Calum Munro says the families that need the named person want it.
Politicians are losing sight of their duty to do the right thing by their people and taking populist stances on the named person legislation.
When UKIP lists it for repeal alongside the legislation banning smoking in pubs, the Conservatives wade in to agree with them, and the Scottish Labour leader calls for a pause, then you know that it is votes that they are chasing and not what is right for children and young people with additional support needs and for their families/carers.
There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding around the concept of the named person it is no wonder the public are confused about it.
I sat and listened to families tell tragic tales of time and energy wasted chasing around in circles seeking help, they needed a single point of contact. The folk who need the help want the named person.
Calum Munro
The key issue for me is that it gives parents (and children) a single point of contact through which they can seek help. It should ensure the end of the “pass the parcel” syndrome in some areas where difficult cases were passed from agency to agency with the carers becoming more fraught as nobody wanted to listen. It is now the named person’s duty to listen and to seek the appropriate help for the family/child.
The people most vociferously opposed to the concept of the named person seem to be based around organisations for families who want to home educate their children. There is nothing that I have read in the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) agenda or the named person concept that interferes with the current right of a family to do that. But their right to home educate should not interfere with the right of families with children and young people who have additional support needs to have a simpler way of accessing services. Home educators have nothing to fear from the named person and should not be campaigning to deny those who have need of it from getting it into place.
What convinces me to support the named person is that for ten years I was a policy officer for Highland Children’s Forum, a small Highland charity that sought to have the voice of children and young people with additional support needs and the voice of their parents and carers heard by services and acted on appropriately by services. My colleagues consulted with families and young people on GIRFEC and the named person and they strongly wanted a single, easily identified point of contact who had a duty to help them. I sat and listened to families tell tragic tales of time and energy that should have been spent directly on their children being wasted chasing around in circles seeking help. They needed a single point of contact. The folk who need the help want the named person.
The named person is not about poking into families and denying families the right to set family frameworks. There are however families whose failure results in harm to children and young people and they need help and the children and young people are entitled to society’s protection. That need existed before the named person concept, it is Child Protection.
Scotland should be proud of people who created the Getting It Right For Every Child concept and within it the named person role. The families of children and young people with additional needs deserve the best systems of support and the named person role will contribute to that outcome. Politicians and other vested interests currently campaigning against the named person need to listen to the families who really know the price of additional support needs, back them and put their energies into creating the resources to improve the outcomes for all our young people and their carers.
Calum Munro is the former policy lead to Highland Children’s Forum (2004 – 2014)
