Bulletin No. 121 Autumn 2005

In this issue: ‘Somewhere to go, something to do' – the Green Paper on youth Do we really need more public investment in youth activities? Youth ‘matters', but what about marriage? ‘The Future of Family Law' Building a culture of respect: Where does the family fit in? Parenting orders The Respect Task Force ‘Fiscal Policy and the Family' Civil partnerships and ‘neutral language' Child protection and ‘the right to confidentiality' Contraception and unwanted pregnancies The growing use of drugs to control children's behaviour Feminist agenda burdens women and society Children in the dock – and on the bench Working wives and divorce Nurseries cause toddlers stress Human Fertilisation and Embryology Review

‘Somewhere to go, something to do' – the government's plans for young people

The long-anticipated Green Paper, Youth Matters, was published in mid-July. The document outlines the government's plans to keep young people out of mischief by providing them with ‘things to do' and ‘places to go', and to supply them with ‘good quality information, advice, and guidance' (IAG).

Significant changes include the transfer of IAG from the Connexions Service to local authorities and the introduction of a legal requirement for local authorities to provide ‘positive activities' for young people.

Positive activities

National standards will be put in place to specify the positive activities which every young person would benefit from accessing in his or her free time. This is intended to have wide-ranging effects, from improving life chances to crime prevention. Examples of ‘positive activities' mentioned in the Green Paper include:

• Safe and enjoyable places to ‘hang out';
• Enriching and fun experiences such as arts, heritage or sports events;
• Positive activities that have long term benefits for young people such as clubs, youth groups and classes.

Over the next two years the government proposes to spend £40 million to improve existing services and create new ones, but this sum is dwarfed by the £835 million being spent on extended schools, which will also have ‘an important part to play'.

Information, advice and guidance

The Green Paper states:

‘All young people need impartial and good quality information, advice and guidance to help them make key life choices…

‘Most of the support young people need on these issues comes from their parents, their wider family and their peers, although public services…also have an important role to play.'

It is proposed that Children's Trusts, schools and colleges will come to an agreement over the provision of IAG. Where they are unhappy with the IAG available locally, schools and colleges will be able to commission it directly.

Under the proposals, young people will receive advice upon entry at secondary school in Year 7, guidance to help them think through post 14/16 options, help with personal social and health issues, and assistance with career choices. Parents will also be provided with ‘better support… to help them help their teenagers to make choices'. For example, £20 million will be spent to help parents assist their children to make the transition from primary to secondary school.

Volunteering

Over the next three years, the government plans to invest £45 million towards increasing opportunities for young people to volunteer, in order to develop ‘a stronger sense of rights and responsibilities and improve mutual understanding between young people and the wider community.'

Schools are to receive support to develop ‘more active forms of citizenship'. Volunteers will be

provided with financial support and rewards. This sounds much the same as with any other type of work, except that under this scheme, the rewards will be provided by the government rather than by an employer.

Choice for young people

The Green Paper states:

‘Our first challenge is to put young people themselves in control of the things to do and places to go in their area. We don't want government agencies second guessing them.'

This is to be achieved by the use of ‘opportunity cards' and an ‘opportunity fund'. Opportunity cards are intended to put spending power in the hands of young people to purchase ‘positive activities'. These can be topped up by central government, local authorities, other organisations, parents, or young people themselves. The idea seems to be that the ‘positive activity' industry will work as a market system, with the unpopular providers forced out of business if there is insufficient demand for their service.

In addition, opportunity funds will make cash available to young people who want to set up their own ‘things to do and places to go'. These funds will be administered by local authorities who are expected to consult widely among young people to decide how the money should be allocated.

The government also plans to ‘put appropriate measures in place' to ensure that those who engage in anti-social behaviour do not receive the same benefits as the ‘law-abiding majority'. The measures outlined in the Green Paper involve the withdrawal of opportunity cards, while young people who volunteer or make progress in improving their situation may be rewarded by having their opportunity cards topped up by the government.

The end of Connexions

The fate of the Connexions Service as an information provider will rest in the hands of the local authority and is likely to depend on the past success of each individual Connexions partnership. As a national commissioner of information provision, however, Connexions seems to have reached the end of its short life. The Green Paper recognises that Connexions did not fulfil its original intentions:

‘[W]hile existing services – Youth Services, Connexions, mainstream services, and a wide range of targeted support programmes – have made a crucial contribution, they do not amount to a coherent, modern system of support.'

This is an interesting admission. As recently as 2000, the Connexions strategy document, sub-titled, ‘The best start in life for every young person', had claimed that the Connexions Service would, ‘for the first time, provide coherent support to young people over time and across current service boundaries' and ‘be a modern, public service which works in a completely new way'. Five years later, the government is recognising that its expectations have not been met and that part of the problem with existing services, including Connexions, is that ‘too often' they have failed to ‘take proper account of the role of parents'.

The place of parents

The Green Paper places a strong emphasis on involving parents in the implementation of the government's proposals for young people. However, while in one breath it ‘recognises that parents are the strongest influence in young people's lives', in the next breath it asserts that, ‘publicly funded services also have a key role to play' and proceeds to offer an essentially government-based answer to the perceived needs of young people.

There are some positives in the document. For example:

‘We want to ensure that parents of young people have better access to the information and advice they need to understand the wide range of choices teenagers face, and are able to help and support them to make important decisions.

  ‘Evidence shows that parents' influence is key and both parents and teenagers want greater parental involvement.

  ‘Government funded services are not the only – or even necessarily the most important – source of opportunity, challenge and support for young people.'

While we welcome the recognition that government services are not ‘necessarily the most important' source of help, the implication that they might possibly be such is rather disturbing. But how does the government see the role of public services?

The role of government

One of the document's proposals is to legislate to clarify the duty of local authorities ‘to secure positive activities for all young people'. The entertainment and amusement of teenagers is thus to be made a legal obligation of local government, supported by guidance setting out ‘a new set of national standards for the activities that all young people would benefit from accessing in their free time'. This includes:

• access to two hours per week of sporting activity;
• access to two hours per week of other constructive activities in clubs, youth groups and classes;
• opportunities to make a positive contribution to their community through volunteering;
• a wide range of other recreational, cultural, sporting and enriching experiences; and a range of safe and enjoyable places in which to spend time.

Throughout the document, the ‘key role' of universal publicly funded services for young people and the need to expand them and place them on a statutory footing is assumed rather than demonstrated.

Confidentiality (again…)

While the Green Paper recognises that ‘young people who can talk openly to their parents about issues such as sex, relationships, drugs and alcohol are less likely to engage in risky behaviour', the government is persisting with its commitment to confidentiality policies that undermine parents by keeping them in the dark about what their children are doing. The document insists:

‘We must … provide good, impartial and accessible advice which is free from stereotyping. In some circumstances – for example on health issues – advice should be confidential.'

Conclusion

While we welcome the higher emphasis on the duties and responsibilities of parents to their children during the challenging teenage years as a step in the right direction, government policy has still not gone far enough. Until we see parental responsibilities restored to their rightful place at the fore of government policy, the problems encountered by the Connexions service are likely to continue.

! T he consultation document, Youth Matters, may be downloaded from: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/youth/

Closing date: 4 November 2005.

Tom Barns

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Youth ‘matters', but what about marriage?

At the end of June, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published the latest findings from the Families and Children Study (FACS) 1 and for the second year running failed to differentiate between married, cohabiting and step-families.

Despite the fact that a previous FACS report published two years ago showed that married couples were at a significantly lower risk of family breakdown compared with unmarried couples, the latest study brackets married couples with unmarried couples and step-families, whether married or not, under the general heading of ‘couple families'.

Asked why FACS no longer separately identified married, cohabiting and step-families, government minister, James Plasket, responded:

‘The Families and Children Study collects a wealth of information. Because of the quantity of variables on the dataset it is not practical to include all of these in the annual reports. Judgments are made about which information is most relevant to the Government Departments sponsoring the study.

‘The report “Family life in Britain: findings from the 2003 Families and Children Study”, which is available in the Library, describes families as either lone parent or couple families as this is consistent with how DWP clients are segmented in welfare-to-work programmes and the benefit system. We have no plans to change this.' 2

As Harry Benson of the Bristol Community Family Trust has commented, ‘Government censorship now prevents researchers from highlighting the benefits and protections that accrue to married couples and their children.'

Marriage does matter

Meanwhile, a recent review of 23 American studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and June 2005, recorded that all but three found a link between family structure and crime or delinquency. 3

Seven of the eight studies that used nationally representative data found that children from single-parent or other non-intact family backgrounds were more likely to commit criminal or delinquent acts.

Of the three studies that showed no family structure effects, one looked only at black teens who had already been remanded by court order to one residential treatment facility; another gave little information on how the sample was collected and grouped teenagers from different family types together provided they lived with a father or a father figure; and the other looked only at the effect of recent parental divorce, and concluded that teens whose parents had very recently divorced were not at risk of increased delinquency unless they reported a good relationship with the non-custodial same-gender parent prior to the divorce.

The review concluded that family structure is an important predictor of crime and delinquency, that children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to commit crimes as teens or adults, and that communities with high rates of family fragmentation (especially unmarried childbearing) suffer higher crime rates.

Notes:
1. Family Life in Britain : Findings from the 2003 Families and Children Study (FACS), DWP, Research Report 250, 2005.
2. Hansard, HoC, 12 September 2005, col. 2484W.
3. Can Married Parents Prevent Crime? Recent research on family structure and delinquency 2000-2005, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, September 2005, http://www.marriagedebate.com/

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‘The Future of Family Law'

The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy in association with the Institute for American Values has recently published an interesting report by Mary Ann Glendon and others entitled, The Future of Family Law: Law and the Marriage Crisis in North America.

It examines the potential shift in North American family law towards a new definition of marriage, which treats marriage as a close personal relationship between two people rather than an institution of society based on the conjugal model. The danger is that such a shift not only threatens the status of marriage as a unique social institution, but also fails to protect children.

There are clear parallels here with the British situation, where lawyers have been in the forefront of the move towards equal rights for cohabitees as well as the civil partnerships legislation. The report calls for a wider public debate on the way marriage is being redefined, and says this is too important to be left to the lawyers. The full text is available to download from: http://www.marriagedebate.com/

The report's summary concludes that family law is embracing the fundamentally flawed idea that marriage is merely a close personal relationship between adults rather than a pro-child social institution:

‘It will hurt children and weaken our civil society. For this reason, there is an urgent need for those outside the legal discipline to understand and critique the new understandings of marriage and family life that are driving current legal trends. Marriage and family are too important as institutions, affecting too many people, for basic decisions about their legal underpinnings to remain the province of legal experts alone. If the proposed changes are put in place, there are likely to be important negative impacts on the lives of everyday people.

‘A “close relationships” culture fails to acknowledge fundamental facets of human life: the fact of sexual difference; the enormous tide of heterosexual desire in human life; the procreativity of male-female bonding; the unique social ecology of parenting which offers children bonds with their biological parents; and the rich genealogical nature of family ties and the web of intergenerational supports for family members that they provide. These core dimensions of conjugal life are not small issues. Yet at this crucial moment for marriage and parenthood in North America, there is no serious intellectual platform from which to launch a meaningful discussion about these elemental features of human existence. This report on the state of family law seeks to open that debate.'

Jill Kirby

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Building a culture of respect: Where does the family fit in?

‘Respect' was the theme of the Prime Minister's first public speech after his return from holiday at the beginning of September. Reflecting on widespread public concerns about anti-social behaviour and violent crime, Mr Blair refused to be fatalistic:

‘Not long ago there was a sense of fatalism about anti-social behaviour. It was almost as if people had accepted that it was inevitable and that nothing could be done. With the right mixture of sanctions and support we can prevent anti-social behaviour.'

Family breakdown

However, there was more than a hint of fatalism in his remarks about the breakdown of the traditional family, which lies at the root of many of our current social ills. The Prime Minister began his speech with the observation that:

‘In almost all areas of policy the world we confront is changing very quickly. The traditional family structure is not as common and old forms of authority and deference have declined…Children are drinking alcohol earlier than they were. The malign influence of drugs is more prevalent than it was a generation ago.'

Yet rather than making any attempt to address the underlying problems, Mr Blair appeared to accept them as inevitable features of the twenty-first century. The majority of parents had coped very well with social changes, he said, and the government had introduced a range of effective measures to deal with the significant minority who did not. These government interventions included the New Deal for the Community, Sure Start, Child Care, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Parenting Orders and Fixed Penalty Notices for disorder, in addition to the deployment of 6,200 Community Support Officers on the streets.

Mr Blair went on to announce plans for a major extension of the use of Parenting Contracts and Orders. Under his new proposals it is envisaged that a wider range of authorities, including anti-social behaviour teams, housing officers and possibly schools, should be allowed to apply for parenting orders. The Prime Minister stated:

‘The new powers will apply to children at a much earlier stage. Not just when they have committed a criminal offence or been excluded, as is currently the case, but if they are about to get involved in anti-social behaviour. This is about prevention, not just punishment.'

Precisely how such potential miscreants will be identified was not revealed, but full details of the government's new proposals are due to be published during the autumn. One thing that was clear, however, was that government intervention in how parents bring up their children is here to stay and looks set to expand:

‘Poor parenting can lead directly through to anti-social behaviour.   Bad parenting is not simply a private matter which is nothing to do with the rest of us.

‘A few years ago the idea of Government funding parenting classes or imposing parenting orders would have been considered bizarre or dangerous. We have to break through the stale exchange between the nanny state on the one side and complete free licence on the other.'

However, while the government multiplies initiatives aimed at encouraging responsible parenting, it continues to pursue policies that militate against it. In an article in the Times,* Jamie Whyte argues that one of the reasons we have so much anti-social behaviour in Britain is because the welfare system no longer provides an incentive for parents to bring up their children to be respectable and productive citizens:

‘Why do parents instil in their children habits of hard work, self-restraint and consideration for others? Perhaps they believe these values to be intrinsically worthwhile. But they also have an economic interest in raising well-behaved children. If your child grows up to be an unemployable slob, he will be an economic burden on the family. Or, at least, he would have been in the past. Now, the economic burden is spread across all taxpayers. The same goes for teenage pregnancy...

‘The welfare policies pursued by successive governments in Britain and all around the Western world have the same effect. They transfer the economic cost of bad habits from the miscreants and their families to taxpayers. By reducing the cost of bad habits, these policies also reduce families' incentive to resist them. This incentive, along with the cost, has been transferred to taxpayers. But since the cost is spread thinly, no individual taxpayer feels the incentive very strongly. And even if he did, there would be nothing he could do about it. Taxpayers cannot raise other people's children.

‘Nor can the government, as Tony Blair recently observed. Yet it does not stop it trying. Ms Hughes's idea of rewarding good children [by adding credit to their ‘opportunity cards'] is nothing but the government attempting to raise other people's children…

‘Redistributive policies naturally incline governments towards totalitarianism. When families provide the safety net, they also impose the discipline. When the state provides the safety net, families lose their incentive to discipline. Who, then, will do it? The state is the only candidate…

‘We are on a dangerous path. While the government persists with a redistributive model that discourages the ‘Protestant virtues', it will need ever-more intrusive measures to manage our behaviour. Or else it must give up its goal of sorting out Britain's social problems. It is an unfortunate dilemma. But one with an obvious solution.'

* Jamie Whyte, ‘Beverley's bribes are no credit to anyone', The Times, 26 July 2005.

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Parenting Orders

• Parenting orders offer a programme of activity to support parents. They define their rights and responsibilities.
• A parenting order can make clear to parents their responsibility to ensure that their child attends school, that the child takes part in literacy or numeracy clubs or that they attend programmes dealing with problems such as anger management or drug and alcohol misuse. 
• Parenting orders can also stop children visiting areas such as shopping centres and ensure a child is at home being supervised at night.
• The order forces parents to accept support and advice on how to bring discipline and rules to their child's life. 
• An order can ensure parents face up to problems such as not attending school meetings, or being unable to control their children in the home. 
• The first parenting order was issued in 1998 and there were more than 8,000 parental interventions in the last year alone.

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The Respect Task Force

On the same day that the Prime Minister delivered his speech on ‘respect', the Home Secretary announced the formation of a new Task Force with direct responsibility for delivering the ‘Respect' agenda.

Based in the Home Office under the oversight of Hazel Blears, the task force will receive cross-governmental input from an inter-ministerial steering group which will include ministerial and official representation from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 1  

Louise Casey

The 30-strong Respect Task Force will be led by Louise Casey, the former National Director of the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit. Miss Casey featured prominently in the press and media in June after she gave an after-dinner speech to senior police officers in which she used a string of expletives and spoke lightly of the drunkenness and binge-drinking she was charged with combating. Her conduct prompted some of the invited guests at the event organised by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to walk out in disgust.

Key objectives

Among the key objectives of the ‘Respect' agenda are:

• Supporting parents and guardians to build their skills and accept responsibility for the impact that the behaviour of their children has on others.
• Encouraging respect for public servants and services including teachers and schools, health and emergency services and the police.

• Supporting the neighbourhood policing, police reform and alcohol and violent crime strategies.

• Ensuring the culture of respect extends to everyone, young and old alike.

Note
1. Home Office Press Release 129/2005, 2 September 2005.

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Fiscal Policy and the Family: How the family fares in France, Germany and the UK

Rebecca O'Neill, Civitas, August 2005, £5.00; ISBN 1 903 386 45 4

In his Foreword to this new study on Fiscal Policy and the Family, John Haskey observes that, ‘one-parent families in Britain have grown steadily and decisively in both relative and absolute numbers for at least the past three decades' and have placed a growing burden on the taxpayer.

When the Report of the Committee on One Parent Families was published in 1974, lone parenthood was primarily associated with marriage breakdown. Unmarried lone motherhood was not a major issue, and while the Report alluded to the ‘permissive society', Haskey notes, ‘it is clear that separated and divorced lone motherhood, and single lone motherhood, were then still very much stigmatised. Consequently, much of the Report's discussion centred on legal remedies associated with divorce, marriage and parental – especially paternal – obligation.'

Thirty years on, the climate has changed considerably, with over 40 per cent of births taking place outside marriage, and as many as one in five children being born into a home without a father. Over a quarter of families with children in the UK are now headed by a lone parent.

Haskey cites a study carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and the Department for Work and Pensions which demonstrates that larger proportions of lone-parent families are in receipt of benefits and tax credits (e.g. Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit) than couple-families. Just under half of all lone-parent families receive Income Support, eleven times the proportion for couple-families. ( Families and Children in Britain : Findings from the 2002 Families and Children Study).

The myth of neutrality

Over recent years, the UK government has striven to adopt a position of neutrality with regard to different family types, but the fiscal policies it has pursued have tended to favour children who live with a lone parent rather than with both parents. In this report, funded by Family Education Trust, Rebecca O'Neill compares the effects of the respective tax and benefits regimes in France, Germany and the UK upon the incomes of different kinds of families in each country. She finds that while lone parenthood is discouraged by the welfare systems operating in ‘pro-natalist' France and ‘pro-marriage' Germany, it is often associated with financial benefits in the UK.

For example, in the UK a child with two parents working full-time at the minimum wage will enjoy a higher standard of living if he or she lives with one parent rather than both. Likewise, in the case of unemployed couples, British mothers will experience a substantial increase in their standard of living if they break up. Unlike the situation in France and Germany, when an unemployed unpartnered person in the UK becomes a lone parent; her financial situation improves

Fiscal Policy and the Family contains a number of tables and graphs illustrating the impact of policies on different family types in each of the three nations studied and is accompanied by a technical appendix. As the first study of its kind, it demands the careful attention of policymakers and legislators.

The full report may be downloaded from the Civitas website at: http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/OneillFiscalPolicy.pdf

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Civil Partnerships: Call for ‘neutral language' to ensure ‘consistency with marriage'

Two years ago, a paper published by the Women and Equality Unit (WEU) announced the government's intention to remove any reference to marriage on official forms. In response to the question, ‘If we register a civil partnership will we have to declare our sexual orientation every time we fill out a form?' the document answered:

‘It is envisaged that Government forms currently asking for details of a person's “marital status” would be altered to read “civil status”. This category would then include both marriage and civil partnership and there would be no automatic presumption of someone's sexual orientation. Other requests for personal details would be amended, wherever possible, to ensure that references specific to marriages or civil partnerships were replaced with neutral terms.' ¹

It has now been revealed that neutral language will also be introduced in the registration of marriages and civil partnerships in order to ensure ‘consistency' between the two types of relationship. According to a spokesman for the Registrar General's office:

‘The proposal is to make things consistent so civil marriage is the same as civil partnership. Men and women will be described as ‘single' in both civil partnerships and civil registered weddings. There is no compulsion for clergy to do this but obviously we would prefer it if they did because it would be more consistent. We have not made the change yet. The likelihood is that it will come in on December 5 when civil partnerships become law. It is something that has been on the modernising agenda for civil registration for some time.' ²

New relationships

In its guide to civil partnerships, the WEU insists that entering into a civil partnership establishes a new family unit, creating new relationships akin to those formed by marriage. Under the heading, ‘Relationships arising through civil partnership', the document states:

‘In order to keep the range of labels for family relationships as simple as possible, the new legislation provides that traditional family names such as “mother-in-law”, “brother-in-law”, “step-daughter” should be interpreted to include relationships which arise as a result of civil partnership. For example, the brother of a person who has entered into a civil partnership becomes the brother-in-law of that person's civil partner.' ³

Equal but different

In spite of the fact that it is the government's stated intention to ‘give civil partners parity of treatment with spouses, as far as is possible, in the rights and responsibilities that flow from forming a civil partnership', it insists that civil partnership is ‘a completely new legal relationship, exclusively for same-sex couples, distinct from marriage',⁴ and it is a matter of public record that ‘the government has no plans to introduce same-sex marriage'. ⁵

Nevertheless, the government acknowledges that the number of differences between civil partnership and marriage is ‘small' and provides only two examples: (i) ‘ a civil partnership is formed when the second civil partner signs the relevant document, a civil marriage is formed when the couple exchange spoken words', and (ii)  ‘opposite-sex couples can opt for a religious or civil marriage ceremony as they choose, whereas formation of a civil partnership will be an exclusively civil procedure'. ⁶

Other significant differences, not mentioned in the government's guidance, include the fact that couples registering a civil partnership are not required to make an exclusive and lifelong commitment to each other such as required in a marriage ceremony.

Freudian slip?

Whether due to the slip of a Whitehall pen or a betrayal of how the government really regards civil partnerships, there is one point in the WEU guide at which civil partnerships are explicitly equated with marriage. In the context of a discussion of ‘the dissolution process', the document states:

‘To end a civil partnership the applicant (“petitioner”) must prove to the court that the civil partnership has irretrievably broken down. Proof of irretrievable breakdown of marriage can be evidenced in the following ways:

• Unreasonable behaviour by the other civil partner;
• Separation for two years with the consent of the other civil partner;
• Separation for five years without the consent of the other civil partner;
• If the other civil partner has deserted the applicant for a period of two years or more' (emphasis added). ⁷

Limited demand

A new publicity campaign to tell people what they need to know about civil partnerships was launched by Deputy Equality Minister Meg Munn at Westminster Register Office on 14 September. While officials at the Department of Trade and Industry originally estimated that there would be up to 425,600 civil partnerships by 2050, they have since reduced their estimate to 42,550.

‘As a philosopher the thing that strikes me most is the brilliant strategy of the gay marriage movement. Like Orwell in 1984 it sees that the main battlefield is language. If they can redefine a key term like “marriage” they win. Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world.' Professor Peter Kreeft ⁸

Notes
1. Responses to Civil Partnership: A framework for the legal recognition of same-sex couples, WEU, November 2003, page 41.
2. The Times, 27 July 2005.
3. Civil Partnership: Legal recognition for same-sex couples, from December 2005, WEU, p.20.
4. ‘Civil Partnership Act 2004, Frequently Asked Questions', WEU.
5. A framework for the legal recognition of same-sex couples, WEU, para 1.3.
6. ‘Civil Partnership Act 2004, Frequently Asked Questions', WEU.
7. Civil Partnership: Legal recognition for same-sex couples, op. cit. p.34.
8. Boston College Observer, Vol. 16, No. 12, April 2004.

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Child protection procedures attacked in the name of ‘the right to confidentiality'

A protocol for working with sexually active young people prepared by the London Child Protection Committee has come under fire from the FPA, Brook and the British Medical Association for undermining the confidentiality that they consider is owed to young people.

The document insists that, ‘All cases of children under the age of 13 years believed to be or have been engaged in penetrative sexual activity must be referred to Children's Social Services and the Police as a potential case of rape'. ¹

The protocol lists a number of factors to be considered by professionals and states that: ‘It must always be made clear to children and young people… that the duty of confidentiality is not absolute.'

Where there are concerns that a sexual relationship presents a risk of harm to a child over the age of 13, the protocol requires that ‘a referral must be made to Children's Social Services and the Police' (emphasis in original). Where the practitioner's assessment does not raise abuse concerns, the agency is encouraged to ‘make arrangements for the young person to receive confidential advice and support from appropriate sexual health and other services'.

Although the document acknowledges that it is an offence for under-16s to engage in a sexual relationship, it considers that ‘in the majority of cases it will not be in the best interests of the young person for criminal proceedings to be instigated against them.'

With regard to sexually active 13-15 year-olds, the protocol states that any decision not to make a formal referral to the police should be made by a senior member of staff after establishing that the child is not being abused or exploited and after checking police indices.

Vivienne Nathanson, the Head of Ethics at the British Medical Association objected to mandatory reporting of sexual relationships involving children under the age of 13. She held the key issue was to ensure that young people had the confidence to negotiate about whether they wanted to be sexually active, including the ability to negotiate and say no. Asked about the responsibility of doctors towards the parent of an underage child who was engaging in sexual activity, Dr Nathanson insisted:

‘It's not to the parents; it's to the child. It's the child who is the patient. And it's in the child's best interests to give that child good advice, to try to make sure that child is not involved in a relationship that is abusive or coercive…. But for the parent's sake, the point is that the doctor is there to look after their child's welfare.' ²

‘Normal sexual development'

The chief executive of Brook, Jan Barlow, commented that the protocol went ‘against everything we believe in'. In a written statement on ‘Under-16s and sexual activity', the FPA insisted that young people, including those under the age of 13, were entitled to confidentiality when accessing sexual health services and held that it was ‘crucial that professionals do not confuse child protection issues with the normal sexual development of young people'. ³ In support of its position, the FPA cited a Home Office document stating that:

‘Although the age of consent remains at 16, the law is not intended to prosecute mutually agreed teenage sexual activity between two young people of a similar age, unless it involves abuse or exploitation. Young people, including those under 13, will continue to have the right to confidential advice on contraception, condoms, pregnancy and abortion.' ⁴

Notes
1. ‘Working with Sexually Active Young People under the age of 18 – a Pan-London Protocol', London Child Protection Committee, April 2005.
2. BBC Radio 4, Today, 30 September 2005.
3. FPA, ‘Under-16s and sexual activity', July 2005
4. ‘ Working within the Sexual Offences Act 2003', Home Office, 2004

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Contraception and unwanted pregnancies

A new educational resource providing ‘An Overview of Abortion in the United States' reveals that, ‘ 53 per cent of women who have unintended pregnancies were using a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant, although usually not correctly every time'.

The study, prepared by the ‘pro-choice' groups Physicians for Reproductive Choice and the Guttmacher Institute, records that of approximately 6.3 million pregnancies per annum in the USA, almost half (48 per cent) are unintended. Of these 3 million unintended pregnancies, 40 per cent result in live births, 13 per cent in miscarriages, and 47 per cent are ended by abortion.

Most abortions are obtained by never-married women (67.3 per cent). Married women account for a lower proportion of abortions (17 per cent), ‘ in part because they have low rates of unintended pregnancy' and ‘those who do experience an unintended pregnancy are more likely than unmarried women to continue the pregnancy'.

The study further shows that ‘about 25 per cent of abortions occur among women living with a male partner to whom they are not married, although such women make up only about 10 per cent of all women aged 15–44.'

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The growing use of drugs to control children's behaviour

Drugs are increasingly being prescribed to control children's behaviour. Figures from the Prescriptions Pricing Authority reveal that prescriptions of methylphenidate, most commonly sold as Ritalin, rose to 359,100 in 2004, a rise of 344,400 since 1995, with over 90 per cent of the prescriptions issued to children under the age of 16 or to young people aged 16 to 18 in full-time education. ¹

According to the NHS advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), 5 per cent of school-aged children (345,000 in England and 21,000 in Wales) meet the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), though not all have been formally diagnosed, with 1 per cent meeting the criteria for severe combined-type ADHD. The licence for methylphenidate states that it should only be prescribed for severe cases of ADHD following detailed history taking and evaluation. In the UK it is not currently licensed for children below the age of six. ²

The rapid rise in the number of children receiving medication for ADHD has given rise to fears that doctors may be prescribing drugs as a quick-fix solution to behavioural problems rather than addressing the root causes.

In the view of Professor Peter Hill, a specialist in ADHD and Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the concept of ADHD has become popular, ‘partly because it offers an alternative explanation for anti-social behaviour, other than imperfect parenting… While methylphenidate undoubtedly works for some children, clinicians are under increasing pressure from vast waiting lists to see people as quickly as possible, resulting in some medicating where it is perhaps not necessary.' ³

Notes
1. In 2002, around 91 per cent of the prescription items were dispensed in the community to children and young people. Hansard, HoC, 17 September 2003, cols. 848-849W.
2. ‘ Guidance on the Use of Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Equasym) for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in childhood', NICE, October 2000, p.3.
3. Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2005.

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Feminist agenda burdens women and society

An editorial in the Sunday Times highlighted several aspects of the women's rights agenda which have proved counter-productive both to women and to society as a whole, and questioned the government's intention to increase maternity leave to 12 months by the end of the present parliament:

‘More liberal divorce laws have been a two-edged sword. Workplace rights, such as enhanced maternity protection, may damage those they are intended to help by undermining their employability…

‘Maternity leave, and other aspects of the “work-life balance” agenda, are burdening Britain's private sector at a time when it is ill equipped to cope. Small wonder that the only boom in jobs is in the public sector, with employment now up to 5.8m, a fifth of the workforce, and pay rising much faster than the rest of the economy. The taxpayer, it seems, can pick up the bill. But not for ever.

‘When the penny drops, it will become clear that the government has imposed burdensome new rights without thinking about the long-term consequences. The intended beneficiaries will not have been helped and neither will the rest of us.'

Source: The Sunday Times, 17 July 2005

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Children in the dock – and on the bench

A former magistrates court in Hull is being prepared to house Britain's first ‘children's court'. In an attempt to tackle unruly classroom behaviour, secondary school pupils are to be trained to serve as judges, prosecutors, jurors and clerks in trials for charges such as bullying, truancy and poor classroom behaviour. Punishments are to include extra homework, community service and sending offenders on anger-management courses.

Source: The Times, 7 July 2005.

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Working wives and divorce

According to a study published in the European Sociological Review, married women working full-time are 29 per cent more likely to divorce than those who stay at home and bring up their children. The researchers from Vrije University in Amsterdam found a direct correlation between the number of hours worked and the likelihood of divorce.

Source: The Independent, 10 July 2005.

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Nurseries cause toddlers stress

According to a study measuring hormone levels, babies and toddlers starting at nursery after being at home experience high levels of stress in the first weeks after separating from their mothers, and are still showing signs of ‘chronic mild stress' five months later.

Led by Professor Michael Lamb of Cambridge University and Lieselotte Ahnert from the Free University of Berlin, the study followed 36 girls and 34 boys aged between 11 and 20 months who had been cared for at home, mainly by their mothers, prior to being placed in daycare for 40 hours a week.

During the first nine days of childcare without their mothers present, levels of the stress hormone cortisol doubled compared with their normal level at home. While the levels subsequently fell, they remained significantly higher five months later, even though the children appeared to have settled and showed no outward sign of distress.

A related study to be published next year showed that children at nursery do not see a drop in cortisol levels over the day as they would at home. Instead, they remain ‘unusually aroused or stressed', and require extra time and attention at the end of the day to restore their ‘emotional equilibrium' and prepare them for the next day at nursery. In the absence of such parental support and comfort, the children begin the following day ‘hyper-aroused', which can lead to behaviour problems or disobedience.

Source: The Guardian, 19 September 2005.

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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Review

The government has embarked on a review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFE Act) ‘to ensure that the law remains effective and fit for purpose in the early 21 st century'. The consultation is seeking views on ‘whether and how the law might be updated given the rise of new technologies, changes in societal attitudes, international developments, and the need to ensure effective regulation.'

Among the issues raised in the 91-page document is whether it should remain a legal obligation on the providers of treatment services to take into account ‘the welfare of the child'. Earlier in the year, the Science and Technology Committee recommended that the reference to ‘the need of the child for a father' in the HFE Act should be removed on the grounds that it was ‘unjustifiably offensive to many' and that it was ‘wrong for legislation to imply that unjustified discrimination against “unconventional families” is acceptable'.

The government notes that the reference to fathers ‘could be an obstacle to single women and lesbian couples being able to access treatment services'.

Other issues consulted on include: the use and storage of gametes and embryos, sex-selection for ‘family-balancing' purposes, the regulation of surrogacy, and the creation of human-animal hybrids for research.

! Printed copies of the consultation document can be obtained (free of charge) from the DH Publications Orderline (tel: 08701 555455), quoting reference 269640, ‘Review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act - A public consultation'. Alternatively, it may be downloaded from the Department of Health website at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/Consultations/fs/en

Closing date: 25 November 2005.

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