MEDIA INFORMATION FROM ACTION FOR HOME EDUCATION (AHEd)

For immediate release, Friday 23 March 2007

NO PLACE FOR CHILD ABUSE AT HOME OR AT SCHOOL, SAYS AHEd - national home education organisation cautions against knee-jerk reaction in the wake of the Spry abuse case

Action for Home Education (AHEd) has today expressed its shock and sadness in the wake of a child abuse case in Gloucestershire where three children were subject to a sustained period of violence at the hands of foster parent, Eunice Spry, who had been approved as a carer by the local authority. (1)

Commenting on the case, AHEd Chair Barbara Stark said:

"AHEd has delayed commenting on this case until the facts were known, but it appears that these poor children have joined the growing cohort of those who have been failed by the very services that are designed to protect them. They were known to health and social services, concerns were

raised by members of the public and allegedly investigated, but no action was taken to remove them from an unsafe environment. Indeed, it has been reported that the police returned the children to the family home after they had run away following their disclosure of abuse.

"AHEd is dismayed to note that, rather than holding their hands up and pleading guilty to failing to use existing powers, Gloucestershire County Council has chosen to focus on the fact that the children were allegedly home educated, concluding from one isolated case that home educating

families are universally in need of greater monitoring and control. Instead of using home education as both a scapegoat and fig leaf, we believe the council and its officers should take a long hard look at themselves and accept full, unequivocal responsibility for their own failings."

AHEd cites the extensive local authority interventions which were available, but apparently not implemented, in the Spry case, including powers under the Children Act to ensure compulsory measures are taken to ensure the protection of children who are at risk. The children in this case had been in contact with, and subject to investigation by, a number of agencies, all of whom failed to take action. It would therefore seem unlikely that an education officer seeking to establish that the family's home education provision was adequate by making an occasional visit could have detected signs of child abuse when police officers, medical professionals and trained child protection specialists had not done so.  AHEd contends it is even more astonishing that Gloucestershire County Council, whose own officers approved the perpetrator of these crimes both as a county council carer and as an adoptive parent, should now be seeking to create an extra tier of regulation and monitoring for bona fide home educating parents whose children are patently not at risk when children's services across the country are already chronically under-funded to the point of crisis.

Ms Stark continued:

"The knee-jerk reaction to this case, which has seen a deliberate link being made between home-based education to child abuse, is a sign of utter desperation on the part of the authorities. Calling for extra powers over home education on a universal basis when resources are already severely stretched is frankly tantamount to increasing the size of a haystack in which ever smaller needles need to be found.

"AHEd utterly condemns violence and abuse against children in all settings, whether at home or in school where many children suffer bullying and abuse on a daily basis. The Spry case has clearly demonstrated that we as a society have a long way to go to ensure that all children can be free from harm at the hands of adults and other children.

"AHEd is an organisation which has children's wellbeing and development at the very heart of its agenda and we deplore any suggestion that home educators should be subject to disproportionate and discriminatory intrusion by the very statutory agencies which have once again demonstrated their failure to protect children whose plight had been repeatedly brought to their attention."

ENDS

NOTE FOR EDITORS:

(1)  See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6449027.stm

For further information, please contact Barbara Stark on 0XXXXX or stark    @     .com