DfES ‘Working Together To Safeguard Children and Local Safeguarding Children Board Regulations'
28 October 2005
Response from the Independent Schools Council
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) represents 500,000 children in 1,272 independent schools. ISC exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education; the development of talent at all levels of ability; and the widening of opportunity for children from all backgrounds to achieve their potential.
ISC schools contain children of all levels of ability and from all socio-economic classes. There are few, if any, factors which are unique either to independently educated children or to children educated in the maintained sector. This response, therefore, is intended to be on behalf of all children in the interests of safe-guarding their health, human rights and well-being.
ISC along with other educational, public health and human rights organisations is extremely concerned that Bichard guidance, designed to protect young people in sexual relationships from harm and abuse, has been radically and dangerously misinterpreted by some Area Child Protection Committees (ACPCs) to the extent that current protocols have a negative impact upon the sexual health, well-being and human rights of young people. ISC does not want to see this situation reproduced at national level.
ISC supports current Department of Health guidance as regards reporting under-age sexual activity, which stresses the importance of confidentiality for under 16s. ISC feels that the principles of confidentiality contained within this guidance should be extended to all those who work with young people. Doctors and other health professionals are expected to follow the criteria outlined by Lord Fraser in 1985 in the House of Lords' ruling in the case of Victoria Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Health Authority and Department of Health and Social Security. These are commonly known as the Fraser Guidelines:
- the young person understands the health professional's advice;
- the health professional cannot persuade the young person to inform his or her parent or allow the doctor to inform the parents that he or she is seeking contraceptive advice;
- the young person is very likely to begin or continue having intercourse with or without contraceptive treatment; unless he or she receives contraceptive advice or treatment, the young person's physical or mental health or both are likely to suffer;
- the young person's best interests require the health professional to give contraceptive advice, treatment or both without parental consent.
The Fraser Guidelines allow professionals to use their judgement to assess young people based on the understanding and maturity of each individual young person.
Department of Health guidance makes it clear that health professionals must take time to explore whether each individual case may involve coercion or abuse and where there is cause for concern the case is referred through local child protection procedures. Other professionals should, in the same way, be trained to be alert to the indicators of abuse. Where a professional is uncertain they should be able to obtain advice from a designated professional whilst not unnecessarily disclosing the identity of the young person.
ISC, along with leading educational, public health and human rights charities, is part of a coalition of organisations strongly against nationally adopting the protocols issued to professionals by several Area Child Protection Committees (ACPCs) that set out the way in which they should give sexual health and relationship advice to people under 18. Common to several such protocols are requirements that a full personal assessment be carried out on every young person believed to be in a sexual relationship; that information about the young person be discussed with other professionals, and that enquiries be made to the police about young people and their partners.
The joint statement outlining the dangers of certain ACPC sexual health protocols issued by the coalition, which includes the British Medical Association, Brook and Liberty states:
‘We fully appreciate that the aim of the Government and ACPCs is to afford young people the fullest possible protection against exploitation and abuse. We share that aim unreservedly; however, we believe that these protocols will actually damage the health and wellbeing of young people.
Practitioners are aware that where there is a serious risk of harm to a child or young person, confidentiality can be breached even without consent. Nevertheless there is an underlying presumption of confidentiality in all other circumstances which we are opposed to seeing weakened because it was introduced for sound reasons which are still persuasive.
When young people choose a professional to whom they can confide intimate personal information, they trust that their privacy will be respected. Maintaining that confidence is fundamental to good professional practice, and to the creation of a safe environment in which possible abuse can be disclosed. For the majority of practitioners, an assumption of confidentiality is stipulated by their respective professional bodies.
The removal from adolescent sexual health services of the strong bias towards confidentiality is likely to delay the stage at which young people seek professional advice, or cause them to misrepresent their age and circumstances. Indeed, it is in our view probable that such a policy will deter many young people from asking for help altogether. Given that the UK already has unacceptably high levels of sexually transmitted infection, and of unwanted teenage pregnancy, the implications are immense both for the health of young people themselves and for the public health.
Consideration should also be given to the potential impact of intrusive questions upon a young person's emotional wellbeing and sexual development. Many young people guard their privacy closely, or feel embarrassed and anxious when discussing their sexuality. For such a young person to approach a practitioner for advice takes considerable courage. If the result of asking for help is the triggering of a process over which they have little or no control, a young person's experience is liable to be one of distressing intrusion.
Those working in sexual health settings already have relevant child protection competencies, or ready access to other health professionals who have such competencies. The duty to safeguard children and young people's health and wellbeing, including being alert to potential abuse, is regarded by all professionals as a matter of the utmost seriousness, and it would be highly regrettable if measures designed to protect children from possible abuse were of themselves damaging to children. The assessment of a young person's needs is a skilled process that relies on experienced professional judgment and sensitivity; over-prescriptive guidance fetters the ability of practitioners to respond appropriately to the complexity of each child.
The lowering of the threshold at which police involvement is sought causes us serious concern. During the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 through Parliament, amendments to reflect the realities of young peoples' lives were resisted amid repeated assurances that there was no intention to criminalise consensual sexual activity between young people.
We are therefore alarmed that the Metropolitan Police, for example, intend to hold details of all enquiries about young people that they receive. It is not clear whether such information could subsequently be revealed by enhanced criminal records bureau disclosure, which is undertaken on those seeking to work with children. It is a distinct possibility that an accumulation of data on young people about whom there are in fact no concerns could lead to a situation where they are regarded with a degree of unjustified suspicion.
Although we are wholly sympathetic to the concerns of ACPCs to ensure the adequate protection of young people from abuse, we cannot support protocols that reduce young peoples' rights to confidentiality and privacy, and expose them to unnecessary police scrutiny. Child protection is multi-faceted and encompasses every aspect of a child and young person's development, including physical and emotional health. We believe that it is only in an environment where young people have the confidence to talk freely to professionals that the full range of their needs can be properly understood and addressed.'
ISC suggests that before adopting any protocol policy, its potential impact on young people's sexual health should be properly assessed and the results made publicly available. This should include surveying and consulting with a wide range of young people, just as Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) are required to do when they are discussing policy.
Educational Involvement in LSCBs
ISC schools take very seriously their statutory duty[1] to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Educational staff play a key role in safeguarding by referring concerns about abuse and neglect to children's social care, providing information for police investigations, for enquiries under s.47 of the Children Act 1989, and contributing to assessments. ISC schools are therefore pleased that the draft ‘Working Together' makes it clear that ‘LAs should secure the involvement of...at a minimum both state and independent schools to represent education'. However, ISC notes with concern that at present there is no statutory member on the LSCB itself to represent the education sector. The schools perspective is a vital one when setting up safeguarding and welfare procedures and it will be important to be absolutely clear in LSCB guidance that schools should be consulted over policies and procedures that affect them before they are finalised. Contact should be regularly renewed and the feedback pathway made clear to all state and independent schools.
s157 of the Education Act 2002
Revised Guidance for Health Professionals on the Provision of Contraceptive Services for Under 16s (Department of Health, July 2004)
British Medical Association
Royal College of General Practitioners
Royal College of Nursing
Royal Institute of Public Health
ARCH (Action on Rights for Children)
Association of Teachers and Lecturers
British Association for Sexual Health and HIV
Brook
Children's Rights Alliance for England
Education for Choice
English Secondary Students Association
Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
FPA (Family Planning Association)
Independent Schools Council
Liberty
Medical Foundation for AIDS & Sexual Health (MedFASH)
National Youth Agency
Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel
Terrence Higgins Trust
Youth Access