for the

Family

for the

Youth

for the

Future

Bulletin 142: Winter 2010/2011

In this issue:

Family Education Trust report bears fruit in the United States

As a direct result of the Family Education Trust publication, Broken Homes and Battered Children, data relating to family structure in connection with child abuse has been included for the first time in a legally mandated report to the United States Congress.

Dr Patrick Fagan, Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute at the Family Research Council, has long been an admirer of Robert Whelan’s groundbreaking study and built on the Trust’s research in papers he wrote for the Heritage Foundation. 1 On the basis of his work in this field, Dr Fagan was nominated to the Research Advisory Group for the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, conducted by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Less risk in marriage

At meetings of the Research Advisory Group, Dr Fagan successfully pressed for data on family structure to be incorporated in the scope of the study, with the result that the final report includes a 22-page section on ‘Differences in the incidence of maltreatment related to family structure and living arrangement’.

The report confirms the findings of the Family Education Trust study that child-ren raised by their own married parents are at far less risk of abuse or neglect than children brought up in other family types. For example, the American paper shows that, compared with children living with their two married biological parents, children living with one parent who has an unmarried partner in the household are eight times more likely to suffer maltreatment, eleven times more likely to be abused, and six times more likely to be neglected.

Tribute

Elsewhere in this Bulletin, the author of Broken Homes and Battered Children, 2 Robert Whelan, pays tribute to Family Education Trust member, Peter Thirlby, who devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to researching child abuse statistics in the UK. It was his comprehensive findings that provided the basis for the Trust’s study of the relationship between child abuse and family type.

Without Mr Thirlby’s vision and dedication, Broken Homes and Battered Children would never have been written and it is doubtful whether the United States Congress would have before it today the evidence demonstrating the relative safety of children raised by their own married parents.

References

1. Patrick Fagan, ‘The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family and the American Community’, Backgrounder No 1115, The Heritage Foundation, May 1997; Robert Rector, Patrick Fagan, Kirk Johnson, ‘Marriage: Still the Safest Place for Women and Children’, Backgrounder No 1732, The Heritage Foundation, March 2004.

2. Robert Whelan, Broken Homes and Battered Children, Family Education Trust, 1994.

Sedlak A J, Mettenburg J, Basena M, Petta I., McPherson K, Greene A, and Li S (2010). Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4): Report to Congress, Washington , DC : US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Broken Homes and Battered Children

Robert Whelan tells the story behind Family Education Trust’s groundbreaking research which has recently had a direct impact on federal data collection in the United States.

One of the most distressing consequences of the decline of the traditional family based on marriage has been the association between ‘alternative family structures’ and the abuse and neglect of children. Children don’t fare so well when they don’t have their mother and father looking out for their interests, but for many years this was a controversial thing to say. Proponents of alternative lifestyles would counter that there was no evidence to show that any family type carried a higher risk than another.

This was, to a certain extent, true, because there was no official data on child abuse that broke down cases by family type, beyond the excellent dataset maintained between 1973 and 1990 by the NSPCC on behalf of those local authorities for which the charity managed their child protection registers. This provided considerable information on the risk factors that could predict child abuse, including parents’ educational, employ-ment and criminal status and family circumstances. Susan Creighton, who had been responsible for it, told me that, towards the end, it had become increasingly difficult to collect the information from social workers, who declined to fill in some of the boxes.

The NSPCC figures distinguished between one-parent and two-parent households, and indicated whether both adults were the natural parents or not. However, they did not include any reference to marriage. The official government statistics, which became the only source of information after the closure of the NSPCC project in 1990, broke down cases by gender and local authority only.

Risk by family structure

Early in the 1990s Valerie Riches told me that she had received a letter from a member of Family Education Trust giving a breakdown of child abuse cases by family type, including marriage, and indicating risk rates of different structures. I said that, if he had this information, he was the only person in the world to do so, and asked to see the letter. It was fairly short, with a table, and came from Peter Thirlby, a member living in North London. I decided to visit him to see what lay behind the table.

What I discovered was the social science equivalent of walking into Ali Baba’s cave. Peter Thirlby, a retired civil servant, had been in the habit of visiting the British Museum library during his lunch-breaks, where he had begun to study all of the material that was available on child abuse containing details of family background. He was acting on his instinctive feeling that there must be a link between non-marriage and risk to children, and that the evidence must be out there somewhere. He studied 35 public enquiry reports into the deaths of fatally abused children between 1969 and 1987. He also examined the cases of child abuse reported in the Family Court Reporter between 1987 and 1991, involving 141 children.

Research methodology

Sometimes it was possible to determine family circumstances from the reports; at other times Peter Thirlby had to read reports of the legal proceedings in The Times and other sources. He put his findings together with the small number of studies that had been published in academic journals giving details of the family background to child abuse cases to compile a dataset that had no parallel in the world.

Not only was he able to show that two-natural-parent families are comparatively safe environments, but he was able to demonstrate that marriage has a protective factor in and of itself: not only are the children of married couples safer than the children of cohabiting couples, but the children living with mothers married to men who were not the biological fathers (step-fathers in the original sense) were at lower risk than children living with both natural parents who were cohabiting.

Peter Thirlby generously made his findings available to Family Education Trust, and they were published as Broken Homes and Battered Children in 1994. In the article above, Norman Wells reports on the impact on federal data collection in the USA. This shows what can be achieved by a dedicated individual, working in his own time and without any resources, to establish by research what most of us feel instinctively must be true. The two-parent, married-couple family represents the safest environment for children.

Copies of Broken Homes and Battered Children are available from Family Education Trust priced at £5.00 + £1.00 p&p.

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

The Importance of Teaching

An assessment of the Schools White Paper

Published on 6 December 2010, the Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, includes some welcome proposals in relation to reducing bureaucracy, introducing a less prescriptive national curriculum and increasing the accountability of schools to parents. However, at the same time, it gives rise to serious concerns about the government’s plans regarding sex and relationships education.

Reduced bureaucracy

In their Foreword, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister pledge that, ‘ All schools, whether they choose to become Academies or not, will see a massive reduction in the bureaucracy foisted on them in recent years.’

The White Paper notes that, ‘the ability of schools to decide their own ethos and chart their own destiny has been severely constrained by government guidance, Ministerial interference and too much bureaucracy’. It adds: ‘We want every school to be able to shape its own character, frame its own ethos and develop its own specialisms, free of either central or local bureaucratic constraint’ (p.11).

According to the policy paper, the coalition government ‘will not approach every issue or problem with the starting assumption that another government directive, circular or statutory duty is the answer’ and will remove statutory duties which it does not consider need to be a legal requirement (p.28-29).

There will also be a marked reduction in the volume of government guidance to schools. The document observes that, ‘there is so much guidance in circulation that it is virtually impossible for even the most conscientious head teacher or chair of governors to absorb it all’ (p.30), and promises a review of all existing guidance with a view to removing anything that is not necessary and sharply cutting what remains (p.31).

The overriding aim is to ‘free schools from externally imposed burdens and give them greater confidence to set their own direction’ (p.32), so that they are ‘freed from unnecessary bureaucracy, and [able to] enjoy progressively greater autonomy, with their own funding, ethos and culture’ (p.52).

Accountability

In a chapter on accountability, the White Paper promises that parents, governors and the public will have access to much more information about every school and how it performs. The document states:

‘Central to our approach is the need to make it easier for parents and the public to hold schools to account. In the past, too much information has been unavailable to parents, too difficult to find or not presented comprehensibly’ (p.66).

There will also be a much-needed change of focus in the work of the education watchdog, Ofsted:

‘[I]n recent years, Ofsted has been required to focus too much on inspecting schools against government policies, at the expense of a proper focus on the core function of schools: teaching and learning. We will ask Ofsted to return to focusing its attention on the core of teaching and learning…taking a more proportionate approach – devoting more time and attention to weaker schools and less to stronger’ (p.69).

Curriculum changes

There is a strong emphasis on slimming down the National Curriculum (NC) and allowing schools a greater degree of discretion and flexibility in its delivery:

‘[A]t present the National Curriculum includes too much that is not essential knowledge, and there is too much prescription about how to teach’ (p.10).

‘[The NC] must not try to cover every conceivable area of human learning or endeavour, must not become a vehicle for imposing passing political fads on our children and must not squeeze out all other learning’ (p.41).

In outlining what children should learn in core subjects, the revised NC will there-fore ‘ allow a greater degree of freedom in how that knowledge might be acquired and what other teaching should complement this core’ (p.42). The coalition government’s aim is for the NC to ‘increasingly become a rigorous benchmark, against which schools can be judged rather than a prescriptive straitjacket into which all learning must be squeezed’ in the context of ‘a school system which encourages a greater degree of autonomy and innovation’ (p.10).

Sex and relationships education

One jarring note in the chapter on the curriculum is the short paragraph on sex and relationships education (see below). T here is no attempt to substantiate the claim that ‘ Children need high-quality sex and relationships education’ , nor is there any explanation as to what the coalition government understands ‘wise choices’ to be. Also of concern is the fact that the homosexual rights organisation, Stonewall, is singled out as an organisation the government wishes to work with (p.46).

In response to a parliamentary question, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, stated that Stonewall had been mentioned as an example of one group the government planned to work with, but he declined to identify any other organisations who would be involved in the development of sex and relationships education policy.1

In an exchange with his Conservative colleague, Fiona Bruce MP, the education secretary Michael Gove, similarly singled out Stonewall as an organisation his department wished to consult in order to ‘ensure that the correct balance between inclusivity, tolerance and respect for innocence is maintained’. 2 Family Education Trust has written to Mr Gove to express concern about some of the government’s comments in relation to sex and relationships education in schools.

Read in conjunction with recent ministerial comments, the section on sex and relationships education in the White Paper does not sit comfortably with the emphasis elsewhere in the document on freedom, flexibility and autonomy, and the concern that schools should not be ‘imposing passing political fads’ on children.

References

1. HC Hansard, 21 Dec 2010, col 1248W.

2. HC Hansard, 20 Dec 2010, col 1178.

What the White Paper says about sex and relationships education

‘Children need high-quality sex and relationships education so they can make wise and informed choices. We will work with teachers, parents, faith groups and campaign groups, such as Stonewall to make sure sex and relationships education encompasses an understanding of the ways in which humans love each other and stresses the importance of respecting individual autonomy.’

 

…and about personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education

‘Children can benefit enormously from high-quality Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) education. Good PSHE supports individual young people to make safe and informed choices. It can help tackle public health issues such as substance misuse and support young people with the financial decisions they must make. We will conduct an internal review to determine how we can support schools to improve the quality of all PSHE teaching, including giving teachers the flexibility to use their judgement about how best to deliver PSHE education.’

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Sex education update

Although sex and relationships education does not feature in the coalition government’s curriculum review, ministers have repeatedly expressed the view that all children need ‘high quality sex and relationships education’ and pledged to work with ‘key partners’ in order to make that a reality.

For example, the children’s minister, Sarah Teather, has asserted: ‘it is vital that all children receive high-quality sex and relationships education (SRE), to ensure that they have the knowledge and skills they need to make the right decisions about relationships and sexual health later in life’1 and her ministerial colleague Tim Loughton has pledged to work with ‘teachers, parents, faith groups and campaign groups to ensure young people receive high quality sex and relationship education’.2

To date, ministers have not attempted to define what they understand by ‘high quality sex and relationship education’ and apart from repeated references to Stonewall (see The Importance of Teaching above), they have not indicated which other organisations and groups they will be working with. They have, however, stressed that ‘Parents must have the right to withdraw their children from sex education if they consider it inapp-ropriate.’3

Home Office document

In addition to the brief mention in the Schools White Paper, sex and relation-ships education also receives passing reference in a Home Office strategy document on ending violence against women and girls. The document states:

‘Good schools know that the teaching of sexual consent is an important theme which should be part of their curriculum. Helping children understand early on the meaning of consent in relation to sex and relationships will be important in helping them make that distinction in later life. Similarly, teaching that models healthy relationships and ways of dealing with conflict and getting support will help children calibrate their own experiences…

‘We will: consider how to improve the teaching of sexual consent within the curriculum.’4

Precisely how ‘early on’ the Home Office suggests children need to learn about sexual consent is not specified. Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, commented:

‘Most parents would be horrified at the thought of whole groups of young children being taught about sexual consent and introduced to sexual themes just in case there is a child in the class who is being subjected to abuse. It is vital that schools remain accountable to parents at the local level and develop their sex and relationship education policies in close consultation with the parents they serve. Teaching about sexual consent in schools is not something that should be mandated by the government.’

 

 Notes

1. HC Hansard, 19 Oct 2010, col 670W.

2. HC Hansard, 20 Dec 2010, col 1069W.

3. HC Hansard, 20 Dec 2010, col 1178.

4. Home Office, Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls , November 2010.

^ Back to the top ^

 

The curriculum as a battleground

‘Over the past two decades, schools in England have become the target of competing groups of policy-makers, moral entrepreneurs and advocacy organisations who wish to use the curriculum as a vehicle for promoting their ideals and values… The school curriculum has become a battleground for campaigners and entrepreneurs keen to promote their message. Public health officials demand more compulsory classroom discussions on healthy eating and obesity. Professionals obsessed with young people’s sex lives insist that schools introduce yet more sex education initiatives. Others want schools to focus more on black history or gay history… [T]he hunt is still on for fashionable causes that could be made relevant to the classroom.’

Frank Furedi, Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, pp.128-129.

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Sex education in primary schools – dispelling the myths

We are receiving a growing number of enquiries from parents in different parts of the country who are concerned about sex and relationships education (SRE) being introduced into their local primary schools.

Even though the Labour government failed in its bid to change the law and make SRE a statutory part of the curriculum in all schools, many local authorities are continuing to put pressure on primary schools to teach it. It is not uncommon for local authorities and headteachers to advise parents that primary schools are now under an obligation to provide SRE lessons.

Many schools are using the highly controversial Channel 4 Living and Growing series of programmes (see Bulletin 140, Summer 2010),1 but no less objectionable is the Whiteboard Active series of CD-ROMs on sex and relationships produced by BBC Active, which is growing in popularity.2

New leaflet

In view of the considerable confusion that surrounds SRE in primary schools, Family Education Trust has produced a new leaflet in its ‘Respect for Parents’ series which sets out to dispel some of the most common myths and to present parents with the facts.

With references to Acts of Parliament and current government guidance, the leaflet explains that primary schools are under no legal obligation to provide SRE and that there is no evidence that sex education in primary schools will reduce rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection. We hope it will have a wide circulation and be a useful source of information for parents, teachers and school governors, and equip them to challenge the false claims being made by some local authorities.

Notes:

1. The Channel 4 Living and Growing series of videos may be previewed online at

http://www.teachers.tv/series/all-about-us-living-and-growing

2. BBC Active is part of Pearson Education and its series of programmes on sex and relationships education may be previewed online in short instalments at http://www.prg.pearson.com/public_launch?id=19364

Copies of Sex education in primary schools – dispelling the myths are available from Family Education Trust, at the following prices, including p&p:

10 copies – £2.50; 25 copies – £4.50; 50 copies – £7.00; 100 copies – £13.00.

Prices for larger quantities are available on request.

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine

The flawed thinking behind calls for further equality legislation

Catherine Hakim, Centre for Policy Studies, 2011, 52pp, £10.00, ISBN No. 978-1-906996-31-4

Despite the introduction of a wide range of measures aimed at increasing the participation of women in the workforce, many politicians and feminists remain frustrated and disappointed by the fact that anti-discrimination legislation and equal opportunities policies have failed to deliver equal outcomes in relation to patterns of male and female employment.

The government has signalled its aspiration that 50 per cent of all new appointments to public boards will be women by the end of the current Parliament,1 and Lord Davies of Abersoch is currently concluding his government-appointed review into the obstacles that are preventing more women from reaching senior positions in business.

In the meantime, on 6 April 2011, the new ‘positive action’ provisions of the Equality Act 2010 will come into force with the aim of helping employers ‘improve diversity in their workforce when recruiting and promoting candidates’. A government guide states that the new provisions will enable a business with few women on its management team to restrict a staff development programme to female employees in order to help them compete for management positions. Under the new laws, such ‘positive action’ would not be viewed as discriminatory against male staff.2

Timely exposé

Against this background, Catherine Hakim, a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, has written a timely exposé of twelve feminist myths that seek to portray women as universal victims and to prove that gender equality and family-friendly policies are beneficial, not only for women themselves, but also for the companies that employ them and for wider society.

Dr Hakim notes that, as a result of equal opportunities policies, women in developed societies are free to take up any occupation or career on the same basis as men, but many choose not to. That choice has nothing to do with widespread sex discrimination and sex-role stereotyping, but is rather due to the fact that men and women are different and that many women choose to give priority to their families.

She refers to the British Millennium Cohort Study which shows that, apart from graduates, the majority of women still take a substantial break from work after the birth of a child. Only half of all mothers have any paid work when their children reach the age of three, and of those who are in employment, the vast majority work part-time. Only one in ten mothers chooses to return to full-time work by the time a child is three.

Scandinavian myths

Contrary to common perception, the two-earner family remains far more common than the dual-career household and, in common with many other European countries, women’s full-time employment rate in Britain has remained relatively constant, hovering between 30-40 per cent since at least 1850. Most of the increase in female employment in the UK and across much of western Europe has been in part-time work.

Dr Hakim cites evidence demonstrating that, in spite of claims to the contrary, Scandinavian ‘gender equality’ policies do not deliver gender equality, and Swedish women are just as financially dependent on men, or the state, as they are elsewhere in Europe. Even though Swedish women appear to have labour force participation rates 20 per cent higher than in the US, Swedish economists have shown that Sweden and the US are almost identical in women’s average actual hours of paid work and household work.

Counter-productive policies

In some cases, ‘gender equality’ policies are proving counter-productive, with recent studies showing that ‘high female work rates are more likely to cause a widening of the pay gap and an increase in job segregation’. Dr Hakim remarks:

 ‘High female work rates and gender equality in the workforce seem to be mutually exclusive policy goals, contrary to European Commission, and feminist assumptions. Despite this solid evidence, the European Commission persists in treating employment rates as an indicator of gender equality, and insists that three-quarters of women should be in paid work.’

Those who aspire to creating a situation where men and women are equally represented in all occupations are failing to make allowances for ‘ variations in tastes, talents, interests, personal choices and cultural diversity’. Even though symmetrical family roles are popular among a minority of highly educated professionals, they are not the ideal sought by most couples; neither is there any strong evidence that ‘family-friendly’ policies and large female workforces make companies more successful and profitable.

‘Fruitless goal’

On the basis of the available evidence, much of which has been ignored because it does not support the prevailing feminist ideology, Catherine Hakim concludes that ‘politicians and the media should recognise that policies which aim to achieve equality of outcomes for men and women are a fruitless goal and a waste of public funds’. Politicians should therefore ‘resist the temptation to impose more regulatory burdens on business which aim to achieve equality of outcomes’.

References

1. Government Equalities Office, The Equality Strategy – Building a Fairer Britain, December 2010.

2. Government Equalities Office, Equality Act 2010: What do I need to know? A Quick Start Guide to using positive action in recruitment and promotion, January 2011.

·Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine is available from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), or may be downloaded free of charge from the CPS website at http://www.cps.org.uk/

 

The challenge of declining fertility and an ageing society

“Declining fertility and an ageing society…pose new challenges for social and economic policy – and may lead to a re-evaluation of the contribution of full-time homemakers who have large families but no paid jobs. In this new scenario, the new feminist myths may finally be seen not only as wrong, but also redundant political ammunition for a war that has ended.”

 Catherine Hakim

Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine , page 43.

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Family breakdown in the UK – it’s NOT about divorce

A recent analysis of statistics from the largest family surveys available in the UK, has found that, if present trends continue, almost half (48 per cent) of all children born today will not still be living with both natural parents on their sixteenth birthday (up from 40 per cent of children born in 1986).

Contrary to the claim made by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in the previous Labour government’s Families and Relationships Green Paper, 1 divorce is not the main route into lone parenthood. Rates of lone parenthood have continued to rise since the 1980s, even though divorce rates have remained stable or declined during recent years.

The author of the analysis, Harry Benson, shows that the main driver of family breakdown is not divorce, but the collapse of relationships between unmarried couples. In fact, divorce accounts for just 27 per cent of lone parenthood over all.

While 54 per cent of births remain within marriage, divorce accounts for only 20 per cent of break-ups and 14 per cent of the costs of family break-down among all families with children under the age of five. On the other hand, unmarried families account for 80 per cent of cases of family breakdown and 86 per cent of the costs.

Disproportionate cost

To highlight the disproportionate cost to the taxpayer of relationship breakdown between unmarried parents, Harry Benson notes:

‘Of every £7 spent on family breakdown amongst young families, £1 is spent on divorce, £4 is spent on unmarried dual registered parents who separate, and £2 is spent on sole registered parents.’

The study, published by the Bristol Community Family Trust, concludes that any government policy that fails to recognise both the scale and the source of family breakdown in the UK is doomed to failure.

Reference

1. Department for Children, Schools and Families, Support for All: the Families and Relationships Green Paper, January 2010.

Harry Benson, Family breakdown in the UK – it’s NOT about divorce, Bristol Community Family Trust, December 2010. http://www.bcft.co.uk

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Government-funded review calls for rights-based children’s commissioner in England

An independent review of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England has recommended that the Children Act 2004 should be amended so that the basis for the work of the children’s commissioner becomes ‘to promote and protect the rights of children as set out in the UNCRC [United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child]’.

Children’s rights

In a report, published in early December, following a four-month review of the office, role and functions of the children’s commissioner, Dr John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, asserted:

‘It is clear to me that this country cannot be compliant with the UNCRC, as my remit letter states that the Government wishes to be, unless the Children’s Commissioner has a statutory role to promote and protect children’s rights.’

He therefore recommended that:

‘Legislation should be introduced to make the Children’s Commissioner responsible for promoting and protecting children’s rights in line with the UNCRC.’

In making this assertion and recommendation, Dr Dunford appears to be giving far too much credibility to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors and reports on implementation of the Convention. Although the Committee has encouraged states parties to establish independent offices to promote children’s rights, there is nothing in the Convention itself that requires signatories to have a children’s commissioner or children’s ombudsman.1

Also, since comments and recommendations made by the UN Committee do not carry legal force, there is no requirement on any nation to create a statutory office to promote and protect children’s rights. There is therefore no basis for the claim that England, along with all other parts of the UK, is under an obligation to appoint a children’s commissioner in order to comply with the UNCRC.

Criticisms

Just under 50 per cent of respondents to the online survey who addressed the question of whether the Office of Children’s Commissioner should continue to exist questioned its value. The respondents, who were mostly individuals or people working on the frontline of children’s services, regarded the office as an unnecessary quango which, in the current economic climate, represents a drain on the public purse.

Although Dr Dunford blamed flaws in way the children’s commissioner’s office was set up for its failure to provide value for money, he was not altogether uncritical of the way Dr Maggie Atkinson and her predecessor, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, had conducted themselves. He particularly noted their tendency at times to express opinions on matters that lay outside their area of competence and for which they lacked an adequate basis:

‘A number of consultees have drawn my attention to high-profile media interventions by the Children’s Commissioner which they argue were ill-judged and undermined the credibility of the role. In some cases, the Commissioner has made assertions or offered opinions without providing the supporting evidence. While it is important for the Commissioner to champion the interests of children and be an outlet for their views, this does not mean that the Commissioner can speak authoritatively on any subject relating to children.’

 

Other recommendations

Within a revised legal framework, Dr Dunford recommended that the children’s commissioner should become the recognised authority on children’s rights issues and be involved with:

– promoting and protecting the rights of children under the UNCRC;

– advising policy makers on the implications of their policies for children’s rights and, in particular, undertaking impact assessments of new legislation;

– ensuring that children have a say and are listened to on matters affecting their rights;

– acting as a central point of advice and referral for children who believe their rights are being violated;

– investigating and reporting on individual complaints, but only where they have wider implications;

– providing expert advice to legal proceedings relating to children’s rights, but only where they have wider significance;

– monitoring the accessibility and adequacy of complaints and advocacy services for children and recommending improvements;

– helping children to understand their rights and their responsibility to respect the rights of others;

– promoting public awareness and under-standing of the importance of children’s rights and responsibilities;

– raising public awareness of children’s contributions to society;

– reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Government response

In her response on behalf of the government, the minister for children and families, Sarah Teather, accepted Dr Dunford’s recommendations in principle and pledged to consult on legislative changes in due course. She added:

‘While it will take some time for any legislative changes to take effect, I am determined to act in the spirit of Dr Dunford’s recommendations as soon as possible.’

According to Ms Teather, creating a stronger independent advocate for children’s rights would play an important role in delivering on the coalition government’s determination to see children and young people achieve their full potential and its desire to empower individuals to shape their own future.

However, she made it clear that the coalition government was not prepared to rubber-stamp every recommendation made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Although the government would consider the committee’s recommendations, Ms Teather stressed that: ‘like other state signatories, the UK Government and the UN committee may at times disagree on what compliance with certain articles entails’.

References

1. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 2 (2002), ‘ The role of independent national human rights institutions in the promotion and protection of the rights of the child’.

2. HC Hansard, 6 December 2010, cols 5-7WS.

John Dunford, Review of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner ( England), Department for Education, December 2010. http://publications.education.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/Cm-7981.pdf

 

^ Back to the top ^

 

Review of commercialisation and sexualisation of children

As part of its commitment to take action to protect children from excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation, the government has invited Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, to conduct an independent review. The purpose of the review is to help parents resist the pressures on their children to grow up too quickly and to encourage a greater degree of responsibility on the part of manufacturers, retailers and advertisers.

Reg Bailey has been asked to consider the findings and recommendations of previous reviews conducted by Professor David Buckingham on the impact of the commercial world on children’s wellbeing, by Dr Linda Papadopoulos on the sexualisation of young people (see Bulletin 139, Spring 2010), and by Professor Tanya Byron on child safety in a digital world. The concluding report and recommendations are due to be published in May 2011.

The terms of reference for the review state: ‘Recommendations should seek to identify measures that are more likely to result in businesses collectively and individually changing their behaviour and which empower consumers to voice their concerns more effectively. As such, the recommendations should be informed by the views of both consumers, particularly parents, and the business community; they should also draw on the expertise of existing regulators.’

The review is expected to include the following components:

  • A questionnaire for parents and members of the general public via the consultations page on the Department for Education website at http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/
  • A call for evidence from interested organisations
  • A consultation exercise involving retail, advertising and marketing industries
  • Focus groups with young people and a survey of children and young people conducted by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

The sex education lobby will be using Reg Bailey’s review to press for statutory sex and relationships education lessons from the age of four. Lucy Emmerson of the Sex Education Forum recently claimed that sex and relationships education from the beginning of primary school would provide children with ‘a safe space to counterbalance some of the frightening messages that are coming in an uncontrollable flood from other sources outside of school’.1

It is therefore important that the review team receives well-reasoned submissions showing that the type of sex education favoured by the fpa, Brook and other members of the Sex Education Forum is part of the problem of children’s sexualisation and not the solution.2

References

1. ‘Sex in the classroom’, Archive on 4, BBC Radio 4, 1 January 2011.

2. For more on the agenda of the sex education lobby, see Norman Wells, Too Much, Too Soon, Family Education Trust, 2009. Copies available from the Family Education Trust office at £2.50 + £1.00 p&p (Discounts for multiple copies). Also available for free download at: https://familyeducationtrust.org.uk

To contribute to the Review of commercialisation and sexualisation of children, respond to the questionnaire when it appears on the Department for Education consultations page at http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations in early February.

Alternatively, you may write to Reg Bailey at: Review of commercialisation and sexualisation of children, Department for Education, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT or email him at bailey.review@education.gsi.gov.uk

The review’s four themes

 

The terms of reference for the Review of commercialisation and sexualisation of children set out four major themes:

(a) Risks of harm and barriers to parenting  

Reg Bailey and his team will consider what risks of harm are associated with excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation in terms of how it harms children (e.g. self-esteem, mental health, physical health) and how it creates barriers to parents exercising their parental responsibility in raising their children.

(b) Principles – defining and exemplifying boundaries

The review will define excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation of children by drawing on the evidence from previous reviews, and by considering existing regulation, self-regulation and codes of practice, and the views of parents and young people. In addition to examining activities directed at children and young people themselves, the review will also consider products and activities promoting goods and services not aimed at children (such as alcohol) but with which children are likely to have contact.

(c) Consumer voice

Attention will be given to what systems are currently in place to allow consumers to voice their concerns and what steps can be taken to address any barriers that exist.

(d) Corporate social responsibility

The review will assess whether existing measures to minimise excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation are adequate and identify what further steps can be taken to encourage businesses (including the press, advertisers, broadcasters, retailers and digital services) to exercise social responsibility.

^ Back to the top ^

 

The need for traditional values to address violent behaviour among children and young people

Mounting concern about the rise of violent attacks by children on parents and teachers has prompted a leading Scottish psychologist to call for a recovery of respect for authority in the home and in wider society. Tommy MacKay, a professor of psychology at Strathclyde University and former president of the British Psychological Society, observed:

‘Over the years there has been a fundamental loss of respect for parental and school authority and for the values previously instilled by the church. Society is losing its old anchor points and domestic violence is part of that pattern. We are sitting on an unexploded time bomb of disturbed behaviour.’1

Assaults on teachers

According to government statistics, in 2008/2009, physical assaults on adults at school accounted for 17,200 fixed period exclusions (4.7 per cent) and 730 perm-anent exclusions (11.1 per cent). Of these, 7,000 fixed period exclusions and 200 permanent exclusions concerned primary school pupils.2

Official statistics also record that in 2009/2010, 251 teachers suffered major injuries or injuries that led to the teacher’s absence from school for more than three days as a result of pupil violence.3

Assaults on parents

A paper published by Parentline Plus in October reported that its helpline was receiving a steadily increasing number of calls from parents and carers who were experiencing abuse at the hands of their children in the form of intimidation, aggression and physical violence. In the two years up to June 2010, the organisation had received more than 22,500 calls of over 20 minutes duration from parents concerned about their children’s behaviour, with 14,000 callers seeking advice about their child’s verbal aggression, and a further 7,000 struggling with their child’s physical aggression.4

Respondents to a Parentline Plus web survey reported that in 71 per cent of cases their children misbehaved almost every day and in most cases (88.7 per cent) this involved angry outbursts, aggression towards parents or carers (76.1 per cent) and towards siblings (62 per cent).5

Traditional values

Professor MacKay, who received recognition for his work on literacy from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his book, Britain’s everyday heroes, stressed the need for parents to instil traditional values in their children:

‘Parents still have a duty to provide the foundations of traditional values by instilling in their children a respect for their parents and for others. The decline in these traditional values can be traced systematically over recent decades, and with it a corresponding increase in problems in society. These are clearly reflected both in the home and in the school.

‘Old ideas of sacrificial commitment for the benefit of others have sharply declined, as can be seen in the dozens of voluntary organisations that can no longer get the support and leadership they require. The old values have been increasingly replaced with the “cult of self”, and the highest ideal for millions is now seen in the celebrity culture which is idolised and to which so many aspire. Expectations should be raised and not set at the lowest possible bar.’6

 

Notes:

1. Sunday Herald, 26 December 2010.

2. Department for Education, P ermanent and fixed period exclusions from schools and exclusion appeals in England, 2008/09 , Statistical First Release, 22/2010, 29 July 2010.

3. HC Hansard, 10 November 2010, col 324-325W.

4. Parentline Plus, When Family Life Hurts: Family experience of aggression in children , October 2010.

5. Ibid.

6. Sunday Herald, 26 December 2010.

^ Back to the top ^

 

Giving by Gift Aid

Give now to maximise the value of your giving

As you may be aware, one effect of the reduction of the basic rate of income tax in 2008 was to reduce the amount of tax that charities are able to reclaim on gift aided donations from 28 per cent to 25 per cent.

In order to assist charities, the government agreed to provide transitional relief of 3 per cent on all gift aided donations for a period of three years. The effect of this has been to ensure that charities have continued to receive 28p for every £1 given under gift aid.

However, from 6 April 2011 the government will no longer be applying the transitional relief to gift aided donations with the result that charities will receive 25p for every £1 donated rather than 28p as at present.

In order to maximise the value of your gift, we would encourage supporters planning to make a gift aided donation to Family Education Trust in 2011 to do so before the new tax year commences on 6 April.

Every £1 you give before 6 April is worth 3p more to us than if it is given later in the year.

Simon Ling, Hon Treasurer

 

^ Back to the top ^

Annual General Meeting and Conference

25 June 2011

The 2011 AGM and Conference of the Family Education Trust will be held on Saturday 25 June 2011 at the Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, London W1, when we are looking forward to hearing addresses by Dr Agneta Sutton and Shaun Bailey.

Having served as Head of Research at the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr Agneta Sutton currently lectures in sexual ethics, medical ethics and bioethics at Heythrop College, part of the University of London. She has also served as Associate Editor of the peer-reviewed international journal, Ethics and Medicine ,since 2001. Dr Sutton will address the meeting on the subject of ‘Ethical dilemmas in modern medicine’.

Shaun Bailey is managing director and co-founder of MyGeneration, a registered charity that aims to break the cycle of poverty, crime and ill-health in struggling communities by encouraging young people and adults to be free of dependency on drugs, crime or welfare and promoting the family . He is the author of No Man’s Land: How Britain ‘s inner city young are being failed (reviewed in Bulletin 122, Winter 2005/2006) and will speak on ‘Breaking the cycle of welfare dependency’.

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

^ Back to the top ^

>