Mandate Now Submission to Consultation: Reporting and Acting on Child Abuse and Neglect
The Mandate Now submission is here
Within our submission we have reviewed the two Government proposals. Neither provide a framework on which reliable child protection can be delivered by those employed in Regulated Activities. Government is promoting positions close to the status quo that prompted the Home Secretary, now Prime Minister, to initiate the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Lessons are not being learned.
The consultation closed at noon on 13th October 2016.
Updated 17.3.17
Where is the outcome of the Consultation – Reporting and Acting on Child Abuse and Neglect
The Government acceded to a public consultation on Mandatory Reporting on 28.10.14.
Children are being avoidably left in abusive settings as empirical research clearly reveals, because Government is out of step with the majority of countries on all four continents.
IICSA Seminar 12.04.17 was Misinformed About Mandatory Reporting by UCLAN Assessment
Preventing and responding to Child Sexual Abuse: Learning about best practice from overseas (Lorraine Radford et al., 2017)
At the outset it is worth reminding ourselves of the reason the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse was established.
- To consider the extent to which State and non-State institutions have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation;
- To consider the extent to which those failings have since been addressed;
- To identify further action needed to address any failings identified;
- To consider the steps which it is necessary for State and non-State institutions to take in order to protect children from such abuse in future; and
- To publish a report with recommendations.
Bishop of Bath + Wells Faces a Morton’s Fork over MR. CofE Imagineers Attempt to Conceal ‘U’ Turn
The Home Office consultation titled ‘Reporting and Acting on Child Abuse’ was secured on 28th October 2014 as a result of Amendment 43 tabled by Baroness Walmsley (LibDem) during the passage of the Serious Crimes Bill.
Sometime before the Bill arrived in the Lords, Mandate Now had been advised by an individual close to our pressure group that the Church of England was fully subscribed to mandatory reporting in Regulated Activities. News reached us that the Lord Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, who at the time was Chair of the Churches National Safeguarding Panel and Lead Bishop for Safeguarding in the Church of England, intended supporting Baroness Walmsley’s amendment not least because Justin Welby was in agreement. Here was a ‘Regulated Activity’ acknowledging that without law, no one can place reliance on child protection in any Regulated Activity because policies are grounded on nothing more than a hope that someone will have the courage to do the ‘right thing.’ It’s an arrangement designed to fail. We said so in the statement that opened our submission to the Consultation dated 6/10/16 : (more…)
#MR Bill Underway for USA Athletes following Senate Hearing and Grey-Thompson Now Wants It
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson’s – ‘Duty of Care in Sport’ report is published today.
A key paragraph is on p.20 under in ‘Theme 5’- safeguarding.
Mandatory reporting
It should be recognised that organisations that work with children and vulnerable adults can attract individuals who will seek to exploit and abuse them – there is a need for continual vigilance. The government should therefore consider extending a Duty to Report to all sports organisations. This would mean that if a person knows, or has suspicion of, any abuse taking place, they must report it to the relevant body for action to be taken.
Mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse are essential for kids and society: Professor Ben Mathews
Professor Ben Mathews is a researcher in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He has led some of the largest studies ever undertaken into mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse.
In the UK, 18% of girls and 5% of boys experience contact sexual abuse (one in eight children), and the figures are even higher for all kinds of sexual abuse. The mean age of onset is 9-10. Most children unlucky enough to suffer sexual abuse are unable to tell anyone, because they are terrified of the abuser’s power, have been threatened, feel ashamed, depend on the abuser, or are too young to understand it. (more…)
Child Protection in Football – An Article in The Independent Reliant on Hearsay and Hope
On Wednesday 1st March Ian Herbert, Chief Sports Writer for the Independent, under the banner ‘Football is not rife with child abusers, so it is time for the Offside Trust to explain what they are for,’ writes a eulogy to the FA’s current child protection framework. Is it right to do so? We examine his claims and the foundations on which they are grounded.
The piece informs us: (more…)