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Playing Politics with the Named Person

This opinion piece is almost 8 years old
 

Calum Munro says the families that need the named person want it.

Politicians are losing sight of their duty to do the right thing by their people and taking populist stances on the named person legislation.

When UKIP lists it for repeal alongside the legislation banning smoking in pubs, the Conservatives wade in to agree with them, and the Scottish Labour leader calls for a pause, then you know that it is votes that they are chasing and not what is right for children and young people with additional support needs and for their families/carers.

There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding around the concept of the named person it is no wonder the public are confused about it.

Calum Munro

I sat and listened to families tell tragic tales of time and energy wasted chasing around in circles seeking help, they needed a single point of contact. The folk who need the help want the named person.

Calum Munro

The key issue for me is that it gives parents (and children) a single point of contact through which they can seek help. It should ensure the end of the “pass the parcel” syndrome in some areas where difficult cases were passed from agency to agency with the carers becoming more fraught as nobody wanted to listen. It is now the named person’s duty to listen and to seek the appropriate help for the family/child.

The people most vociferously opposed to the concept of the named person seem to be based around organisations for families who want to home educate their children. There is nothing that I have read in the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) agenda or the named person concept that interferes with the current right of a family to do that. But their right to home educate should not interfere with the right of families with children and young people who have additional support needs to have a simpler way of accessing services. Home educators have nothing to fear from the named person and should not be campaigning to deny those who have need of it from getting it into place.

What convinces me to support the named person is that for ten years I was a policy officer for Highland Children’s Forum, a small Highland charity that sought to have the voice of children and young people with additional support needs and the voice of their parents and carers heard by services and acted on appropriately by services. My colleagues consulted with families and young people on GIRFEC and the named person and they strongly wanted a single, easily identified point of contact who had a duty to help them. I sat and listened to families tell tragic tales of time and energy that should have been spent directly on their children being wasted chasing around in circles seeking help. They needed a single point of contact. The folk who need the help want the named person.

The named person is not about poking into families and denying families the right to set family frameworks. There are however families whose failure results in harm to children and young people and they need help and the children and young people are entitled to society’s protection. That need existed before the named person concept, it is Child Protection.

Scotland should be proud of people who created the Getting It Right For Every Child concept and within it the named person role. The families of children and young people with additional needs deserve the best systems of support and the named person role will contribute to that outcome. Politicians and other vested interests currently campaigning against the named person need to listen to the families who really know the price of additional support needs, back them and put their energies into creating the resources to improve the outcomes for all our young people and their carers.

Calum Munro is the former policy lead to Highland Children’s Forum (2004 – 2014)

 

Comments

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Rose Burn
almost 8 years ago
There is nothing wrong with having a single point of contact for families who want it, but why should every - I repeat every - family in the country be overseen in this manner, which is what the original proposal was all about?
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Mrs W
almost 8 years ago
I needed the help of my named person to seek help for my child and have to say they were utterly useless, complete waste of time and I ended up not getting much help, but the help I got, I got myself!
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Doug Paterson
almost 8 years ago
Strange that you state that home educators are the most opposed. Not so in my experience. Its regular good parents who simply do not want the level of interference with the very arbitrary and I'll defined "wellbeing" term used to justify "early intervention.If it was just a single point of contact as you state, why on earth would it need to be set in law?
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Calum Munro
almost 8 years ago
Rose Burn The issue is how the role is viewed. There isn’t capacity in the “system” to oversee every family in the country. I could be argued that there isn’t sufficient capacity to oversee those few families whose needs or behaviours put children at risk. The issue is to prevent families from being fobbed off or passed along. This require the right staff, with the right skills being in place and supported with the correct resources. Improving resourcing this is what politicians should be addressing. Mrs W Your experience is tragic and too common still. I maintain that the Named Person concept is right but as your experience shows it will only work if we have the right people in place with adequate resources in place to support their work. Doug Paterson Our experiences are different. I believe that the reason that the concept needs legal force I so that parents get the services that they require for their children. Making the process optional for local authorities and health boards will not be helpful. There is not sufficient capacity in the system to have “Named Persons” interfering in households. As I have replied to another comment it could be argued that there isn’t sufficient capacity to oversee/support those few families whose needs or behaviours put children at risk.
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