UK: Health and safety snoops to enter family homes
- Thread starter Bill Mattocks
- Start date
Hmm ... it's not actually happened yet but I'm not holding my breath in denial just in case :lol:.
Gordon Nore
Senior Master
I suppose this is the motivator, but it seems to me that sending inspectors into homes will be very costly in itself. Some costs can't be recouped. If children are turning up in A&E repeatedly, I expect that hospital social workers start question parents more carefully -- that's how it's done here.
When Tucker was little, we crawled around the house looking for hazards and trying to fix them. I remember being away on a business trip when he started to take his first steps and tumbled. When I came back, Blanche had taped the corners of furniture with cloth diapers to cushion against little bumps. You can add all the bells and whistles, but in the end, you have to have adult eyes on little children.
With the ellipses suggesting the USA?
Based on some people's conclusions coming out of the healthcare debate, these searches may be constitutional in the US under the "General Welfare"' clause. Besides, what heartless SOB wouldn't want to protect the children from harm?
Let's not gloss over the facts though.
The guidance allows for inspection of those homes where 'great risk' to the safety of children has been previously assessed.
On a related note, a study from a prominent university in California (can't recall which one) recently postulated that those most likely to vote Republican or self identifying as 'conservative' exhibit stronger than typical brain wave patterns which emanate strongly from the centres most responsible for feelings of paranoia and fear.
The guidance allows for inspection of those homes where 'great risk' to the safety of children has been previously assessed.
On a related note, a study from a prominent university in California (can't recall which one) recently postulated that those most likely to vote Republican or self identifying as 'conservative' exhibit stronger than typical brain wave patterns which emanate strongly from the centres most responsible for feelings of paranoia and fear.
Gordon Nore
Senior Master
Under a health plan such as the one we have here, I think it can affect the way people think about costs. For me laws regarding the wearing of seat belts or helmets make a world of sense, where others might find them intrusive or big brotherish.
But I'm wearing my tinfoil hat.
Seriously, I understand the desire to protect kids, but with all our insistence on helmets and padding and not running with scissors..... are they any more safe today than 50 years ago? Only way to keep them safe is to put them in a box and pad em with packing foam, and then you'll hear how they are fat from lack of exercise.
So true Bob!
My wife tells a story of how, when younger, her parents put her and her siblings in the back of a station wagon for their road trips. No seat belts. No car seats. They literally sat across a wood board put across the back, making a platform for them.
Now? Dang, kids have to sit in car seats until the age of 10 (or something).
Crazy how things change.
My wife tells a story of how, when younger, her parents put her and her siblings in the back of a station wagon for their road trips. No seat belts. No car seats. They literally sat across a wood board put across the back, making a platform for them.
Now? Dang, kids have to sit in car seats until the age of 10 (or something).
Crazy how things change.
Gordon Nore
Senior Master
But I'm wearing my tinfoil hat.
Seriously, I understand the desire to protect kids, but with all our insistence on helmets and padding and not running with scissors..... are they any more safe today than 50 years ago? Only way to keep them safe is to put them in a box and pad em with packing foam, and then you'll hear how they are fat from lack of exercise.
Couldn't agree more. I worked at a school where every year it seemed like, at the start of the year, a kid would fall off the climber and break an arm. The principal had done all the due dilligence. She had wood chips added annually; the caretaker inspected the equipment; staff supervised the play. And yet, about one kid a year would fall off the monkey bars and and bust a wing. Then comes the reams of paperwork and the meetings.
When you look at it on balance, a kid fell down and broke an arm. It's not pleasant, but it does happen.
Gordon Nore
Senior Master
Same for my missus. She spent her summers on a farm outside Louisville, KY, where she and her sisters would get busted up riding horses, jumping out of hay lofts.
No kidding. My mom tells me that I used to stand on the front seat of the car with my arm around my dad as he drove. Do that nowadays and dad may end up in jail charged with child endangerment and the child in foster care.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
Product of socialized medicine. It'd be nice if they really were that concerned over the well being of the children but I'd hazard a guess that it's more about the expense. In their eyes it's an effort to reduce the expense and not about the health of the kids.
Anyway, all this hoop-a-la about child safety is silly IMHO. Yes, the children are precious assets to our future but for cryin' out loud... would you let them be kids and LIVE?!
Anyway, all this hoop-a-la about child safety is silly IMHO. Yes, the children are precious assets to our future but for cryin' out loud... would you let them be kids and LIVE?!
"Guidance" isn't law, it isn't even really a suggestion and it won't happen I promise you. The government might be Labour but many councils aren't, my local council is a joint Conservative and Independant one.
It's just an idea that a commitee has, they make them to justify their existance and it won't come to anything at all. It's not even worth worrying a thought about, however we do have an election coming up next year, The Times is a Tory paper and we will see more and more 'silly' stories coming up like this to discredit the Labour governemtn, The Sun which has recently turned its back on Labour will have even more outrageous ones. The Labour press will have the loony Tory ones, oh it's all going to be fun.
Having said that it would have been nice perhaps to have had an inspector in when a mother left her children all under four alone in a filthy house for over 24 hours while she went on a drink and drugs binge.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/10/23/worst-mum-115875-21767188/
It's just an idea that a commitee has, they make them to justify their existance and it won't come to anything at all. It's not even worth worrying a thought about, however we do have an election coming up next year, The Times is a Tory paper and we will see more and more 'silly' stories coming up like this to discredit the Labour governemtn, The Sun which has recently turned its back on Labour will have even more outrageous ones. The Labour press will have the loony Tory ones, oh it's all going to be fun.
Having said that it would have been nice perhaps to have had an inspector in when a mother left her children all under four alone in a filthy house for over 24 hours while she went on a drink and drugs binge.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/10/23/worst-mum-115875-21767188/
It seems the recommendation is that it's for families on the 'at risk' register not the general public. They are already subject to (inadequate) visits by social workers who often miss the most obvious signs of abuse, such as that of Baby P so a few more traipsing through their houses shouldn't be a problem, might even save a childs life which is a damn sight more than the people who were supposed to did.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5140511.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5140511.ece
Gordon Nore
Senior Master
Thanks for the clarification, Tez. That seems more prudent.
it's easy to do a bit more 'investigating' online rather than take at face value something written in a newspaper. This is probably a kneejerk reastion to the child cruelty cases that have hit the headlines recently, btw the mother who left her children alone got a 20 month suspended sentence something else thats outraged us.
Child services here have proved inadequate and children are suffering for it. The people are demanding 'action' in the way that outraged people do but while they demand something is done there has been no plan put forward so councils/government/authorities panic and put forward things they think will help. Combined with the fact we have a general election next year the politicians realise that they have to been seen to do something.
What we have is parents, not always single parents, who have absolutely no idea how to bring up children, they don't know how to safeguard them from any harm such as they OP article was talking about, they are truly inadequate at parenting and this neglect is child abuse. Babies are left in sodden nappies, toddlers crawling around filthy dangerous homes.
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/Briefings/childneglect_wda48222.html
This isn't about letting children play on swings or not, in fact the government here has urged parents to allow their children to take more risks such as climb trees etc.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/18/schoolsports.politics
Still I guess if you want to see us as a communist state you will despite everything said to the opposite.
Child services here have proved inadequate and children are suffering for it. The people are demanding 'action' in the way that outraged people do but while they demand something is done there has been no plan put forward so councils/government/authorities panic and put forward things they think will help. Combined with the fact we have a general election next year the politicians realise that they have to been seen to do something.
What we have is parents, not always single parents, who have absolutely no idea how to bring up children, they don't know how to safeguard them from any harm such as they OP article was talking about, they are truly inadequate at parenting and this neglect is child abuse. Babies are left in sodden nappies, toddlers crawling around filthy dangerous homes.
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/Briefings/childneglect_wda48222.html
This isn't about letting children play on swings or not, in fact the government here has urged parents to allow their children to take more risks such as climb trees etc.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/18/schoolsports.politics
Still I guess if you want to see us as a communist state you will despite everything said to the opposite.
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