Child Protection Legislation

One for model railway club members really. Much has been made recently about the need for enhanced CRB checks for those who regularly have contact with children and other vulnerable adults. These people will appear to have to have a CRB check costing about £70, at their own expense. How is your club handling this if you have a junior section? I know of at least one club that is closing it's junior section in response to these proposals, which is a pity.We are just in the process of forming a club in mid-Lincolnshire, and would welcome any advice which could be incorporated into the club rules.

Reply to
Keith Patrick
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Hi, Slightly off topic but i'm in Amateur Dramatics, and my outfit started talking about setting upa youth arm, in order to get teenager off the streets and give them something useful to do.

When we started to investigate what this would entail, we found that we would have to basically build a complete new dressing room for the kids to be staffed by CRB checked people. We quickly abandoned the idea on cost ground befroe anything else. Guess who lost out in the end. The very tennagers that society is demonising because they are out of control.

We did once have a young girl in a play but she was chapperoned by her grandad, but how many parents could be arsed these days to actually spend time with their kids?

The UK is going to the dogs.

Rob.

Reply to
brushhead

Its worth finding out if you can get checks as a volunteers as those are free. I've no idea if non-profit model clubs can do this in practise, but the comments by spokes-people on the radio imply that those who are volunteering their time and not earning can have their check for free. The discussion is usually in terms of sports, charities or other leisure activities for children where the adults are not paid.

I can't see a fundamental difference between a hobby athletics club with a junior section and a hobby model club with a junior section. Both have a structure and someone to look after the club's money, some premises (either rented or bought), some equipment bought for the activity, subscriptions paid by members to cover costs of running club, members who have their own equipment and bring it along to the club, have events where the public can pay to come and see what's happening (sports competition vs. model exhibition), do things which occupy the members, encourage juniors to participate, learn skills, become more capable, etc.. In those terms, I cannot see a difference; if the athletics club volunteers can have free CRB checks, then so can the model club.

Otherwise, I think your choice of actions are down to either; a) no under 18's and no vulnerable adults (typically learning difficulties) or b) under 18's / vulnerable adults ONLY if accompanied by their parent/guardian/career.

The current rules, whilst perhaps for well meaning intent, are destroying a lot of club activities and voluntary work. I think the baby has gone out with the bathwater, bath, and most of the bathroom fittings.

- Nigel

Reply to
Nigel Cliffe

Hear hit entertainment had to drop their insistence that all volunteers at Thomas events go through CRB check as their making such a requirement wasnt legal.

cheers, Simon

Reply to
simon

"Keith Patrick" wrote

Isn't it a sad reflection of society when knee-jerk reactions become the norm & ordinary people are potentially demonised in this way.

It the namby-pamby brigade want to legislate to avoid child abuse, then it should be aimed at the area where most problems arise, and that's with the parents and close relatives of kids.

Maybe potential parents should be required to have a CRB check before they're allowed to have kids.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

That's what happens now are governed by single issue pressure groups. Just a shame that those of us who have been trying to point out the folly of this for years were just laughed at until something came along that effected those doing the laughing ;-)

Cheers Richard

Reply to
beamends

Ian Huntley (assuming that he is actually guilty and isn't to be freed by some subsequent court of appeal) was caught and punished by laws that existed at the time of his offence. therefore, no new laws were needed in response to his activities. It has been said elsewhere that the previous CRB (and now ISA) checks would not have in any case prevented him.

The whole ethos of the situation was presumed to be to prevent sexual deviants from having contact with children, and yet it seems to be those who stole sweets from the sweet shop when they themselves were children who are being excluded.

In terms of the OP, the only solution can be to exclude all children from activities and social clubs intended in the first instance for adults. That had always been the case for pubs and drinking dens, so it is only a small step to increase the scope to cover all forms of social club, especially those for railway modelling.

Perhaps that would not be a bad thing, for it would ensure that only those who had a genuine long-term interest would seek membership of our clubs.

It goes against the whole traditions of Brit justice where one is presumed innocent until shown to be otherwise for anybody to have to prove that he is not a paederast. (Stricly, all parents who love their children are paedophiles, just as we are railwayphiles)

The state of affairs is ridiculous when those of us who withdraw from areas where we might come under the new draconian laws leave the field open to the paederasts, who were illegal anyway, and to whom the new laws would be irrelevant

Reply to
Phil O. Sopher

As I understand it the check is free for volunteers, yes.

However......

You can't approach the people who do the checking yourself. You have to go through someone else and that body is allowed to charge a handling fee. I gather that provided the body handling your check agrees to do so they don't have to be working in the same area as you so you could work through an athletics club or a youth club or your local authority or through a non local (to you) authority. Listen to R4 at noon - there was an item about this there.

Daft really.

Reply to
Graham Harrison

This is so that you do not become aware of false accusations and runours that may have been laid at your door; accusations that you are prevented, through ignorance of them, of defending yourself.

Again, something contrary to the traditional spirit of Brit justice

Reply to
Phil O. Sopher

But far more dangerously, if you were turned down for some minor issue the you could easily end up with a mob outside the front door - as happened on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth during the last media feeding frenzy when the mob attacked a pediatrician's house.....

Cheers Richard

Reply to
beamends

Yes, I heard some of that piece when out and about, and was going to post an amendment to my posting. Thanks for passing the latest gem along....

"The free check isn't really free as an approved body has to request the check for you, and they might charge an admin fee......".

If I recall correctly, the minister said something about still open to consultations, so bombard the muppet with questions about why "free for volunteers" means in practice "pay fee to be allowed to continue volunteering".

(My guess is that some charities, trade unions and similar bodies might eventually work out free handling schemes for their members who are volunteers. Whether its practical for some umbrella "Society of Model Clubs", or similar body to form and do this is an open question. )

Totally bonkers.

- Nigel

Reply to
Nigel Cliffe

See

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Even the parents aren't deemed fit to supervise their children!

Reply to
Paul Boyd

In my previous job, an ex-employee approached us to see if we could give her 15 year old son a job as he'd just left school. As it happened, we could offer him a job. Except when we looked into "child labour" laws it just wasn't practical, and one of the reasons was that every employee would have had to have a CRB check, paid for by the company. We just waited a few weeks until he was 16, when miraculously he's deemed to be safe from predators...

Reply to
Paul Boyd

That went out long ago. Just look at what happens when someone is charged of any sex crime (or any other crime for that matter) - the media vilify the accused without bothering to wait to find out if the accused is actually guilty. Specifically in sex crimes, that can have an absolutely devastating effect on the accused's life if they turn out to be innocent.

Reply to
Paul Boyd

Without knowing any more than has been in the papers, this strikes me as one of those cases where there might just be slightly more to it than meets the eye, or would fit the usual IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!!! line which sections of the media like to take.

Do children actually *want* their parents following their every move, monitoring everything they do, never letting them out of sight, even in an adventure playground?

Someone made a comparison with schools, where we don't generally allow parents to go in and sit and watch their kids all day, and parents who try to do so are generally considered a downright nuisance, if not a bit odd as well.

If some parents genuinely think the playground is run by axe murders and/or paediatricians, why are they taking their kids there in the first place?

=================

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about Harwoods and Harebreaks Adventure Playground

Contrary to reports in the media, Watford Borough Council has not banned parents from public parks and playgrounds in the town!

The press have inaccurately reported what Harwoods and Harebreaks are; they are not open public facilites. They never have been. They are closed, fully supervised facilities.

They are no different to other fully supervised facilities, like schools, playgroups or nurseries - where adults are not allowed to stay.

Parents and carers are, of course, welcome to bring their children safely into the sites and settle them in.

If parents aren't happy leaving their children - there are lots of other options open to them. In the town, there are 4 community centres, 5 children?s centres, over 40 areas of park and playgrounds, as well as a museum, two libraries... These are also free to attend and open to everyone. ==================

Reply to
Arthur Figgis

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That does put a different light on it. Once, the BBC was a good, solid media organisation. It seems to have been getting more and more tabloid over the last decade or so.

I bet the H&S mob would have had a fit if they saw the sort of adventure playgrounds we had as kids! Demolished factory sites with structures made of telegraph poles and rotting pallets, with wire slides hurtling down to the ground. Anyone remember the Felix Road adventure playground in Bristol during the 1970s/80s??? It wasn't anything like it is now!!

Reply to
Paul Boyd

You sure, thought it said on the form that I recently filled in that you get a copy of the report. Realise its a big mistake but have agreed* to go on cub camp next year as the general dogsbody and car driver if anyone has to go to A&E - transport by minibus not allowed for some reason.

  • Or at least tot did.

Cheers, Simon

Reply to
simon

Surely you meant Ferroequinophile? :o)

Reply to
LDosser

Perhaps there has been a change with the new ISA, but certainly under the previous CRB, the person enquiring about you was not permitted to let you see the information that he received.

Reply to
Phil O. Sopher

That is not correct, the person being checked always receives a copy of the report under the old system.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

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