for the

Family

for the

Youth

for the

Future

Bulletin 129: Autumn 2007

In this issue:

SEAL: Concerns mount over ‘large-scale psychological experiment on young people’

As the government begins to extend the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme into secondary schools, concerns are growing that the scheme may backfire and unwittingly undermine the well-being of children and young people in the longer-term.

The scheme has received sharp criticism from Carol Craig, Chief Executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well-being in a 110-page report entitled, The potential dangers of a systematic, explicit approach to teaching social and emotional skills (SEAL). Dr Craig is at pains to stress that it is not her intention to criticise classroom teachers, head teachers or other professionals who, in the course of their working lives, have to help young people improve their social and emotional skills. However, she raises serious questions about the adoption of a centralised, systematic, programmed approach to teaching social and emotional skills to all children from the age of 3-18 within a framework of learning outcomes and evaluations.

Aims of the programme

In 2005 the Department for Education and Skills recommended the adoption of formal teaching of social and emotional skills in primary schools. According to the guidance document, the aim of SEAL was ‘to provide schools and settings with an explicit, structured whole-curriculum framework for developing all children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills’1. Focussing on five social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills, it was stressed that SEAL was intended to develop ‘the social, emotional and behavioural skills of all pupils (not just those whose behaviour or poor social skills cause problems), using current curricular arrangements’ (emphasis in original).

The ability and performance of children is assessed against a checklist of 42 skills for the primary programme, and 50 skills for the secondary programme. The guidance for teachers of 3-11 year-olds encourages teachers to ‘share clear intended learning outcomes and devise, with children, success criteria to test if these have been met at the beginning and plenary of each session…In this way children know that they are making progress in developing important skills. They and others learn to value and celebrate their achievements in this as well as more academic areas of work’2.

Further investment

Having already committed to invest £7 million per year in SEAL, during the summer Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pledged an additional £13.7 million over four years, part of which would be used to support the use of the programme in secondary schools. The press release from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) described SEAL as ‘a very successful programme’ which was being used in 60 per cent of primary schools and was having a major impact on discipline, well-being and attainment3.

However, Dr Craig expresses concern that some educators and policy makers are attempting to bring about a revolution in schools on the basis of inadequate supporting evidence. She notes that 3-18 year-olds have not previously received formal and systematic class instruction about their emotions and how to calm themselves, and fears that encouraging children to focus on themselves and their feelings could foster narcissism and self-obsession, thus undermining rather than improving wellbeing. In short, she suggests that, ‘SEAL is encouraging a large-scale psychological experiment on young people, which will not just waste time and resources but could actually back-fire and unwittingly undermine people’s well-being in the longer-term’.

Dr Craig observes parallels between the SEAL programme and the self-esteem movement in American schools which was claimed as the panacea to cure all social ills, and notes how an obsession with unwarranted praise undermines achievement and resilience, while an emphasis on how children feel increases the likelihood of depression and anxiety. Professor Katherine Weare of the University of Southampton, a proponent of the SEAL approach concedes potential problems in this area when she writes, ‘An overload of emotional awareness can lead to paralysing introspection, self-centredness and/or dwelling or getting stuck in a difficult mood rather than trying to deal with it’.

Counterproductive

Earlier in the year, Professor Kathryn Ecclestone of Oxford Brookes University expressed similar concerns:

There is no robust, independent evidence that making children and young people express their feelings in formal rituals at school will develop lifelong emotional literacy and well-being. Inserting a vocabulary of emotional vulnerability into education is likely to encourage the very feeling of depression and hopelessness it is supposed to deal with4.

Another critic, Frank Furedi, Professor of sociology at Kent University, fears that programmes such as SEAL are contributing to the ‘professionalisation’ of our emotional lives and to the idea that we are fragile, vulnerable people who need to depend on professionals to be taught how to feel, control ourselves and relate to other people.

At a time when there are increasing concerns that some parents are abdicating responsibility for the behaviour of their children, Dr Craig questions the wisdom of encouraging parents to believe that schools are responsible for young people’s emotional development and social skills. She asks, ‘Will some parents increasingly leave the job of regulating children’s emotions and teaching them basic social skills to schools? Will they think, erroneously, that professionals will do it better than they can?’

No one could object to the goals that it is claimed SEAL will accomplish. We are told it will reduce truancy, bullying, discipline problems and drug misuse; that it will improve academic attainment, skills for work, and the mental and physical health of young people. As Dr Craig comments, put like that it is all ‘childhood and apple pie’, but there is no evidence that it has the power to achieve its laudable aims.

While it may be attractive to attempt to solve some endemic social problems through psychological engineering and social control, in Dr Craig’s view ‘any initiative which suggests that government departments, schools and teachers should micromanage young people’s feelings is Orwellian’ and the government needs to be ‘more realistic about what it can change and influence and what it cannot’.

Dr Craig’s thoughtful and insightful study is worthy of careful consideration by parents and by teachers and governors at schools thinking of using the SEAL programme.

Notes:
1. DfES, Excellence and Enjoyment: social and emotional aspects of learning, Guidance, May 2005.
2. ibid.
3. DCSF press release, 6 July 2007.
4. Guardian, 27 February 2007.

Carol Craig, The potential dangers of a systematic, explicit approach to teaching social and emotional skills (SEAL), Centre for Confidence and Well-being, September 2007. A summary of the full document is available at: http://www.centreforconfidence.co.uk/docs/SEALsummary.pdf

^ Back to the top ^

Children’s right to confidentiality trumps parental responsibility and the age of consent, says GMC

New guidance from the General Medical Council (GMC) instructs doctors to respect the right of children to confidential consultations and to respect the decisions they make about the treatment they receive. The guidance states:

You should make it clear that you are available to see children and young people on their own if that is what they want. You should avoid giving the impression (whether directly, through reception staff or in any other way) that they cannot access services without a parent. You should think carefully about the effect the presence of a chaperonecan have. Their presence can deter young people from being frank and from asking for help. (para 15)

While the guidance insists that doctors must ‘consider parents and others close to them’ and recognises that ‘parents are usually the best judges of their children’s best interests’, it is equally insistent that doctors have ‘the same duty of confidentiality to children and young people as [they] have to adults’ (para 21).

Conflict with child protection

The document acknowledges that there can be a conflict between child protection and confidentiality, but doctors are advised that children and young people should be entitled to confidential contraception, abortion and sexually transmitted infection advice and treatment provided they are judged to have the necessary maturity and ability to understand what is involved. This certainly applies to children as young as 13, and the guidance even falls short of advocating mandatory reporting below that age.

It states that, ‘You should usually share information about sexual activity involving children under 13, who are considered in law to be unable to consent’, but since the guidance takes the view that ‘the capacity to consent depends more on young people’s ability to understand and weigh up options than on age’, it leaves the door open to extending the right of confidentiality to sexually active pre-teens (paras 25, 67).

No mandatory reporting

The word ‘usually’ appears again in connection with reporting ‘abusive or seriously harmful sexual activity involving any child or young person’. Even in cases where the young person is too immature to understand or consent, where force, emotional or psychological pressure, bribery or payment is involved, where the young person’s sexual partner has a position of trust, or where he or she is known to the police or child protection agencies as having had abusive relationships with children or young people, the GMC guidance falls short of advocating mandatory reporting (para 68).

Purpose of guidance

The stated purpose of the guidance is ‘to help doctors balance competing interests and make decisions that are ethical, lawful and for the good of children and young people’ (para 9), but the GMC’s commitment to ethics and lawfulness evidently does not extend to upholding the law on the age of consent to sexual intercourse, which was set at 16 for the protection of children and young people.

The guidance asserts that doctors can ‘provide contraceptive, abortion and STI advice and treatment, without parental knowledge or consent, to young people under 16’ (para 70), and claims that, ‘A confidential sexual health service is essential for the welfare of children and young people’ (para 64). At no point does it consider the possibility that the provision of such confidential services might be jeopardising the welfare of children and young people by encouraging them to engage in sexual activity when they might not otherwise have done so.

Parental responsibilities usurped

On the basis of this guidance, it is to be feared that the GMC is lending its support to a radical children’s rights agenda that views children as autonomous individuals rather than members of a family. Once again parental responsibilities are being usurped by people whose interest in children is professional rather than personal.

General Medical Council, 0-18 Years: Guidance for all doctors, September 2007, available at: http://www.gmc-uk.org/children/

^ Back to the top ^

Parliamentary Committee decides fathers are dispensable

The Parliamentary committee charged with considering the government’s Draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill has recommended that the proposal to remove ‘the need of a child for a father’ from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 should be put to a free vote in both Houses of Parliament.1

In its report to Parliament published on 1 August, the Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill indicated a preference for amending the requirement to take into account the need of a father ‘in a way that makes clear it is capable of being interpreted as the “need for a second parent”’.

In reaching this conclusion, the Committee had been influenced by arguments that a loving, supportive family network was more important for a child’s development than the gender of the second parent. For example, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority had submitted that, ‘considerations relating to the welfare of the child should not make reference to particular family structures’, while Hugh Whittall, Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics reasoned that since there were now many families without a father present, it was ‘timely to recognise this by concentrating on the welfare of the child’.

‘Father’ is an emotive word

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, Director of Professional Activities at the British Medical Association (BMA) had told the Committee, ‘we think that the evidence is that what children need is security, unconditional love, all of those things, and that does not necessarily mean a father’, to which Dr Tony Calland, Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at the BMA, added that ‘the words about need for a father are perhaps slightly emotive’.

In attempting to divorce family structure from the welfare of the child in its thinking, the Committee is flying in the face of much of the research evidence presented before it. The Centre for Social Justice argued that a wealth of social research findings challenge the notion that deliberately planning to have fatherless children can be in the long term best interests of those children, and Professor Almond, Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy at the University of Hull urged caution when ‘tampering with something as fundamental as having a parent of each sex’.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, timed to coincide with the publication of the report, two members of the Committee wrote:

We are…profoundly concerned about the implications of the draft Bill regarding fathers, especially the clause that makes provision for deliberately bringing children into the world who will be prevented, by law, from having any legal father. The Bill’s fathers’ provisions prioritise the interests of adults over children whose parenting needs are best met by the presence of both a mother and a father.2

The need for a mother and father

In our own submission to the Committee, we expressed concern at the ‘total lack of awareness of the importance of genetic ties and family stability’ and the ‘desire to make the definition of parenthood fit what is possible to achieve through new reproductive technologies’. We pointed out that in real life men and women are not interchangeable, referred to evidence showing that gay and lesbian partnerships are unusually prone to dissolution, and cited research demonstrating that children thrive best in a family with both a mother and a father.3

References
1. Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill, Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill: Report, Vol I
2. Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2007.
3. Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill, Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill: Report, Vol I, Ev 69 (Family Education Trust).

^ Back to the top ^

Under-18 abortions continue to rise

The confidential provision of contraception and the morning-after pill has failed to reduce the number of girls seeking an abortion, and growing numbers of girls are subjecting themselves to a second abortion before their 18th birthdays. During 2006, 18,691 abortions were performed on girls under the age of 18, of which 3,990 (21.3 per cent) were performed on girls under the age of 16.

Department of Health figures released during the summer show that over the past decade, the number of first abortions performed on young women and girls under the age of 18 has risen by over 16 per cent, while second abortions have risen by 42 per cent from 939 in 1997 to 1,341 in 2006.

Sources: Department of Health, Statistical Bulletin, Abortion Statistics: England and Wales 2006, and HC Hansard, 19 July 2007, col 597W.

 

^ Back to the top ^

The last word on abstinence?

Dr Trevor Stammers comments on a recent article published in the British Medical Journal which attempted to discredit abstinence education.

‘Articles such as the one published by Underhill and colleagues, where sex education programmes are reviewed, tend to be picked up by the news media and make headlines. The problem is that conclusions are too often made hastily in spite of complex data and analyses.’ This opening comment by Professor De Irala, Professor of Epidemiology at the Navarre University, in his critique of a paper in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) could not be more relevant.1

The paper in question, from a team in Oxford, claimed to show that school programmes to encourage sexual abstinence did not work in HIV prevention in developed countries. To ram the point home, an accompanying friendly editorial in the same issue of the BMJ virtually condemned any other approach than condom promotion in HIV education in developing countries too. The BMJ publicity machine whirred into action and the press swallowed it hook, line and sinker. ‘No-sex programmes not working’ was the banner headline on the BBC website, and even paragons of scientific excellence such as the New Scientist followed suit with ‘Abstinence programmes don’t stop HIV’.

Not only was it widely reported across the globe that abstinence education was ineffective, but the Philippine Sun Star was not alone in suggesting abstinence was positively harmful because, ‘A trial of 662 adolescents even found that abstinence-only programs made the youth less likely to report ever having had sex; thus making them less accessible to counseling (sic).’2

This all gave a field day to spokespersons such as Genevieve Clark, of the Terrence Higgins Trust, who said: ‘But abstinence-only programmes don’t work because they provide no safety net for those young people who do have a sexual relationship – and research shows that many do.’3 As if condoms didn’t need a safety net too!

Powerful points

Though at the time of writing, Professor De Irala’s reasoned critique has not been published by the BMJ, it makes some powerful points which indicate that the Oxford paper and its accompanying editorial are certainly not the last word on abstinence. He points out that:

  • The evidence indicating that condom distribution schemes decrease HIV incidence is itself equivocal and may also be harmful. ‘For example, a trial found an increase in HIV risky behaviours in the intervention group where condom use and supply was promoted’4.
  • He quotes another recent BMJ study that received very little media attention which showed that family planning clinics ‘were actually not impressively effective in improving contraceptive use, delaying sexual debut nor avoiding unwanted pregnancies’5. No health agencies at that time requested the elimination of funding to family planning clinics, in contrast to the constant clamour to do so for abstinence programmes. Professor David Paton’s recent research confirms this earlier work6.
  • Various detailed statistical anomalies and selection bias in the studies the Oxford group included and excluded from their study lead to the possibility that, ‘we could also conclude that abstinence-only programmes seem to be “at least as good” as their alternatives. One could similarly argue that money could be allocated to any of the alternative programmes tested in the trials, given they presented similar results; or, conversely, that neither abstinence-only nor their alternatives (some of which promoted condoms) should receive money at all in the USA. Another plausible conclusion is that the situation could have been worse had neither the abstinence-only programmes nor their alternatives been implemented’.

Professor De Irala concludes, ‘In the light of such data it might be safer to say there is no evidence that these 13 particular abstinence-only programmes reviewed have done any better than the alternatives evaluated. This does not mean “abstinence promotion does not work”, which is what some are trying to convey to the public.’ Indeed they are, but those involved in the important and indeed vital work of delivering schools programmes to encourage sexual abstinence  among   underage   teenagers should not be deterred by the media spin manufactured by this study. The Oxford team ignored programmes such as Not Me, Not Now7 and Teenstar8 which have published results to show positive outcomes in terms of reduced teenage conception rates.

As Professor De Irala rightly notes: ‘Think of gender violence, sexism, discrimination, academic failure, lack of exercise, unhealthy eating, the problem of drinking and driving, smoking and other drug taking. Would a dozen classes at school suffice to change these behaviours if everywhere else the message was different? The question for these issues is “how” can we convey the right message and not “whether” we should convey them.’

Notes
1. De Irala J, ‘Sexual abstinence education. What is the evidence we need?’ http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/335/7613/248
2. ‘Literatus: The path of abstinence’, Sun Star, 12 September 2007.
3. ‘No-sex programmes “not working”’, BBC News Online, 2 August 2007.
4. Kajubi P, Kamya MR, Kamya S, Chen S, McFarland W, Hearst N, ‘Increasing condom use without reducing HIV risk: results of a controlled community trial in Uganda’, J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2005; 40:77-82.
5. DiCenso A, Guyatt G, Willan A, Griffith L, ‘Interventions to reduce unintended pregnancies among adolescents: systematic review of randomized controlled trials’, BMJ 2002;324:1426-1435.
6. Paton, D, ‘Random behaviour or rational choice? Family planning, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections’, Sex Education 2006 6:281-308.
7. Doniger AS, Adams E, Riley JS, Utter CA, ‘Impact evaluation of the “Not Me, Not Now” abstinence-oriented, adolescent pregnancy prevention communications program’, Monroe County, New York, J Health Communication 2001, 6:45-60.
8. Cabezon C, Vigil P, Rojas I, Leiva ME, Riquelme R, Aranda W, Garcia C. ‘Adolescent pregnancy prevention: An abstinence-centered randomized controlled intervention in a Chilean public high school’. J Adolesc Health, 2005, 36:64-9.

^ Back to the top ^

Northern Ireland High Court ruling has implications for freedom of speech throughout the UK

A Belfast High Court ruling has gone some way to protecting the freedom of people who believe that homosexual practice runs contrary to nature. Giving his judgment in a judicial review of the Northern Ireland sexual orientation regulations (SORs) brought by the Christian Institute and several church groupings, Lord Justice Weatherup struck out the section on harassment, which had been included in the regulations without proper consultation.

Under the harassment provisions, homosexuals who merely ‘perceived’ that they were being discriminated against in the course of receiving goods or services could sue for harassment. Such legislation would inevitably have created a climate of fear in the Province and stifled freedom of speech.

However, in quashing the harassment laws, the Judge ruled that the government had acted in an unfair manner when it introduced them without proper consultation:

I am satisfied that there was an absence of proper consultation in relation to the harassment provisions… The Regulations are fundamentally different from the scheme of the consultation paper. It was unfair to the consultees who agreed with the proposed deferral of harassment to induce them not to address their objections to the respondent and then to introduce harassment provisions (para 34).

He also noted that the Joint Committee on Human Rights had expressed concern that harassment had been defined so vaguely and widely in the regulations that it might be incompatible with articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights covering freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of speech. In particular, Judge Weatherup observed that the government did not appear to have taken into account the possible infringement of the freedom to manifest a religious belief in the section on harassment.

While the harassment provisions do not feature in the sexual orientation regulations covering England, Scotland and Wales, the importance of the Belfast ruling extends beyond the Province in view of the fact that the government is currently considering the case for extending protection from harassment outside the employment area for the different grounds of discrimination as part of its Discrimination Law Review.1

A belief worthy of recognition

In its submission to the court the government had argued that holding to a religious belief that homosexual practice was morally wrong did not merit protection under the right to freedom of religion because such a conviction was ‘not consistent with the basic standards of human dignity and integrity’. However, the Judge considered that a moral and religious objection to homosexual practice was ‘a long established part of the belief system of the world’s major religions’.  He added, ‘This is not a belief that is unworthy of recognition,’ and was satisfied that it merited legal protection (para 50).

Potential conflict with Human Rights legislation

Judge Weatherup declined to give a considered response to the scenarios that had been presented to him as examples of how the regulations could have an adverse impact, saying that the courts would have to take into account the particular circumstances of each individual case. However, he did consider that there was the potential for some of the provisions in the regulations to operate in a manner that is not compatible with the European Court of Human Rights. He went on to comment that, ‘A court considering a particular case will be obliged to apply the regulations in a compatible manner and give effect to Convention rights’ (para 65).

While there remains uncertainty about the precise implications of the sexual orientation regulations both in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, as a result of this judgment anyone who is sued under the regulations for speaking and acting according to his or her religious beliefs will be able to appeal to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the freedom of religion without having to establish that Article 9 applies.

Schools and businesses

In another welcome section of the ruling, the Judge clearly stated that ‘articulating the orthodox religious view on homosexuality in the classroom’ did not fall foul of the regulations (para 59). It cannot therefore be argued that the regulations require the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

The Judge also cited a Canadian case which ruled that a Christian printer, Mr Brockie, should not be forced to print material that ‘conveyed a message proselytising and promoting the gay and lesbian lifestyle and ridiculed [his] religious beliefs’, but that he must be willing to print material for homosexuals that did not reasonably come into direct conflict with the core elements of his religious beliefs. Judge Weatherup considered that the approach suggested by the Canadian ruling of not requiring believers to undertake work promoting anything that ran contrary to their religious beliefs might provide a basis for UK courts in their consideration of cases brought under the sexual orientation regulations (paras 86-88).

Such an approach would limit the potential of the regulations to lead to unnecessary and damaging legal proceedings against individuals who hold religious and philosophical convictions that prevent them from in any way condoning or promoting homosexual activity.

Note
1. Department for Communities and Local Government, Discrimination Law Review: A Framework for Fairness: Proposals for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain – A consultation paper, June 2007.

^ Back to the top ^

ContactPoint

ContactPoint, the database containing details of every child in England, will be available to all local authorities by the end of 2008 at a total cost of £224 million, according to the Minister for Children, Schools and Families, Kevin Brennan.

In addition to local authorities, the system will also be made available to Barnardo’s, NSPCC, NCH, Children’s Society, KIDS, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. It is estimated that 330,000 professionals working in education, health, social care, youth justice and the voluntary sector will have access to the information contained on the system.

After the initial outlay, it is expected that runing costs will amount to £41 million per year, most of which will go directly to local authorities to fund staff to ensure the ongoing security, accuracy and audit of ContactPoint.

HC Hansard, 18 July 2007, col 412W.

 

^ Back to the top ^

Book Reviews

Questions Kids Ask About Sex

Edited by Melissa R Cox, Revell 2005, £12.99, ISBN 0-8007-1878-X

Sub-titled ‘Honest answers for every age’, this book has been produced by the Medical Institute of Sexual Health in Austin, Texas, which was established in 1992 to ‘confront the worldwide epidemic of nonmarital pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases with incisive health data’.

It differs from the vast majority of books on this subject and from most school sex education programmes in that it is firmly based on the following principles:

  • sexual intimacy within a monogamous marriage is healthy and good;
  • sexual health is built on strong character traits such as self-control, honesty, kindness and respect;
  • self-control is healthy and necessary in controlling sexual desire;
  • parents, who have the ultimate responsibility for teaching character to their children, have the primary right and responsibility to be involved in the education of their children – particularly in value-laden topics such as character and sexuality.

The book is divided into three sections. The first, entitled ‘Framing your Discussions’, encourages parents to develop strong relationships with their children and to make their home a place where children will want to ask questions.

The second section is divided into seven age-related chapters giving answers to specific questions that children may ask at different stages. Recognising that healthy sexuality and character development are intricately intertwined, the text is interspersed with boxes entitled ‘Character Builders’. These contain practical suggestions for nurturing qualities such as self-discipline, honesty, loyalty, unselfishness, respect, self-control and modesty.

The book concludes with information on sexually transmitted infections, contraception, and the risks associated with sexual activity outside marriage.

Addressing parents, the publisher writes, ‘Since sexual images saturate today’s culture, children will learn about sex somewhere, but research shows that they want to learn it from you.’ This book is a valuable resource to assist with that task.

^ Back to the top ^

The War Between the State and the Family

How government divides and impoverishes

Patricia Morgan, Institute of Economic Affairs 2007, £10.00, ISBN 0-255-36596-9

The central argument of this book is that the growth in the proportion of one-person households from 14 per cent in 1961 to 30 per cent in 2004 is not due to the spontaneous action and free choice of people who are facing the full economic costs and consequences of their actions. Rather, it has been strongly encouraged and facilitated by government subsidy and taxation policy. Patricia Morgan examines how the policies of successive governments have ‘systematically favoured the breaking up of households’ and militated against their formation.

In considering the economic and social consequences of ‘atomisation’, she points to the impact on the environment of more but smaller households, and cites the adverse outcomes for the health and wellbeing of both adults and children. While ‘marriage establishes a personal social security system made available through a network of kin’, the retreat from marriage and family fragmentation are imposing ever-increasing demands on the public purse to fill the gaps resulting from lower levels of spousal and intergenerational support.

Despite the fact that changes in household composition have contributed to an increase in poverty and inequality, the government has continued to welcome changing family structures, and prominent academics and policy makers have treated with contempt interdependence, mutual support and reciprocal relationships within the family. Drawing on her encyclopaedic knowledge of the tax and benefit system and its development, Patricia Morgan demonstrates how some couples can benefit financially by living apart or by pretending to do so.

She argues that ‘lavish benefits supporting lone mothers [will] discourage couples from living together and staying together and facilitate, if not encourage, casual relationships and separation’. ‘The generous subsidisation of the lone-parent household cannot but reinforce the belief that it is quite acceptable for men to expect the state to provide for their offspring.’

Rather than persisting with interventions that promote social dislocation and disintegration at tremendous social and economic cost, Patricia Morgan proposes a new policy approach, including divorce law reform, tough enforcement of child support, economic support for marriage, and a radical overhaul of the tax and benefits system.

^ Back to the top ^

From Innocents to Agents

Children and children’s rights in New Zealand

Michael Reid, Maxim Institute 2006, ISBN 0-9582652-5-9

In his Foreword, Rex Ahdar describes this book as ‘a rare and much-needed critique of the deeper philosophical forces at work in contemporary public policy on children’, and so it is. Michael Reid carefully documents the manner in which children have become politicised and used to advance the social agenda of a particular group of adults. Children are increasingly viewed, not so much as innocents in need of protection, as agents with autonomous rights guaranteed by the state.

The book begins with an historical overview of childhood in Judaeo-Christian, Greek and Roman thought and traces trends in thinking through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment to the present day. It continues with an assessment of children in the New Zealand context prior to the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN in 1989, and then moves on to consider the impetus the Convention has given to those pursuing a radical children’s rights agenda.

The prominent UK campaigner, Peter Newell, is quoted as describing the Convention as ‘an exciting and adaptable and powerful instrument whose power depends on the degree to which all of us take it seriously…and work to make our governments take it seriously. The only limitations are our imagination and energy to use it’.

As Michael Reid rightly notes, the bland and non-specific nature of the Convention’s wording leaves considerable room for interpretation, which Peter Newell and his ilk have sought to exploit to their advantage, with the full support of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Committee is an unelected and unaccountable body which has chosen to adopt an extreme interpretation of the Convention, and uses its monitoring role to exert a strong influence on law reform in member states. The discipline of children is cited a prime example of how children’s rights advocates have attempted to use the Convention to impose their views, but the underlying issue centres around where authority lies in the nurture of children – whether with the state or the family.

Michael Reid writes: ‘Within the present human rights culture, children are being viewed as autonomous individuals and bearers of rights, rather than as individuals who exist within, and are accountable to, a family structure which gives them a name, identity and a rich web of intergenerational connections and community.’ In seeking to challenge and change the current climate, he advocates placing an emphasis on the ‘intergenerational family’, to reinforce an appreciation of the biological and social links across generations: ‘If states’ parties choose to view the intergenerational family as fundamental…domestic policies might be more concerned with honouring and not encroaching upon the sphere sovereignty of the family.’

^ Back to the top ^

Who Cares?

How state funding and political activism change charity

Nick Seddon, Civitas 2007, £9.50, ISBN 978-1-903386-56-9

In this report on the charity sector, Nick Seddon argues that the more dependent charities have become on government funding, the less independent they have become and the more they have tended to stray from their original mission and follow the government’s agenda. Prior to the latter years of the nineteenth century there was a general expectation that welfare services would be provided by charity with the state filling the gaps, but the prevalent view subsequently became one in which welfare provision was seen as a government responsibility with charity filling the gaps.

Reference is made to the way in which some of the major children’s charities have been affected by this change. During the 1920s, the Methodist charity National Children’s Homes (now NCH) was jealous for its independence. The charity’s principal stated, ‘People do not and will not give up their service to the state’. Yet today, NCH receives 88 per cent of its income from statutory sources, has largely abandoned its Christian roots and adopted ‘values which will find favour with…those [statutory bodies] who wish to work with it’.

Likewise, in 1946, members of the council of Barnardo’s were concerned that the charity was in danger of becoming ‘the appendage of a government department’, and when asked in the early 1950s why it was not pursuing state funding more vigorously, the charity replied, ‘because our job is caring for children and not arguing finance with local authorities’. Yet now Barnardo’s receives 78 per cent of its funding from the public purse and its operations have become firmly integrated into the government’s secular agenda.

Nick Seddon argues that charity has become politicised and the distinction between charities and state departments has been blurred. He writes, ‘There is something unsatisfactory about taxpayers’ money being used to fund charities that are campaigning for things that we may disagree with… If it’s a state department, then it should be acknowledged as such, and funded by the taxpayer in the normal way. But if it’s really a quango masquerading as a charity, then it’s disingenuous to present it as a part of civil society.’

As governments have begun to perceive charities as instruments to further their agendas, and as charities have become increasingly dependent on statutory sources for funding, charities have tended to adopt a common worldview to the  extent  that  their  ‘annual  reviews and  their  brochures are like New Labour manifestos’. Nick Seddon cites examples of this trend in the children’s charity sector: ‘Charities that accord with the government’s political bias are commissioned to write “independent” reports that validate other “independent” reports commissioned by the government, so that a body of material can be built up to support the government’s projected policy direction.’

In his Foreword, Robert Whelan notes: ‘No longer does the government content itself with funding charities as a means of controlling them; it awards charitable status to its own statutory bodies in order to get the best of all worlds.’ A prime example of this is found in the Family and Parenting Institute, which was set up by the government as an ‘independent’ body to advise on family policy. Despite the fact that it receives at least 97 per cent of its funding from statutory sources, it is a registered charity. Nick Seddon comments that it is ‘absurd when the government is paying charities to tell it what to think’.

It is not the contention of Who Cares? that the state should withdraw all support for the charity sector, but it does call for a reappraisal of the terms of that support and proposes three new categories. ‘Independent charities’ (in receipt of less than 30 per cent of their income from the state) would remain entitled to full charitable benefits, while ‘state-funded charities’ (receiving between 30-70 per cent state funding) would receive more modest tax concessions, and ‘statutory agencies’ (receiving over 70 per cent of their income from the state) would lose their charitable status altogether.

^ Back to the top ^

Does Divorce Law Affect the Divorce Rate?

The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (iMAPP) in Virginia has published a review of empirical research from 1995-2006 examining the impact of no-fault divorce laws on divorce rates in the United States and other nations. The study, undertaken by Douglas Allen, Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University and Maggie Gallagher, President of iMAPP, concluded that while divorce law reform was not the major cause of the increase in divorce rates over the past 50 years, it had exerted a significant influence nonetheless.

Seventeen of the 24 studies analysed found that the introduction of no-fault divorce laws increased the divorce rate. While one study estimated that no-fault divorce laws had been responsible for an 88 per cent increase in divorce rates, most estimated a long-term increase of between five and 30 per cent.

Several studies found that after a period of 10 years or so, the impact of no-fault divorce laws on the divorce rate began to fade. The researchers suggest this can be accounted for by couples responding to increased divorce risk by delaying marriage or choosing not to marry where they perceived a higher risk of divorce. It was also possible that legal reforms designed to mitigate some of the consequences of no-fault divorce (e.g. child support laws) might have had a restraining effect.

The review concludes:

The premise of many family law scholars—that legal change is only a response to underlying cultural shifts and never an independent cause—is difficult to reconcile with either economic theory or existing empirical research.

Changing divorce law can affect the divorce rate, and likely the rate of unmarried childbearing and cohabitation as well. Family scholars, policymakers, legislators, and media need to consider and take seriously the complex ways in which family law affects real families and real children.

Douglas Allen and Maggie Gallagher, Does Divorce Law Affect the Divorce Rate? A Review of the Empirical Research 1995-2006, iMAPP Research Brief Vol 1, No 1, July 2007.

 

^ Back to the top ^

Marriage and the provision of unpaid care

A recent comprehensive report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on the state of the family in the UK reveals that married people provide a higher level of unpaid care than those who are single, previously married or cohabiting.

In 2001, 16 per cent of married people provided care for one hour or more a week, compared with eight per cent of single people, 10 per cent of previously married people, and nine per cent of cohabitees. Approximately six per cent of married adults provided care for 20 hours a week or more, compared with two per cent of single adults, and three per cent of previously married adults and those in cohabiting relationships.

The report notes that the 2001 Census offers the first opportunity to explore the relationship between cohabitation and unpaid caring and comments that, ‘it is not clear that relationships based on cohabitation imply the same obligations and ties as those based on legal marriage’. As Dr Sarah Harper, Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing at the University of Oxford, has observed:

Given that cohabitation has a higher likelihood of ending in separation as opposed to legal marriage…it may be argued that late-life alliances cannot provide the same stability or cross-kin interactions and relationships as those supported or created by marriage-based families or stepfamilies. This may have consequences in later life with regard to reciprocal care.

The ONS figures show that overall, cohabiting adults do not appear to provide unpaid care at a similar level to other groups, whether married or not. While the proportions are very similar for cohabiting and single non-cohabiting adults up to the age of 44, they are very different for those aged 45 and over, leading the report to conclude that it is ‘important to retain a distinction between married and cohabiting couples when looking at provision of care’.

Between 1996 and 2006, the number of cohabiting couple families increased by over 60 per cent to 2.3 million, while the number of married couple families fell by over four per cent (0.5 million). It is projected that between 2003 and 2031 there will be an increase of nearly 250 per cent in numbers of people aged 45 to 64 who are cohabiting, and an increase of over 450 per cent in numbers of people aged 65 and over who are cohabiting. This would lead to a situation in which cohabitees represented nearly one in three of all mid-life people in marital and cohabiting unions compared to less than 10 per cent at present, and in which around half a million people over the age of 65 would be cohabiting. If the numbers of people cohabiting in the mid-life and older age groups where care provision is concentrated do in fact rise as dramatically as is projected, there could be serious implications for the provision of care.

Smallwood S, Wilson B (eds), Focus on Families, Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the Office for National Statistics, 2007 http://www.statistics.gov.uk

^ Back to the top ^

Alarming rise in the use of drugs to control children’s behaviour

The number of prescriptions of drugs to control the behaviour of children and young people has risen inexorably over the past decade. According to figures released by the Department of Health in response to a Parliamentary Question, the number of prescriptions issued to children under the age of 16 for drugs to treat Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and daytime sleepiness associated with chronic pathological conditions has increased almost tenfold from 48,264 in 1996/97 to 454,797 in 2006/07.

Over the same period the number of occasions on which behaviour controlling drugs were prescribed to 16-18 year-olds in full-time education rose from 2,058 in 1996/97 to 40,339 in 2006/07 – a rise of 1,960 per cent1. According to David Laws, the Liberal Democrat MP who raised the Parliamentary Question:

We’ve gone from a period when it was almost unthinkable to prescribe drugs to a child to amend their behaviour to a time when it is quite the norm. In a sense, it shows some of the pressure many youngsters are under – their lives are chaotic and there isn’t as much stability at home. But instead of trying to treat the causes and create a more stable and supportive environment for young people, we think we can solve these problems by prescribing a pill.2

Notes

1. HC Hansard, 19 July 2007, col 537W
2. Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2007.

^ Back to the top ^

>