pledge to recruit 500 new health visitors over four years. Tere has been concern about the amount of time it takes to prepare a child’s plan. But, says Alexander, health visitors and teachers have always had to write reports and make referrals, albeit in a less systematic way. Health visitors in the Highlands did struggle
at first. Te service was already under-resourced and some employees took early retirement in the face of the upheaval. Now new health visitors are being recruited, but the shift means the service is operat- ing with a novice workforce. “Te named person has not changed the way we work with [the majority of] fami- lies because the health visitor has always been the main point of contact,” says Toni Barker, Practice Lead, Early Years, with Inverness West Family team. “However, GIRFEC brings
new responsibilities. Health visitors now take on the role of ‘lead professional’ where appropriate and that’s been a challenge. We have had to learn new skills such as writing the child’s plan and chairing children’s planning meetings. And we have to balance the universal service – the support we give to all new mothers – with our new GIRFEC responsibilities.” Still, Barker believes the
approach has been beneficial, particularly for parents and children with special needs. “People phone us and say:
says the policy has helped her do her job more effectively. “Being the named person has made things easier. Before, I would want to point someone in the right direction, but maybe the support wasn’t so readily available. “Also, I think we have got better at contin- gency. Before, I would have been looking for someone to come in from outside. I would think: ‘Tis is the person that has the magic bullet.’ Now, quite often, the work will be done within school.”
Cameron says one of the most positive developments has been the fact the police now tell her straight away if they have been called to a pupil’s home to deal with a domestic incident, allowing her to offer support or just cut them a bit of slack. Children in the Highlands
“It’s quite odd listening to the arguments elsewhere in Scotland because it’s not our experience”
‘We are stuck. We have these concerns’. We know who to speak to and families tell us that’s very helpful. I think, in the past, we would have signposted them and then left them there rather than fol- lowing through. We wouldn’t have seen it as our role to take things further.” Barker says the named person provision has also helped health visitors understand that – where there are child protection concerns – they should be focusing on the needs of the child. “It’s very easy to get drawn into the parents’ problems whether it is depres- sion, addiction, or whatever, but we are there for the child – to look at their health and wellbeing.” At St Joseph’s Primary School, which has 166 pupils, head teacher Christine Cameron
38
www.holyrood.com 23 May 2016
Information Point (CHIP+), an organisation which helps parents of children with additional support needs, was asked to sign a petition against the named person but refused. “It’s quite odd listening to the arguments elsewhere in Scotland because it’s not our experience,” says chief officer Christian MacLean. “The policy is so embedded here, the only complaints we get is when it isn’t working, so we might hear someone say: ‘Our named person hasn’t done what they’re supposed to do’, but we haven’t had anyone suggest they’ve been interfer- ing or intrusive.” Of course, just because it is effective in the Highlands,
doesn’t necessarily mean it is working eve- rywhere. Te Care Inspectorate’s inspection of services for children and young people in South Lanarkshire, published last February, reported that health and education staff “did not feel they were facilitated or sufficiently equipped to be able to respond confidently to lower level concerns within a staged interven- tion framework”. However, it does appear to be working in
South Ayrshire. Asked why her party opposed a policy which had been adopted by a Tory- led local authority, the Scottish Conservative young people spokesperson, Liz Smith, said there were aspects of GIRFEC that were posi- tive. “Te question most parents have is: ‘What
evidence is there that the named person itself has been delivering benefits?’” she says. “What’s made parents feel so strongly about it is the implication -– and maybe this is the Scottish Government’s fault for not selling it better – that parents can’t be trusted to do their job.” Te SNP has struggled to adequately commu-
nicate the policy; some would argue politicians and the NO2NP campaign have been able to exploit this failure to whip up unfounded fears. One example of miscommunication has been the party’s claim that parents can opt out of the policy, which has served only to confuse. It is true no one can be forced to access their child’s named person, nor to act on their advice, but failing to engage with a welfare concern could, in certain circumstances, raise the perception of risk.
Te party has also failed to adequately reas-
sure the public over the issue of data protection. Will trivial information be recorded, stored and passed round willy-nilly? In particular, will GPs be obliged to pass on confidential infor- mation – such as a teenage girl asking to go on the pill – without telling parents, as Aidan O’Neill QC suggested to the Supreme Court? Te answer appears to be that information- sharing will take place in much the same way as before, with decisions about how much ought to be passed on taken on a case-by- case basis in keeping with existing UK and EU data protection laws. “It’s about the right information going to the right person in a proportionate way,” says Bernadette Cairns, head of additional support services at High- land Council. Te problem is it’s difficult to codify such nuanced assessments in the statutory guidance. Perhaps, in retrospect, the Scottish Gov- ernment’s mistake was to include the named person provision in the Children and Young People’s (Scotland) Act, but it wanted to put the policy on a legal footing and force local authorities to comply. Last year, Court of Ses- sion judges dismissed campaigners’ fears over the erosion of parents’ rights and data protec- tion as “hyperbole”. What the Supreme Court makes of it remains to be seen. Alexander believes the named person provi- sion is neither a panacea to protect all children nor an Orwellian plot; rather, it is a well- intentioned attempt to cut out bureaucracy and promote good practice. Nevertheless, it is destined to be the first big test of the new Holyrood administration. Given all the emotive rhetoric, will the SNP be able to turn public opinion back in its favour? Or will the work done in the Highlands and elsewhere turn out to have been a waste of time and energy? ⌜
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
