic sense. If the poor were to stop breeding at their alarming rate, billions of pounds could be saved.

Adam Grace is a journalist and the book races along like a good news story. Though the story is fiction, the issues are real. I will not spoil the reader’s pleasure by disclosing how it all ends. There are several surprising twists of plot, but the ending is certainly not pessimistic.

Eric Hester

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The social and economic advantages of supporting marriage

 

An extract from a lecture given at the Bar Council in London by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss on 5 December 2005 under the title, ‘Family Law Reform – Opportunities taken, wasted and yet to be seized’.

 

Marriage does continue to have advantages which are not sufficiently trumpeted. Support for marriage would have economic as well as social advantages for the public and for the state.

I would suggest that divorce is not a private matter for the couple and their children. There are about 150,000 divorces a year. Their resolution also affects the community and the state. The emotional effect upon many people of the breakdown of their marriage may have an adverse effect upon the workplace, social life, relatives and friends. I suggest that a company director may not make as good decisions for his company if he and his wife are in the throes of a traumatic divorce. According to research the effect on children may be very serious indeed and may have long term as well as short-term consequences such as difficulties in forming stable adult relationships. The family courts are clogged with disputes post divorce relating to children, housing, financial arrangements, injunctions and non-molestation orders

I am not sure how the social and emotional side advantages of marriage might be more widely discussed and supported. The Government proclaims its support for the family and it is and should be looking at practical and imaginative ideas to carry this forward in the community particularly among the young. It is however a sad fact that a Government which has published excellent proposals on helping parents and children after breakdown of relationships, has done nothing practical to support married couples. In the past married couples enjoyed tax concessions which the Government has withdrawn. There is now no financial incentive to marry or remain married and a financial incentive to cohabit and not to marry. This outcome which contributes to the downgrading of the status of marriage is particularly sad since the statistics show that marriage remains the most stable of all relationships between men and women, even with the incidence of divorce. The average length of cohabitation is said to be 3 years

I am unaware whether there has ever been an attempt to balance the cost to the state of the consequences of divorce against the cost to the state of dealing with the failure of other relationships. It would be difficult to assess adequately since the adverse effects go far beyond the obvious. But there can be little doubt that to support and encourage marriage has financial, as well as other, long lasting, benefits for the wider community. The financial change of direction away from the support of marriage has created a wasted opportunity to support a section of the public whose value to society has been seriously undervalued.

Dame Elizabeth  Butler -Sloss served as President of the Family Division of the High Court from October 1999 until her retirement in April 2005.

  

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Families and the state: Two-way support and responsibilities

A brief review of the report of the Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children

The Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children was set up in April 2004 to ‘consider the relationship between the state and the family in providing children with a humane and caring upbringing in the 21 st century’.  It is a joint project of the National Family & Parenting Institute and NCH (formerly National Children’s Homes), with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Following a consultation process during the summer of 2004, the Commission published its report, Families and the state: Two-way support and responsibilities , in October 2005. Sub-titled, ‘An inquiry into the relationship between the state and the family in the upbringing of children’, the 108-page report concludes by making 14 recommendations, including a legal ban on smacking as a form of discipline, government guidance on the minimum age for babysitters, raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12, and incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law.

‘Values’

The Commission’s recommendations were informed by seven ‘values’ which underline the presuppositions of its membership. The first ‘value’ was ‘a recognition of the importance of families in all their various forms’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, one searches the report in vain for any acknowledgement of the unique benefits of marriage for children.

The second ‘value’ was ‘a recognition that families, as well as having the potential to offer a caring environment, can also be a place where people experience violence and abuse, and may not, in certain circumstances, serve the best interests of the children living in them’. This somewhat jaundiced view of family life omits to acknowledge that child abuse occurs only in a small minority of homes and is disproportionately associated with homes where children are being brought up without two married parents.

The fourth ‘value’ betrays the statist inclinations of the Commission when it demands ‘an acceptance that the state has a role to play in supporting and regulating families’ (emphasis added). Later in the report, the Commission calls on the government to define its expectations of parents in the upbringing of children and refers to a ‘partnership’ between parents and the state.

While few would argue with the sixth ‘value’ that ‘because of the vulnerability of children, their wellbeing should be the paramount consideration in constructing family policy’, the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the wellbeing of children cannot be considered in isolation from family structure – something that the Commission resolutely refuses to do.

Ideology

The way in which the Commission’s ideology has got in the way of its consideration of the evidence may be illustrated by considering the basis on which it concluded that smacking should be made a criminal offence by removing the defence of reasonable chastisement.

The Commission’s executive summary notes:

[T]here are distinctions to be made between different levels and frequency of the use of smacking, [but] overall, the evidence indicates that although physical punishment need not necessarily have ill effects, there is some tendency for it to be associated with negative outcomes.1

However, a ‘tendency’ for something to be ‘associated’ with a negative outcome does not prove causation and provides a very flimsy basis on which to call for the criminalisation of all parental smacking. In response to research by Dr Elizabeth Gershoff which is cited with approval by the Commission, Dr Robert Larzelere has argued that while b eing in a hospital is associated with detrimental outcomes (e.g. greater likelihood of death), it does not cause an increased likelihood of death. Rather, the actual cause is the problem that led to the hospitalisation. This is generally true of all corrective interventions, whether medical, psychological, educational, or parental.2

From the studies cited in its brief discussion of physical chastisement in the report and from the studies listed in the bibliography, the Commission does not appear to have taken into account the body of research which shows consistently beneficial outcomes for smacking when used in a non-abusive way by loving parents, nor considered studies in which physical correction compares favourably with alternative methods of discipline.3

While the Commission recognises ‘a significant distinction between physical punishment and maltreatment’ and draws a contrast between parents who ‘hit’ their children to deal with their own anger and frustration, and those parents who smack ‘as a considered disciplinary measure’, it does not allow for the recognition of any such distinction in law in its call for an absolute ban on all parental smacking.

Human rights

The Commission’s ideological opposition to all forms of corporal discipline of children becomes even more clear when the report goes on to assert:

There is also a human right for a child, like an adult, to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment. Despite these concerns relating to child outcomes and human rights, the defence of reasonable chastisement can still be used by parents in relation to charges of “common assault”. The Commission regrets this state of affairs.4

In its zeal to see the abolition of physical correction, the Commission fails to appreciate that the current law in the UK already protects children from ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’, as it is bound to do under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has consistently rejected the view of the Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children that any form of physical chastisement is inherently ‘inhuman and degrading’. It has rather stated that ‘a certain level of severity’ must be reached to constitute a breach of the Convention.

Quite apart from the Commission’s careless treatment of this issue, one also has to question why the Commission chose to single out smacking and passed no comment on any other form of discipline. The report appears on this subject, as on others, to conform to the agenda currently being advanced by the children’s rights lobby. Given that several members of the 11-strong commission have openly identified themselves with the anti-smacking campaign and that three of them, including the Chairman, Sir Michael Rutter, are listed as supporters of the Children are Unbeatable Alliance, the stance adopted on smacking is perhaps only to be expected. Both the NFPI and NCH are also known for their opposition to parental smacking. Co-author of the report, Clem Henricson who served as Secretary to the Commission had co-authored another report earlier in the year published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which described the retention of the defence of reasonable chastisement as ‘a baffling violation of children’s rights in deference to parental autonomy’.5

Aversion to marriage

Family Education Trust, in common with several other groups, made the case for marriage in our own response to the Commission’s consultation, but our concerns received only a scant reference in the summary of responses:

A small number of respondents felt that the State should intervene more proactively in support of marriage and strengthening marital relationships in view of links between marriage and individual well-being.6

Sadly, however, these points were not taken on board. Rather, the report asserts that:

a growing proportion of young people have chosen cohabitation rather than marriage, but that does not necessarily mean any lessening in commitment to a lasting relationship or in commitment to child rearing.7

Given that the average cohabitation lasts less than three years and cohabiting relationships with children are even more fragile than those without, the Commission’s assertion on this point is untenable.

At the launch of the Families and the State report, Liz Percival of 2-in-2-1 raised the following question: ‘Given that there is overwhelming research evidence that family structure plays a vital role in shaping the outcomes for children, why is the report silent on this topic, and what would the panel say is the role of the statistics in educating and informing the public on the implications for their children of the choices they make?’ Apart from a comment about research not discriminating between different forms of cohabitation, the Commission had no answer to offer.

Notes

1. Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children, Families and the state , The Policy Press, 2005, pxii.
2. Robert Larzelere, ‘A Critique of Dr. Liz Gershoff’s Review of Corporal Punishment’ June 2002, http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/Larzelere602.html
3. See studies cited in A Reasonable Approach to Discipline , Family Education Trust, 2004.
4. Commission on Families, op cit , pxiii.
5. Clem Henricson and Andrew Bainham, ‘The Child and Family Policy Divide’, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2005, p106.
6. Jenny Reynolds and Clem Henricson, ‘Report on the findings of the public consultation’, p4.
7. Commission on Families, op cit , p8.

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Teenage sex and drug-taking increases risk of depression

It has long been recognised that the prevalence of depression increases during the teenage years, particularly for girls, and that there is a link between depression and sexual behaviour and drug-taking.  Prevailing theories have assumed that hormonal changes place females at greater risk of depression and that, when depressed, young people turn to sex and drugs in an attempt to lift their spirits.

However, a recent American study drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, found little support for such theories and concluded that sexual activity and drug-taking placed young people at increased risk of depression rather than the other way around. The study, based on interviews with 13,491 young people in 1995 and again a year later, found that even experimentation with sex and drugs made girls more vulnerable to depression, while boys became more vulnerable with binge drinking and heavy marijuana use.

Published in the October issue of the peer-reviewed American Journal of Preventive Medicine , the research shows that, compared with abstainers, participation in most categories of risk behaviour at the time of the first interview significantly increased the likelihood of depression a year later.

Several gender differences were noted. While girls who drank alcohol and experimented with sex and drugs were two to three times more likely to be depressed a year later compared with girls who abstained, boys were rendered more vulnerable to depression by ‘high-risk’ behaviour such as binge-drinking and frequent marijuana use. Among abstinent girls, depression did not increase the likelihood of experimenting with sex and drugs and greatly lowered the likelihood of engaging in more high-risk behaviour patterns, while among abstinent boys, depression did not predict movement to either experimental or high-risk behaviour patterns.

The researchers concluded that there is strong evidence to support the hypothesis that teenage sexual activity and drug-taking may lead to the development of depressive disorders among young people and that for girls, even modest experimentation with sex and drugs significantly increases the risk of depression.

‘Which Comes First in Adolescence—Sex and Drugs or Depression?’ Hallfors DD, Waller MW, Bauer D, Ford  CA , Halpern CT , American Journal of Preventive Medicine , 2005: 29(3), pages 163-170.

 

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Ten Benefits of Frequent Family Meals

The more often children and teenagers eat with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink and use drugs. Children and teenagers who have frequent family dinners:

  • are at half the risk for substance abuse compared to teenagers who dine with their families infrequently;
  • are less likely to have friends or classmates who use illicit drugs or abuse prescription drugs;
  • have lower levels of tension and stress at home;
  • are more likely to say that their parents are proud of them;
  • are more likely to say they can confide in their parents;
  • are more likely to get better grades in school;
  • are more likely to be emotionally content and have positive peer relationships;
  • have healthier eating habits;
  • are at lower risk for thoughts of suicide; and
  • are less likely to try marijuana or have friends who use marijuana.

National  Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia  University.

 

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Child abuse deaths and family structure

According to a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics , children living in households with unrelated adults are 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries than children living with their two biological parents. The study of 149 deaths from inflicted injuries in Missouri between 1992-1999 found that more than 80 per cent of the households with unrelated adults consisted of the child’s mother and her boyfriend, and in 74 per cent of these households, the mother’s boyfriend was the perpetrator of the abuse

The researchers identified a key distinction between households where a single parent lived alone and those where a single parent was sharing a home with other adults. While they found no increase in the risk of death from an inflicted injury in homes with a single parent and no other adults, and a statistically insignificant twofold increase in households with other relatives resident, the risk rose almost 50-fold in homes where there were unrelated adults, most commonly the boyfriend of the child’s mother.

The study concluded that it is primarily the presence of unrelated adult males that leads to the striking increase in risk for fatal inflicted injuries among children in single-parent households.

Patricia G Schnitzer and Bernard G Ewigman, ‘Child Deaths Resulting From Inflicted Injuries: Household Risk Factors and Perpetrator Characteristics’, Pediatrics 2005; 116:687-693.

Copies of our report on the relationship between child abuse and family type, Broken Homes and Battered Children , by Robert Whelan, are available from the office priced at £3.50 inc p&p.

 

 

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Home Education: a ‘fundamental right’

In response to a Parliamentary Question in December, Schools Minister, Jacqui Smith, affirmed that it is parents’ ‘fundamental right’ to home educate their children. The Minister stated:

‘This Government believe that, for most children, school is the right place in which to receive education. However, we respect parents’ fundamental right, under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, to educate their children at home if they so wish. Where that happens, the parents must take responsibility for ensuring that the education provided is suitable and, for children of compulsory school age, is full-time. We have no plans to change this right.’

Hansard, House of Commons, 6 December 2005 , col 1158W.

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The hidden costs of childcare

In an interview reported in the journal of Finland ‘s Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Riitta Viitala, the Ministry’s Deputy Director-General, acknowledges some of the damaging consequences arising from the nation’s daycare provision:

‘We find that children’s psychological problems are increasing and more families need child welfare services. The abuse of alcohol among young people is alarming. Underlying this is an absence of emotional care and support. In running daycare centres and schools we have tended to forget that, in order to develop, children need emotional support in their upbringing.’

The article goes on to relate the Deputy Director-General’s belief that ‘the withering away of emotional support is seen in the way children and teenagers all too frequently have to cope with short-term relations with educators and carers. It is common for the rapport built up between teachers and pupils to be abruptly cut as people more often switch jobs.’

 Socius , 3-4,2004.

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Civil Partnership doesn’t spell marriage!

Last autumn, Family and Youth Concern contacted the Women and Equality Unit to enquire about the section on its guide to civil partnerships where it stated that proof of irretrievable breakdown of marriage (sic) was required in order to end a civil partnership (see Bulletin 121).

We asked whether the reference to ‘marriage’ was intentional or a Freudian slip. The answer? Neither. Apparently it was a ‘spelling mistake’!

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Dr Trevor Stammers

Congratulations to our trustee, Dr Trevor Stammers, who was recently made a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners in recognition of his work on sexual health.

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Special News Update

High Court judgment drives wedge between parents and their children

Children are entitled to keep their parents in the dark concerning their pursuit of contraception, abortions, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, according to the High Court in response to Sue Axon’s appeal against government guidance on confidentiality for young people under the age of 16.

Mrs Axon had argued that government guidance emphasising ‘the duty of confidentiality’ did not rest on a solid legal foundation and that medical professionals were under no obligation to provide such treatment to children without the knowledge of their parents unless to do so would prejudice the child’s physical or mental health. However, Mr Justice Silber ruled that the Department of Health guidance was not illegal and was fully consonant with the 1985 law lords ruling in the case brought by Victoria Gillick.

Three factors appear to have weighed heavily on the mind of the Judge in reaching his decision:

  • Children’s rights;
  • The likelihood that fewer young people would seek contraceptive advice and treatment if they thought their parents might be informed;
  • Professional opinion.

 

Children’s rights

The Judge observed a tension at the heart of the case between the autonomy of the child and the responsibility of the parent. On the one hand, he held that:

‘a competent young person under sixteen years of age (who is able to understand all aspects of any advice, including its consequences) is an autonomous person, who…should be allowed to make decisions about his or her own health and…is entitled to confidentiality about such decisions even vis-à-vis his or her parents.’

However, on the other hand, he noted that:

‘a parent of a young person has a responsibility for that young person’s health and moral welfare with the consequence that he or she should be informed if a medical professional is considering providing advice and treatment on sexual matters to that young person so that the parent could then advise and assist the young person.’ (para 7)

While Mr Justice Silber ‘readily accepted the potency of the family factor considerations’ advanced by Mrs Axon’s counsel in terms of the benefits to the child of parental guidance, he did not accept that medical professionals owed no duty of confidentiality to children under the age of 16 seeking advice and treatment on sexual matters.

The Judge asserted that:

‘the right of young people to make decisions about their own lives by themselves at the expense of the views of their parents has now become an increasingly important and accepted feature of family life… In the light of this change in the landscape of family matters, in which rights of children are becoming increasingly important, it would be ironic and indeed not acceptable now to retreat from the approach adopted in Gillick and to impose additional new duties on medical professionals to disclose information to parents of their younger patients’ (paras 79-80).

He also referred favourably to ‘the general movement towards now giving young people greater rights concerning their own future while reducing the supervisory rights of their parents’ (para 115).

Deterrence to seeking advice

Concerns about the consequences of dispensing with policies offering children and young people the same right to confidentiality as adults are a recurring theme in the judgment. For example:

‘There is also a significant public policy dimension because there is evidence that without the guarantee of confidentiality, some of these young people might not seek advice or treatment from medical professionals on sexual matters with potentially disturbing consequences’ (para 7).

The judgment refers to evidence that during the nine months between Victoria Gillick’s victory in the Court of Appeal and her subsequent defeat in the House of Lords, the number of girls aged under 16 who sought contraceptive advice fell from 1.7 per 1,000 to 1.2 per 1,000. The Judge describes this as ‘a striking and disturbing reduction of just under one-third’ (para 68).

On the basis of this, Mr Justice Silber argued that if medical professionals could pass on confidential details of treatment to parents, it could have the effect of deterring young people from seeking advice on sexual matters. He added:

‘I consider that the likely foreseeable consequences of such development to be very disturbing, if not chilling’ (para 72).

The 25,000-word judgment contains not a single reference to the age of consent to sexual intercourse, and does not appear to entertain the possibility that the existence and promotion of confidentiality policies might serve as an incentive to young people to become sexually active.

No account is taken of the fact that there was a slight drop in the teenage conception rate following Victoria Gillick’s victory in the Court of Appeal referred to above, suggesting that the absence of confidentiality policies served not only as a disincentive to some young people to seek contraceptive advice, but also resulted in a reduction in teenage sexual activity.

Neither does the judgment give any weight to the evidence placed before the Court that demonstrates how teenage conception rates have declined more rapidly in areas within the United States where mandatory parental notification laws have been in place.

Mr Justice Silber discounted evidence from the United States on the basis that there were significant differences in its legal system, and the social and moral values in American society were quite different from those that prevailed in the UK . He also suggested that:

‘the principle of autonomy is far less well-developed in the United States in the case of young people than it is under our domestic law or under the [European Convention on Human Rights]’ (para 35).

Professional opinion

The Judge also appears to have been influenced by the support of many professional bodies for confidentiality policies for under-16s. For example:

‘there is a generally held view within the BMA and other professional bodies that a duty of confidentiality is owed by a medical professional to a young person’ (para 42), and

‘There is additionally cogent evidence that doctors also clearly appreciate the importance of confidentiality to young people, who are considering seeking guidance on sexual matters’ (para 68).

Abortion

While the Judge took the view that the same rule of confidentiality should apply to young people under the age of 16 irrespective of whether they were seeking contraceptive advice or an abortion, (para 91), he suggested that abortions should not be regarded lightly:

‘the decision ultimately made will be one with which the young person will have to live for the rest of her life. The medical and psychological consequences of an abortion can of course be very serious for the girl concerned’ (para 83).

‘an abortion is a form of major invasive treatment with serious consequences’ (para 95).

Mr Justice Silber further insisted that a medical professional must be satisfied that a young person under the age of 16 has ‘sufficient maturity to understand what is involved’ prior to providing an abortion or any other form of treatment without the parent’s knowledge. He added that this understanding must extend beyond family and moral matters to ‘all possible adverse consequences which might follow from the advice’ (para 154).

It is currently extremely rare for an underage girl seeking an abortion to have the possible adverse consequences spelled out to her. In his insistence on this, the Judge recognises that this constitutes:

‘a high threshold and many young girls would be unable to satisfy the medical professional that they fully understood all the implications of the options open to them’ (para 90).

Parents

Having noted that approximately a third of abortions performed on girls under the age of 16 are carried out without the knowledge of either parent, the High Court ruling insists that:

‘it remains the initial and significant duty of the medical professional to try to persuade the young person to inform his or her parents or to allow the medical professional to inform his or her parents’ (para 101).

The judgment also rejects the contention of the fpa to the effect that it can no longer be assumed that parents are the best people to advise their children. At the very outset, the Judge ruled that it should be regarded as the norm to require the consent of a parent or guardian before providing surgical or medical treatment to a child aged under 16 (para 1).

Describing it as a ‘very unfortunate situation’ for a young person to seek advice without parental knowledge, the Judge was at pains to stress that:

‘there is nothing in this judgment, which is intended to encourage young people to seek or to obtain advice or treatment on any sexual matters without first informing their parents and discussing matters with them… After all, the best judges of a young person’s welfare are almost invariably his or her parents’ (para 2).

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High Court judgment does young people no favours

An extract from the Family and Youth Concern press release of Monday 23 January 2006

It is only right and proper that parents of girls aged under 16 should be informed if their daughter is contemplating an abortion or any other major surgery or medical intervention. Parents are the primary protectors of their children, yet they are increasingly being sidelined in the name of ‘the right of the child to confidentiality’

Children and young people generally only want to conceal things from their parents when they are doing things that are not good for them. Health professionals are not doing young people any favours by helping them keep their parents in the dark. They are hardly encouraging them to value and respect their parents’ role, and they are condoning underage sex with all its physical and emotional risks. Research from the United States shows that in places where mandatory parental involvement laws are in place, there has been a more rapid decrease in teenage sexual activity than in areas where confidentiality policies hold sway.

The family unit is the basic building-block that lies at the foundation of a stable society. At a time when we are facing escalating social problems as a direct result of family breakdown, it is extraordinary that we should be persisting with an approach that is driving a firm wedge between parents and their children.

The way to address the growth in antisocial behaviour among young people, drug abuse, underage sexual activity and the spiralling rates of sexually transmitted infections is to show parents proper respect and encourage them to take their responsibilities seriously, not to remove them from the equation.’

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