Hacker News Reader

I'll just throw in that I volunteer for an organisation that often deals with children, and in many ways safeguarding has been a disaster. I can totally see how good intentions following the 'Baby P'* case led to laws like this. But the reaction from many organisations has been to completely reorient themselves, and at all costs.

This is quite natural given that ultimately the law poses the greatest threat to the leaders of charities, schools etc. You really don't want a high profile failure on your watch.

When I was trained to lead shifts of volunteers, it stood out to me that the only instruction I received was in safeguarding...

My first thought was that something simply isn't quite right, since safeguarding is far newer than the organisation itself.

But actually I think this is just the way of things. If you have enormous punishments, then you will have commensurate reactions from management.

We've lost a large number of volunteers because we can no longer guarantee anonymity to young people. Initially we were reassured that we would only be expected to report things when identifying information was willingly given to us. This has since been revised to instructions that we are to actively seek such information.

The law itself was brought in following high profile instances of horrific abuse that went overlooked by social services. However, the scope of the law is surprisingly wide.

For instance, this would all apply to a 17-year-old who mentions that they were being bullied by peers.

I myself do feel conflicted - abuse is terrible, and it's worth tolerating other kinds of indirect harm to prevent. But it's still shocking to me that the second order consequences don't appear to get discussed at all in the public sphere. I do worry that this has been snuck in as a "Save The Puppies Act" without proper deliberation.

I'm unsure if there are other countries who have pretty much identical laws, or if it is just the UK?

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Connelly

Yes I've seen the same thing. As you say, lots of orgs have had to reorient themselves around the safeguarding process

Another example that just sprang to mind. A headteacher I know reported safeguarding concerns when he was made aware that a 7 year old was walking to primary school alone. I suppose partly to do with leaving a paper trail in case the worst should happen - but the system then does kick in all the same. It's the same law that was originally designed to deal with far more serious incidents. (You could argue that this case wouldn't even qualify in many peoples' minds, but it's also not obvious to me that the headteacher was being irrational, given the law.)

I don't think it's just the UK.

I think the issue is that it's very hard to have open discussions about accepting that certain events are unavoidable and preferable to the second order impacts of trying to 'solve the problem'.

It's hard to talk about at least in part that 'the problem' in these situations tends to be a terrible event that can be avoided, but only avoided by doing lots of lots of 'ever so slightly terrible' things. And so it takes a toll on the soul to look at the balance and say that we should live with 'the problem'.

Yes, this captures my feeling too. It feels like an evil problem. It's not just misaligned incentives, though they do play a role.

I would love to find a name for this type of dynamic. I don't have words for the issue, and feel like I could communicate it more easily to others if I did.

To combine some metaphors - is it basically shooting the messenger who tells you that the cure is worse than the disease?

If you're going to hold government services such as social services or teachers responsible for childrens safety then this sort of thing is needed. And if you think thats not the job of the state then fair enough thats your opinion but in the UK the status quo is that it is the job of the state to look after vulnerable children/people.

This is the heart of the problem. When you start trying to turn people like teachers and doctors into something other than teachers and doctors you risk breaking the essential trust between parents and the professionals who have a role in their children's lives. That is a dangerous path to follow. Obviously no-one wants to see any child suffering abuse or neglect and obviously as a last resort the authorities might have to intervene to protect a vulnerable child from harm. But there are other dangers with measures like this that are easily overlooked in our culture today and I'm not sure that's healthy.

Unfortunately 13 years of Conservative Party government means that there's no-one left, apart from the teachers, to do the "something other". Phone up your local UK health trust and ask what the waiting time is for a CAMHS referral (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service). Here's the first one I googled: 30 months. https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/camhs/oxon/ndc/assessment/

It's easy to blame the incumbent government - and maybe in that respect there is some justification for doing so - but I doubt the deeper issues here are really about party politics. The previous Labour era was also increasingly authoritarian and Starmer, despite his history as a defence lawyer with an interest in human rights cases, has so far shown little willingness to roll back these kinds of measures. I find that remarkable given the number of large and potentially very harmful data breaches there have been this year alone from police services and other government offices including those with responsibilities for sensitive child protection matters but perhaps it is a sign of the times.

I do worry that our society has just resigned itself to the fact that these intrusions will happen and every now and then someone will suffer very badly as a result but "it would never happen to me". I find that ironic when the original subject was child protection where the main concern is situations that are relatively rare but can be very harmful for the child when they do happen.

Certainly experience here in Oxfordshire (my wife has been safeguarding lead at her last two schools) is that the dramatic increase in CAMHS and EHCP referral times is entirely during the Conservatives' spell in power - and the consequent underfunding of local government. It could just be a local issue, and Oxfordshire have certainly been doing badly, but reporting suggests it's widespread. But like you I have no confidence that Starmer will make things better.

I don't doubt you about the situation in Oxfordshire. I suppose I'm suggesting that these measures are symptoms of a wider malaise that has developed in our society over a longer period, where "personal responsibility" are somehow dirty words and everything has to be someone else's fault now.

That leads to unrealistic expectations that the government will somehow solve all problems. That in turn creates a political culture dominated by fear and CYA with an unhealthy side order of paranoia and everything conceivable being monitored/measured.

I don't know for sure what caused this. I suspect a product of several factors including 24/7 news, near-universal access to online systems and particularly social media, and a few high profile events like 9/11 where governments responded very badly and effectively encouraged a culture of fear. It's definitely something about our culture that has changed very clearly within my adult lifetime though. The idea of having principles and understanding why they matter feels very old-fashioned today. And again I don't think that's healthy for our society at all.

So many tragedies happen daily because of human imperfections and limitations. If we develop and put a monitoring collar on the neck of every human being from the day they wre born, we could save so many of them.

How far are you willing to go?

I dont think anyones advocating going that far

edit: I would advocate for a sensible area somewhere between the two ludicrous extremes of 'everyone just look out for themselves' and 'collars that monitor every moment of their lives' based on general consensus arrived at via public discussion and democracy.

> I dont think anyones advocating going that far

Not yet.

> edit: I would advocate for a sensible area somewhere between the two ludicrous extremes

That sensible conclusion is "you can't save everyone". If you try, you inevitably become the tyrant we must be saved from.

To save everyone, you require omniscience and omnipotence. You must know everything about your subjects and have the power to act on that knowledge. There's not a single human on this Earth I would trust with that power.

That sensible conclusion is "you can't save everyone"

I never said you could.

It must be hard for you to get around with all these slippery slopes you keep seeing everywhere

Didn't you?

> in the UK the status quo is that it is the job of the state to look after vulnerable children/people

You literally said it's the state's job to "look after" all those people.

So how far are you willing to go to save them? How much are you willing to sacrifice? Once you inevitably fail because of the limits of the system, will you respect those limits? Or will you sacrifice everyone's freedom and humanity to lift them?

Tony Blair proposed psychological analysis of kindergarten children to predict which ones would become criminals. China has a social score system.

I'm still waiting for him to be tried as a war criminal

Here's the description of the system from https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/...

Think Family Database (TFD)

---------------------------

The Think Family Database (TFD) supports and connects safeguarding professionals from Bristol City Council and other public sector organisations.

The data collected by Insight Bristol is securely held in the TFD, and includes information from approximately 50,000 families across Bristol.

The TFD pulls together data from several public sector sources including:

-Bristol City Council (Children Social care, Early Help, Education)

-Avon and Somerset Police

-Department for Education

-Department for Work and Pensions

-South West Commissioning Support Unit (SWCSU)

The data from these organisations displays vulnerabilities or needs. It gives practitioners working with families an understanding of:

-the family's immediate need

-which services the need comes from

The practitioner can contact the relevant service. This helps the practitioner better support the family because:

-the practitioner can discuss the family's immediate issues with the agencies involved

-the family does not have to repeat the same story

This embedded approach helps practitioners coordinate support for families who are most in need. Sometimes those families are obvious but often they are hidden. The TFD highlights the hidden issues.

Using targeted analytics, the system also helps identify children at risk of:

-sexual exploitation

-criminal exploitation

-not being in education, employment, or training

This information supplements the wider council Think Family approach.

These models do not replace professional judgement or decision-making. They guide and supplement the work of professionals and provide information about children at risk that professionals may not easily see. This early identification means that support and interventions can be put in place to stop problems turning into crises.

And here's a uk government report about the data sharing mechanisms for the app https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...