Following on from my taking an Online Prevent ‘Training’ Course I had to take a ‘Safeguarding’ one today. This latter course was put together by the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board which appears to be a grouping of the police, local authority and health sector. Needless to say the English was terrible and the course was very badly designed – structure and layout. There were bugs in the system reflecting either lack of familiarity with a Content Management System or lack of QA, probably both. But what I got stuck on a bit was this:
Staff are responsible for their own actions and behaviour and should avoid any conduct which would lead any reasonable person to question their motivation and intentions’
Safer Recruitment Consortium – COVID addendum April 2020
The “Safer Recruitment Consortium” appears to be partly an NSPCC project so I am not surprised to find language which tries to normalise sexual abuse and embed it deeply in the population. Even knowing that, the above quote is a bit hard to work out. Of course you should avoid behaviour which any reasonable person might see as abuse; because, if you engaged in that behaviour you would be abusing a child, and of course one should not abuse children. Already in ‘arguing’ with the NSPCC I find myself having to state the obvious – a moral rule which most people don’t need to be told. The text seems to be allowing that non-abusers might do things which could be construed as abuse by ‘reasonable people’ even though perhaps they are not abusing anyone. That is hard to understand. But they seem to be telling people “hide your sexual interest in children by not engaging in behaviours which could attract the suspicion of reasonable people”. This seems surprising to say the least. But it is easier when you remember that the key guiding principle of these people is that sexual abuse of children is the norm and everyone does it or, at least, everyone wants to do it – and this needs to be covered over with a surveillance system in which the distinction between actual child-abusers and ordinary people, e.g. volunteers, teachers (naïve ones, who haven’t seen what is happening yet), is obliterated. What matters is the abuse is seen not to occur. (Because it is bad for the authorities and social work profession). Whether or not it actually occurs, they aren’t too bothered about, and never have been.