One American father says that his children’s elementary school is asking parent volunteers to be fingerprinted. What’s interesting about the school’s letter is that fingerprinting is presented as an innocuous service: ‘the Office of Human Resources will provide fingerprinting services…from 9am to 2pm…. [W]e ask that you plan to attend this event. Many of you chaperone field trips, work in classrooms and support the school in other essential ways. We hope this opportunity will facilitate your continued support’. Likewise, Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are often presented as an ‘opportunity’ for which you are ‘eligible’. This soft language suggests that such controlling…

Arun, in West Sussex, has started vetting all its councillors, on the grounds that they are in a ‘position of trust’ and may come into unsupervised contact with children. Yet as one Lib Dem councillor pointed out, the fact that these people are elected means that they are known and trusted in their communities. The authority won through the ballot box surely counts for more than a tick of approval from the CRB. The justification for the policy is not to protect children, but to cover backs. A council officer said: ‘There are situations where councillors may have unaccompanied liaison with children…

Some policy wonk suggested giving lone mothers the right to do CRB checks on potential partners. Several contributors to this Mumsnet discussion site come out against the idea. One says: ‘the idea that you have to produce a certificate proving you’re not an abuser in the field of human relationships…is quite frightening…. It does encourage all of us to be scared of each other.’

Here is an email from Bryan Dedman, from Brentwood, about how child protection rules create problems for a small local church group: ‘I help run The Club at Brentwood Baptist Church. The Club meets on Monday’s and has a membership of about 12, half boys and half girls in the 11 to 14-age range. We just play games, table tennis, pool, playstation and have short talks. Tonight we may have to close for the night. We have 4 leaders but our 2 lady leaders are not available and we cannot meet as we have girls and no female leader on site. If…

In a blog piece, Justin Wyllie from Youth Rights UK discusses the difficulties that paranoia about paedophilia creates for youth workers: ‘Apply for a post as a volunteer youth worker with Islington for example and you will be told “people want to work with children for all sorts of reasons” in a tone that makes it quite clear you are viewed with the utmost suspicion’. He also makes some interesting points about how radical politics depends upon free relations between the generations: ‘The meeting of the older and the younger generation can be a crucible where social values and perceptions are critiqued…

Judith Gillespie from the Scottish Parent Teacher Council submitted evidence to the Scottish Education Committee about the problems with the new vetting legislation. Here are her notes on the meetings. ‘Brian Gorman of Disclosure Scotland was hard-line about supporting vetting but gave a frightening insight into his apparent lack of understanding of the technical IT needs of the system. By the time he had finished describing the information exchange system, I was quietly thinking “and you think that will work?” It was scary stuff and there is a serious need for an IT expert – and someone who knows about security –…

Child protection policies mean that young mountaineers are not getting training from experienced adults. Cameron McNeish, editor of The Great Outdoors magazine, says: ‘How do young people get experience of winter routes today? When I was a kid you joined a club and there was always someone who was willing to take young people out. Clubs don’t do that any more as they are scared of the litigation and paedophilia angle. Across all youth activities we seem to have demonised volunteers, particularly male volunteers, and have put all kinds of barriers in the way of working with young people.’ Early outdoor experience…

A Scottish couple were banned from helping their autistic son on to a bus in the morning, because they weren’t CRB checked. Their son was often distressed, so they helped him to fasten his seatbelt. Now the council says that only cleared adults will be allowed on to the bus. Currently the children are being given lessons in fastening their own seatbelts. This shows that the CRB system is all about satisfying a bureaucracy, and nothing to do with helping children on the ground. Nobody could claim that this rule did anything to combat paedophilia – it’s all about protecting institutional backs.…

The UK government wants to bring back the school trip. Yet the government has just waved through legislation that makes organising a school trip very difficult, if not impossible. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill will mean that it is compulsory to criminal records check bus drivers who drive the kids, workers at the hotel where the children are staying, any parent or adult volunteers, and any foreign exchange families. Read on….

According to Pennie Goodman, from Leicester, barbershop choirs are now bringing through new burdensome child protection procedures. ‘My partner belongs to a male voice choir which is affiliated to a larger organisation. Many of the clubs do not have any members under 18 and of those that do, almost all attend with a family member. There is no one-to-one contact during rehearsals and yet a policy is coming into force which states that every club (including those with no under-18s or with a child attending with a parent) must have a CRB checked “Designated Person” who is responsible for any minors and…

This was in the Times notebook today: ‘My mother…belongs to an amateur dramatic society in Birmingham, called the Highbury Players. They have a youth theatre, too, who sometimes appear alongside the adults in productions such as The Diary of Anne Frank, and sometimes in shows they’ve written themselves, which star, well, pretty much all of them. Next year’s youth theatre extravaganza will be staged in January, but may not go ahead at all, because Birmingham City Council requires them to have trained chaperones to look after the kids in the show. My mum volunteered…. She’s a former teacher, and currently the vice-principal…

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council will be giving evidence to the Scottish Education Committee on 22 November, pointing out the grievous problems with the new Protecting Vulnerable Groups Bill. Read the full document: Evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Education Committee on the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill. They say that the new vetting system : ‘Introduces a “back-watching” system that does not help children: It is quite clear from the many seminars and conferences that we have attended on this subject, that many organisations are using the legislation to protect their own backs rather than to protect children. They are concerned that…