Has child protection become a form of madness? Yes

Now you need a licence to interact with children

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Working mums are now seen as suspect

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Tuesday 18 September UK News feed. The launch of a new Government agency will see But the increase in child protection measures is so great it is "poisoning" relationships between the generations, according to respected sociologist Professor Frank Furedi.

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In a report for think tank Civitas, he said the use of criminal records bureau checks to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults has created an atmosphere of suspicion. As a result ordinary parents - many of whom are volunteers at sports and social clubs - now find themselves regarded "potential child abusers". The checks were introduced to tighten procedures to protect children after school caretaker Ian Huntley murdered 10 year olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham in Paedophile checks 'ruining education'.

Are we overprotective of our children?

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Buy Licensed to Hug: How Child Protection Policies Are Poisoning the Relationship Between the Generations and Damaging the Voluntary Sector by Frank. Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Frank Furedi is Professor of Sociology at the University of Licensed to Hug: How Child Protection Policies Are Poisoning the Relationship Between the Generations and Damaging the Voluntary Sector.

Professor Furedi said most adults now think twice before telling off children who were misbehaving, or helping children in distress for fear of the consequences. He said that the need for the checks had transformed parents "in the regulatory and public imagination into potential child abusers, barred from any contact with children until the database gives them the green light". From next year the new Independent Safeguarding Authority will require any adult who come into contact with children or vulnerable adults either through their work or in voluntary groups to be vetted.

It has not yet demanded that your year-old babysitter should be registered with the CRB — unless she looks after your child on a regular basis.

Working mums are now seen as suspect

There are reports that some ideologically driven child advocates are targeting grandmothers and grandfathers as the next group to require a licence. It merely represents an exercise in public relations, meant to reassure the public that he is not completely out of touch with the real world. Unfortunately this case is all too typical of a disturbing tendency to intervene in the private affairs of families.

Some parents have even been asked if they have been CRB checked by mothers and fathers who believe no one should come near their child unless they hold an official licence.

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The cultural distancing of generations weakens the bonds of community life. He called for a national review to demonstrate the need to "improve and clarify adult authority". In the introduction to the pamphlet, published below, Furedi argues that adults now effectively need a probationary licence to interact with kids. Does Ofsted ever pause to ask: Adulthood no longer possesses authority over children - it requires the legitimation of a security check before its authority can be exercised.

W ithout doubt, children need to be protected from those who may prey upon them. But registering every informal childcare arrangement will do nothing to protect children from harm. It simply erodes normal everyday co-operation between friends and family members, thus diminishing the capacity of adults to look after the interests of children.

Such vetting will estrange children from all adults — the very people who are likely to protect them from paedophiles and other dangers. Does Ofsted ever pause to ask: One mother of an eight-year-old recounts:.

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Over the course of their young lives, children will interact with a number of adults outside their immediate families — teachers, sports coaches, Scoutmasters, bus-drivers, passers-by who stop to give them directions or help them out when they are in trouble. As a society, we appreciate that children need these other adults to broaden their horizons, educate and challenge them, contain their behaviour, provide support and generally take responsibility for the next generation.

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Now you need a licence to interact with children.
Liberal England: Frank Furedi and Licensed to Hug?
Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood.
Has child protection become a form of madness? Yes | The BMJ;

Throughout our history, informal and unregulated collaboration between grown-ups has provided the foundation for the socialisation of young people. This form of collaboration, which has traditionally underpinned inter-generational relations, is now threatened by a regime that insists that adult-children encounters must be mediated through a security check.

In other words, they cannot be trusted to be in the proximity of a child unless they possess a probationary licence to be responsible adults.

Implicitly, the licensing of adulthood undermines its authority. It encourages the disassociation of adulthood from trust and respect. Adulthood no longer possesses authority over children - it requires the legitimation of a security check before its authority can be exercised. The institutionalisation of the vetting of grown-ups also communicates powerful signals about the role of adults.

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Adults are no longer trusted or expected to engage with children on their own initiative. Vetting encourages the cultural distancing of generations. As a result, inter-generational encounters have lost some of their informal and taken-for-granted dimensions, and many such encounters are rendered troublesome and awkward.