Abuse in special needs school

66Mustang

I thought this would be interesting to share, in case anyone hasn't heard of it or seen it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp6643jd8nwo

To try to be impartial here is an article with the school's response

https://www.learningdisabilitytoday.co.uk/news/special-school-at-centre-of-panorama-abuse-probe-hits-back-at-the-bbc/

I found it interesting personally after going to school with autism and other issues and my experience of the special needs department; sadly I didn't find the alleged treatment of the children overly surprising

Rosie_Scope

Thanks for sharing @66Mustang, I had seen that in the news but hadn't seen the school's response before. It's really sad that the children were treated that way by people they should be able to trust. Things like that affect you for your whole life, I can't imagine what it's like for the affected pupils and their families.

The second article does make an interesting point about whether the reporters might have been able to safeguard the children once they'd seen the behaviour of the staff. Although it sounds like the school may have been made aware of some issues in the past and hadn't fully investigated.

I haven't watched the Panorama episode yet, but I'll definitely give it a watch some time to see what I think!

66Mustang

@Rosie_Scope the point about raising a concern to safeguard the children is a valid one which comes up all the time when it comes to crime and punishment

I have a family member who did like 30 years as a detective so his main job was to gather evidence and it's probably the most common complaint that comes up - "why didn't you stop the crime before it happened?"

Because of the way our justice system works, guilt has to be proven (e.g. with evidence), furthermore, you can't usually punish someone because they might have committed a crime, otherwise you could put everyone in prison - you have to wait for them to actually do it, or at least make some kind of obvious inclination to

The "greater good" argument comes up as well - my family member had countless occasions where he had the opportunity to act in the present by responding to a lesser crime but blow his "cover" and jeopardise any chance of solving something much more serious - he had to make the difficult decisions but they tended to pay off

What this means is these children could well have gone through some preventable suffering, which would have been postponed for a day or a week, but hopefully the result of the investigation means they won't ever have to go through it again, and they might even have prevented others from having to suffer as well

Rosie_Scope

That's true @66Mustang, it's hard to judge as an outsider when you're not the one making the investigative decisions. But as you say, now that it's been brought to light hopefully there will be more scrutiny of staff in these trusted positions so that behaviour like that can be stopped quickly.

66Mustang

I would add though that I do think (like with most things) that most special needs staff do do a good job

We know a couple through the family and it's a tough job, they often have to deal with violent children who while they are only violent as a result of their conditions and it's not their fault, are really difficult to keep under control safely when you are so restricted as to what you can do to defend yourself

One of the people we know is physically struck on a daily basis, some of the kids are teenagers and not what you would call physically weak. Also, staff are often outnumbered and made to work with kids alone even if it's specified that the child/teenager requires 2 adults per child for safety reasons - furthermore they are often women and not exactly athletic types, due to the nature of the profession and the individual that is often suited to the job

While the staff in the video probably shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a school again it's wise to think before tarring them all with the same brush

Rosie_Scope

Yeah that's an important point @66Mustang! I'm sure it's a tough job sometimes and there are so many caring people who wouldn't dream of hurting the kids they work with in any way. I don't think it's too naïve of me to believe that the school featured in the allegations is more of an exception than a rule. I'm sure that the majority of SEN schools are doing great work, often with so few resources and nowhere near the funding that they need.