A step towards a civilised society : parents should have the right to vote even if they are prisoners

On May 22nd, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights made a ruling that prisoners in the United Kingdom should have the right to vote in local and general elections. It has given the United Kingdom government 6 months in which to implement the ruling. The court's judgment does allow government ministers to determine which categories of prisoners should be disenfranchised.

Setting aside any feelings there may be about international courts influencing legislation in the United Kingdom, the judgment in our view is one for the good. This website is concerned with the nurturing and parenting of children. Many prisoners are Mums and Dads and continue to care about their children even when they are incarcerated and many prisoners who are parents try very hard, in difficult cicumstances, to keep in touch with their children through correspondence, prison visits and through a number excellent initiatives like for instance, Storybook Dads.

Prisoners who are parents should retain the right to vote, not only as part of their preparation for rehabilitation to the world outside of prison but also so that they are encouraged to sustain their interest in, and their attachment to, their children through the ballot box. They should be allowed to vote for political representatives who they believe will support new legislation which relates to the lives of their children and their partners living outside the prison walls.

It should go without saying that we sympathise with and support those who have been the victims of a prisoner's crime, including their relatives and friends. A prison sentence can never make the crime that has been committed any less wrong, but it is the method we use as a community - rightly or wrongly - to punish prisoners for certain crimes. They are required to give up periods of their lives in order to make recompense for their crimes. Convicted criminals are taken away from our community and lose their freedom. For the majority of their living hours they are locked up in a cell. They lose the right to see their loved ones except on rare, supervised and time limited occasions. Surely this is punishment enough and prison sentences, if they are to be in the least effective must be proactively rehabilitative. While there may be particular instances which make it neither possible nor safe prisoners should feel when they leave prison that they will be accepted back in their home communities and that they will be supported to the extent that they feel they a stand a fair chance of a loving and purposeful future with their children and partners.

It is a sad state of affairs that many of our political leaders, including the United Kingdom prime minister are so set against the European court's judgement. The enfranchisement of prisoners is a symbol of an inclusive community determined to ensure that those who are punished by having their freedom taken away should not feel utterly abandoned but can trust they still have a worth for their families and for our community. Giving prisoners a vote is a step towards achieving a civilised society.

This opinion article was first published online at goodenoughcaring.com

The goodenoughcaring Journal docks near you on June 15th

The good ship "Issue 11 of the goodenoughcaring Journal" will dock near you on June 15th. It carries with it a cargo of precious goods about residential child care from : Zufliya Ashurmamadova, who describes the state of residential child care in former Soviet republics in central Asia, while Alexander Bouchert and Sue Ellis explore the opportunities social pedagogy may offer 'unreachable' young people and their families, John Burton discusses compliance and defiance in residential child care, John Cross gives his thoughts on Planned Environment Therapy, Evelyn Daniel writes about private sector residential child care in the England, Kevin Ellis evaluates his work with a "high impact" child in a residential school, Claire Gaskins reflects on the journey of a keychild/keyworker relationship, Mark Hardy examines the recording of shifts in residential child care, John Stein speaks of the power of residential treatment, Phil Rampton looks back on his experience of residential child care and espouses the need for more provision, and Matt Vince considers how best to support young people who are returning after an absence from care. The pilot editorially navigatng our boat to harbour will be Mark Smith. News of more items of cargo may become available over the next few days.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Issue 10 of the goodenoughcaring Journal and all its predecessors are available online !

In issue 10 different aspects of fatherhood and what it is to be a father are explored in a poem by Jan Noble, and in articles by Joyce Carol Oates, Alex Russon, Mark Smith and our inspiration for choosing this theme, John Stein. We have two contrasting accounts of a child observation. In one Marie Tree considers the opportunity for reflection a child observation provided her while Moira Strachan observes the relationship of a young boy and his male carer in a nursery school. Marion Bennathan writes about nurture groups in schools and Cynthia Cross recollects the nature of residential child care in the 1960s and compares it to current practice. Jeremy Millar revisits the work and thoughts of Chris Beedell. Noel Howard has written a moving review of Danny Ellis' CD 800 Voices : the heartache and the healing. John Molloy provides a review of Richard Webster's book The Secret of Bryn Estyn. Bob Forrest presents The Kerelaw Papers (The Final Act) and Pat Petrie tells us about the Sing Up for Looked After Children project and its social pedagogic base.

This news item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on May 20th, 2012.

Marilyn Monroe : her thoughts on childhood and being in care

In her recent essay about Marilyn Monroe, “A Rumbling of Things Unknown,” Jacqueline Rose reminds us that Marilyn Monroe was with little question ‘born on the wrong side of the tracks.’ Marilyn spent her childhood moving from one foster home to another in Los Angeles, living for a few snatched years with her mother who had reclaimed her before being taken away, watched by her daughter, to a mental home. When Marilyn was sent to an orphanage at the age of nine, she protested she was no orphan, since her mother was still alive, and this was something she continued to insist upon until the end of her own life.

In later years, Marilyn Monroe observed that while her 'childhood experiences had given her an understanding of the needs of the young, sick and persecuted,' her own ‘lack of any consistent love and caring' had resulted in her having 'a mistrust and fear of the world.'

In her final interview for Life Magazine in 1962 she said, 'I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.'

Reference : Jacqueline Rose “A Rumbling of Things Unknown” in The London Review of Books, Vol.34 No.8, 26 April,2012, pp 29-34.

This news and observation item first appeared on the goodenoughcaring home page at http://www.goodenoughcaringcom

on Friday, April 20th, 2012

Dealing with Wayne and Waynetta : the threat of the feral underclasses and their offspring

In the 1990s Harry Enfield's council house tenants Wayne and Waynetta were characters in a television comedy series who amused some, if not all of us. According to those who want to run things in the United Kingdom, the imaginary land of Wayne and Waynetta and their kin has come alive and is creating mayhem wherever polite society seeks to sustain itself. We can reveal this now because those two great bastions of our society, the government and the media, are pinpointing and exposing a whole catalogue of scandals which they fear may fast bring down the civilisation we have come to cherish. Among the many items on this catalogue are : -

• illiterate, poorly educated child care workers;
• schools failing because the teaching is bad;
• schools failing because the parents are bad;
• young people who riot (for instance the be-hooded children of Wayne and Waynetta);
• social workers of various kinds who encourage, and join in, the rioting;
• school students, who are all sitting for public examinations that are far too easy to pass;
• students studying inferior new-fangled courses in schools and in the newer universities (particularly those newer universities that don't attract students from public schools) which apparently do not provide them with knowledge or skills worthy of deserving appointment to gainful employment;
• money grabbing local authority social workers and teachers who, by working with children and families living in poorer areas where property prices are low, are being paid far too much.

The list goes on and on.

As yet we need not be unduly alarmed because the two afore-mentioned bulwarks of knowledge and rectitude - our government and our media - conscientiously and consistently, not to say persistently, remind us of those things we ought to do and those we ought not to do as well as helpfully proferring final and definitive solutions for how we can put all these dreadful things right. To facilitate getting ourselves back on the moral track the institutions which represent the art of the possible and the might of the pen have gathered a group of hired helpers and given it a mandate to cure us of the fear and dread we are being pressed to feel and to vouchsafe for us, all that they believe we should hold dear for our children and young people. This elite group contains:-

• a number of senior inspectors of various children's services (including Ofsted work contracted out to the private Tribal Group) as well as some academic researchers who are happy to take the government's shilling and make the necessary adjustments to their scripts;
• government appointed gurus who, while making a packet for themselves, claim to have all the answers about how to get skivers back to work;
• child behaviour experts who busy themselves exposing our general failure to get children to behave well both in the classroom and on the street and who can deliver for us with double-underlined, boxed up, sealed and ultimate certainty, children and young people who will never step out of line;
• the high-minded founders of the new "free" schools who make sure that the unemployed,the obese,the nicotine inhaling, the cheap alcohol imbibing, the welfare scrounging feral underclasses living in the nearby council estate are prevented from sending their kids to pollute the atmosphere of fresh and fragrant "free" schools.

Like our first list this one is followed by etcetera after etcetera.

There may be some things for us to learn from all this. Firstly, dare we suggest that one such thing might be that it is possible to conclude that the Wayne and Waynetta legend is situated between fantasy and stereotype, while each one of us is a unique and real person deserving of respect? Secondly would we be unduly opening ourselves to justified ridicule if we were to suggest that the "fear and dread" being drummed up by our government and media together with the concomitant "cures" of their experts rest somewhere between dubious and spurious?

This opinion item first appeared on January 22nd, 2012 on the goodenoughcaring website homepage at http://www.goodenoughcaringcom

The economic apartheid continues unfettered : government minister says it is right that poor families "have to move to a part of town they can afford to live in."

Last night, 22nd January, 2012, Chris Grayling, the Conservative-led coalition government's employment minister said, while defending the government's Welfare Reform Bill, that the reforms would force poorer families to find new accommodation. Mr Grayling argued these were families "who would have to move to a part of town they can afford to live in, but," he insisted, "surely that is right."
These remarks are a consequence of the government's decision to place a £500 per week cap on the welfare benefits any family can receive regardless of the family's size can. Opponents of this aspect of the Reform Bill  -  who include among their number,  bishops of the Church of England and some members of the Liberal Democrat party, including its former leader Lord Ashdown  -  argue that this cap places children who are born into a larger family at a disadvantage.
Sources : "The Independent" at http//independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/welfare-reforms and Pienaar's Politics broadcast on BBC 5 live on January 22nd, 2012.



January 23rd,  late news extra :  the House of Lords has voted against the £500 a week cap but government ministers remain determined to push the £500 cap through the House of Commons.
Source : BBC Radio 5 live news, 20.30, January 23rd, 2012.


This news and opinion item first appeared on January 22nd, 2012 on the goodenoughcaring website homepage at http://www.goodenoughcaringcom

The parliamentary epetition to re-establish the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care has closed. Where now for residential child care?

The epetition, initiated by David Lane on the No.10 Downing Street website asking the government to re-establish the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care or its equivalent to provide leadership, support and advice for residential child care services has closed and has attracted insufficient signatures to be considered a subject for debate in the House of Commons. It was perhaps predictable that residential child care would not raise the 100,000 signatures needed for this to happen. At least the petition provided an opportunity to publicise residential child care's need for greater recognition and support. However, the number of signatures the petition garnered, 268, may be cause for disappointment. This is not because 256,645 have signed to end "all the financial welfare benefits of those convicted of a criminal act" during the riots early this year, not because 134,638 have signed to end "mass immigration" nor indeed because 39,173 have petitioned to insist that all Formula 1 motor races should be on "free to air" television. All these may tell us something about what is currently important to those who are signing petitions but they are issues which have a greater constituency than residental child care. No, the disappointment may be that the number of signatories for re-establishing the NCERCC represents such a sparse response from a population which even at a minimal estimate includes 100,000 adults residing in the United Kingdom who have been, at some time in their lives, in residential child care or residential education (excluding the private "public school" system) and probably more than 25,000 people who are or have been directly or indirectly employed in the residential care and education sector. Given this (admittedly estimated) number the total of 268 signatures on this petition might be thought exceedingly low. This may tell us that relatively few people in this sector of care had felt they benefited from the services provided by NCERCC but certainly the responses received by goodenoughcaring relating to the closure of NCERCC were unanimous in their praise for the Centre. It may be saying that most are content with the recognition, training and support they receive. Another conclusion might be drawn that those who have been in any way involved in residential child care are almost invariably critical of it, or indifferent about it. Alternatively,the result may not represent criticism or indifference but simply demonstrate a lack of awareness of government epetitions, yet the possibility remains that the relative dearth of signatories is a reflection of the pessimism within residential child care; a sense of "Why bother ? Our resources will be cut whatever we say or do." If this were so, it would be an unhelpful pedestal on which to be stuck, given that in these times services to children and young people are diminishing at a significant - not to say alarming - rate, and at the best of times residential child care services have not ranked high on a politician's list of vote winning issues. Now may be a good time, for all those involved in residential child care, including those who support it as teachers, as publicists, as administrators and as politicians to fall in line with the spirit underpinning David Lane's petition. This calls for the development of an articulate and cogent argument for the provision of high quality residential care for those children and young people whose needs it can undoubtably be the best at meeting.

Evidence that determined and well thought out argument can bring change is evident in Essex County Council's decision to postpone its plans to close 7 of its 8 children's homes following an application by a 17 years old young man for a judicial review of the Council's closure plan. The young man argued that the authority, in taking the decision to close the homes, had failed to take account of his individual needs. The High Court Judge thought the authority's decision to close the homes by December 15th was unreasonable. Essex County Council has now issued a legally enforcable undertaking not to close any of its homes as long as those homes are needed by its "settled" looked after children and young people (Lauren Higgs,CYP Now November 28th, 2011). This change of policy may only represent a postponement but the young man's determination to stand up successfully for his right to have continuity of care in his children's home is a triumph for him and a fillip for residential child care.


This opinion piece first appeared on December 27th, 2011, on the goodenoughcaring website home page at
 http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ 

Flying through an ethereal letterbox near you : issue 10 of the goodenoughcaring Journal lands on December 15th

The new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal goes online in mid-December. The new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal goes online in mid-December. In our last issue John Stein wrote about the influence of mothers and so one of the themes of this next issue is the relatively less considered matter of fatherhood and aspects of this are explored in a poem by Jan Noble and in articles by Joyce Carol Oates, Alex Russon, Mark Smith and John Stein. Marion Bennathan writes about nurture groups in schools and Cynthia Cross recollects the nature of residential child care in the 1960s and compares it with current practice. Jeremy Millar makes a personal assessment of the work and thoughts of Chris Beedell while Moira Strachan discusses the relevance of a child observation placement toward her development as a social care worker. Noel Howard has written a moving review of Danny Ellis' CD 800 Voices : the heartache and the healing. John Molloy's remarkable review of Richard Webster's book The Secret of Bryn Estyn which is currently on this page in the section about Richard Webster will also be published. News of further articles will appear here within the next few days.

This notice first appeared on the goodenoughcaring homepage at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on December 1st, 2011