Marcus is the Head of Inspection for the Adventure Activities Licensing Service (AALS). Their new name reflects the slightly different contract with HSE which replaces their contract with DfES, now DCSF. Marcus’s views, and those of the Licensing Service, do not necessarily represent the views of HSE. [Ed: Article reproduced from 2007 with permission]
The Language of Change
By Marcus Bailie.
There is much clamor these days that decisions, strategies and initiatives should be ‘evidence based’. However, in practice this often means ‘high profile’ rather than ‘statistically significant’. Take the example of our health and how our perceptions of it helps to shape the National Health Service.
It is comparatively easy to identify and quantify those factors which cause us harm. However, if the NHS were to focus totally on these factors we would end up with a health service which was entirely reactive, and not at all proactive. All cure and no prevention. We would only think about our health when we got sick, which is often too late. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to identify what keeps us well, than it is to identify what makes us sick. This is not surprising: proving a generality is often more difficult than providing evidence of exceptions to it.
Similarly, the media play an important role in what becomes high profile. Currently gang crime in some inner-city areas is dominating much media reporting of young people, with particular attention on random knife crime by strangers. However, most commentators agree that the rate of fatal stabbings has, overall, not increased significantly in, say, 20 or 30 years; that young people are 5 - 10 more likely to be killed by someone in their wider family circle than by a stranger; and that they are twice as likely to commit suicide than they are to be murdered.
There is certainly evidence of random knife killings, but if we focus only on that issue we get a very distorted picture of the safety of young people in the early 21st century. A very similar distortion occurs if we look at ‘child protection’ instead of ‘child well-being.
Well-being is not the same as accident prevention or safeguarding, in the same way as health is not the same as knowing what to do if we get sick. Both health and well-being can be nurtured, encouraged and to a greater or lesser extent taught. Conversely, neither can be demanded, guaranteed or imposed on others. How then can we achieve our own well-being, and perhaps more relevant to our work with children and young people, how can we help THEM to achieve their own well-being? Merely protecting them from external harm for a pre-determined number of years is not going to do it.
We can help young people to achieve well-being if we realise, for example, that accident prevention is PART of safeguarding which is PART of safety which is PART of well-being.
I argue, therefore, that we should be referring to 'child well-being' rather than ‘child protection’ on the grounds that in this context protection is only one of four requirements for well-being. The others are challenge, resilience and trust. That is:
Child well-being involves:
- Protection.
- Challenge.
- Resilience.
- Trust
Initially we, that is, parents, schools, the state, society, etc. have the most input when children are young but as with all learning, responsibility slowly transfers to the learner.
The aim is to equip young people with life skills which are appropriate for a world where not only good things happen, but also bad things. The key skill is to maximise on the good and minimise on the bad. They learn to do this progressively by taking on (ideally) well managed challenges. They need to develop resilience for when things don’t go their way, and they need protection from things they can not manage yet themselves. And the confidence that things will be well comes from the trust nurtured throughout the entire transformation.
Protection
A degree of protection is required initially for children and young people from those things which they can't yet be expected to manage. It is simply self-evident, a responsibility as old as childhood itself. A greater problem is to determine how to engender a sense of self-protection from those things which they CAN protect themselves from. If we fail to teach self-protection skills every child will end up as a victim of somebody else’s failure.
Challenge
In a previous article I claimed that Challenge is made up of at least five essential elements:
Challenge involves:
- an opportunity for gain,
- a risk of loss or harm,
- careful goal setting,
- willingness and
- physical or emotional activity outside the comfort zone.
Once again it is we (parents, schools, etc) who initially set the challenges. As development progresses challenges become ever more self-generated by the child or young person. Or at least they should be if young people are allowed and encouraged to develop this essential element of their own well-being.
Resilience
In his recent and excellent book No fear: growing up in a risk averse society, Tim Gill takes many of the observations of Frank Furedi in A culture of Fear a stage further and looks at possible solutions as well as at the manifest problem. Under a wonderfully titled section called From Protection to Resilience Gill says:
Alongside physical interventions society needs to embrace a philosophy of resilience: an affirmation of the value of children’s ability to recover and learn from adverse outcomes, whether these are accidents and injuries, failures, conflict, abuse, neglect, or even tragedy.”
It is about seeing positives where others may see negatives; bouncing back, or a least moving forward. Like most skills resilience can be taught and learned, provided it is developed in a progressive and supportive environment.
Trust and well-being
Our own well-being is predominantly our own responsibility. Other factors may influence it, positively or negatively, but ultimately our own well-being is ours to do with what we will. In a similar way we own our own behavior. Others may influence it, but we are responsible for it.
The important transition from teacher to learner, environment to individual, us to them, requires a fundamental level of trust on both sides if it is to be achieved successfully. Trust, like loyalty, cannot be demanded: it can only be earned. Consequently if we offer no trust to children and young people we can expect none in return. And like health and well-being trust can not be demanded, guaranteed or imposed on others
How can we expect our children to be trustworthy if we don’t trust them? It is trust which underpins the entire structure, and an awareness of personal responsibility which this trust strives to achieve.
Actually, the order should be:
- Trust
- Challenge
- Resilience
- Protection
Too much Protection leads to not enough Resilience. Not enough Resilience suppresses Challenge. And with no Challenges we never generate Trust in ourselves or anyone else.
In order to determine how much is too much we need to look at the 5 essential elements of Challenge:
- An opportunity for gain. What are the benefits we hope to achieve, and what are the chances of achieving them?
- A risk of loss. What is the likelihood of losing, and what are the consequences?
- Goal setting. How achievable is each goal?
- Willingness. How willing is the individual and where did the willingness come from? Was it external encouragement or self-engendered?
- Outside the comfort zone. How far?!
In other walks of life this could be called a risk assessment.
Are we alone?
Sometimes it feels as if we are a lone voice pleading for common sense when it comes to personal responsibility for our own well-being. But we’re not! There is also a belief that those who know what needs to be done don’t care, and those who do care don’t know what can be done about it. That’s not true either.
Poppleton
In 2002 25 year old Mr. Poppleton was a paying customer at a purpose built indoor bouldering facility run by the charity Portsmouth Youth Activities Committee. He was shown no rules, nor asked to sign any acknowledgement of risk. He was given no explanation of risks, nor was he asked about his ability as a climber. He had been there 3 or 4 times before but was not an experienced climber.
The facility had a maximum height of 16 feet, and 12 inch matting on the floor.
At one point Mr. Poppleton tried to leap from one wall to a feature on an opposite wall, some 8 feet away and slightly above him. Unfortunately, he lost his grip on landing, somersaulted in the air and landed on the matting on his head. He sustained serious injuries and is now tetraplegic.
His solicitors pursued a claim based, amongst other things, on a breach of the Occupiers Liability Act. They claimed there was a duty of care which extended to carrying out induction, training, assessment and supervision.
In March 2007 a High Court judge disagreed and ruled that Mr Poppleton was largely responsible for his own well-being. In June 2008 the Court of Appeal went further and ruled that he was wholly responsible. This court decided that there was also no duty of care to warn Mr. Poppleton about the risks or that the mat did not make the climbing facility safe. In a land-mark ruling Lord Justice May said:
“Adults who choose to engage in physical activities, which obviously give rise to a degree of unavoidable risk, may find that they have no means of recompense if the risk materialises so that they are injured.”
In this case Mr. Poppleton’s decision to make the jump meant that the accident was, most unfortunately for him, his fault as opposed to being someone else’s. This is a strong signal from the Court of Appeal that they do not embrace the so-called nanny state.
Conclusion
If taking responsibility for our own behavior and our own well-being is the aim, then engendering lasting resilience is a s important as providing initial protection.
Whether the language of the future embraces words such as well-being, resilience, challenge and comfort zone is difficult to predict. Certainly every Local Authority is currently looking at how to implement Local Safeguarding Children Boards, and the government is introducing the Independent Safeguarding Authority, the toughest ever vetting and barring scheme, where the default option is that no-one can be trusted. Meanwhile we are still trying to role out Learning outside of the Classroom more widely so as to provide opportunities for children and young people to develop these qualities.
However, amidst all of this uncertainty one thing is clear: we’re going to hear a lot more about Poppleton.
Originally published Auguest 2007 on the AALS website
Further information:
AALS Website
