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I’m not completely made of stone, and it’s awful whats happened to this young woman, I can’t even imagine how her family must be feeling.It would seem from reading this that her mother was vigilant, and encouraged her to be careful and not add people she didn’t know, informed her of all the dangers and she still took that chance, so sad.
I think it’s pretty much impossible to police any site to the extent that no pervert could ever gain access to it and it’s down to parental control more, this parent was responsible but still it seemed this time, to have fallen on deaf ears. When will people learn :roll: :evil:
I totally agree with you Cas – in spite of all the many many warnings and publicity around the dangers of giving out personal information or meeting up with people you only know from the ‘net’ – it seems to fall on deaf ears over and over again.
We at JustChat took the decision years ago to make this an “adults only” site for just this reason. Users have to declare that they are over 18 before being permitted access. We found that, despite the Staff’s best endeavours, we couldn’t always identify and ban youngsters and we didn’t want to gain a reputation as a site used by children etc – with all the attendant problems that this brings.
This doesn’t totally stop the pervs etc OR the underage users (who often lie about their age) but at least it discourages them and means that we aren’t knowingly running a chatsite which encourages children to use it.
Turning to the current issue with Facebook. I noticed that the mother of this child in essence blamed the site for permitting her daughter access and by implication being complicit in what happened to her.
I can see her point, probably born out of frustration, but I firmly believe that it is the PARENT who has the primary responsibility for supervising their child’s internet access.
Allowing a young girl to go onto social networking sites or chatrooms etc late at night (in the privacy of her own bedroom) is asking for trouble. At the very least this type of access MUST be constantly supervised if you are to prevent your child from becoming a victim of the numerous internet predators.
I agree too – my daughter’s school are making their pupils put one of their parents on their face book as a friend – that way, you can monitor exactly what they are up to!
OK… so Watford have arranged for parents to be excluded from playgrounds and are hiring their own criminally checked people to supervise tots. They reckon its too dangerous to allow just anyone into playgrounds. So… we surmise from this that “everyone” is dangerous to children, including parents. *
Lets back up a little for a minute. There are dangers everywhere. Its not that long ago since the Moors murders. But, then there were no social networking sites…. no computers in fact, well there were, but every computer was the size of a football pitch. Let’s face it.. the only thing that has changed is that sexual predators have moved online and are “grooming” people from a distance. It has always gone on, there have always been sexual predators. Children have been told for decades not to accept sweets from strangers.
You have to educate your children. They have to know the dangers. And…. safety in numbers. I have drilled that into my daughter until i’m blue in the face. Always go out with friends and never come home alone. Never!
And.. I have been on my daughter’s facebook since she first signed up for it. The only reason I joined initially, just to keep an eye on her. Plus…. I have a lot of my friends children on mine too, and I keep a weather eye open for them as well. Its just sensible.
I feel terribly sad for this woman, my daughter is 17. I can understand her anger and the fact that people pretend to be people they are not. It is a standard internet response that you should expect everyone you talk to online to be lying. And a large percentage do…. if for no other reason than… they can.
*N.B. this is plainly ludicrous. For a start off, criminal checks don’t find most people who are dangerous to children as has been born out lately by the nursery nurse Vanessa George. She had been checked and had passed!
Actually minim, i don’t totally agree with you here. I’m a governor of a primary school and i can tell you that absolutely EVERYONE in anyway connected with doing anything at all at the school HAS to be CRB checked before they are allowed to do it. This includes governors (who generally don’t come into contact directly with the children) through to mothers who might give a talk at a lunchtime to a small group of children.
Nobody is prepared to take the risk of any incident arising from a non CRB checked person doing anything to or with a child – and quite rightly too in my opinion.
We also tightly restrict access, by both parents and others, to the school grounds during school hours. In the past (thank God not with the school I’m involved with) people have accessed nearby school premises during school hours and been seen trying to ‘talk’ to children in the playground.
We had a case last summer of a single mum who took up with a ‘boyfriend’ who, by his behaviour near the school, caused other parents to report him both to the headteacher and to the Police. (He was seen trying to put his arm round and cuddle Year 4 girls as they left the school).
It turned out that he was a registered sex offender and had established a relationship with this woman so as to gain access both to her child and to other children through her.
So yes ‘parents’ can be dangerour to children as can their (sometimes casual or short term) ‘boyfriends / girlfriends. Allowing people onto school premises contravenes every safeguarding rule in the book.
When I was a single mother I had to go back to work. This involved me employing aupairs. I was lucky all six of them were brilliant. However I did hear some horrendous stories about others who weren’t including fully qualified nannies.
How are they going to implement the CRB of these foreign students I wonder?! Personally I think it will be a big loop-hole! :?
@anc wrote:
When I was a single mother I had to go back to work. This involved me employing aupairs. I was lucky all six of them were brilliant. However I did hear some horrendous stories about others who weren’t including fully qualified nannies.
How are they going to implement the CRB of these foreign students I wonder?! Personally I think it will be a big loop-hole! :?
I was a childrens nanny for 12yrs during the mid 80’s – 90’s long before CRB checks were around & most of my jobs came through Agencies or word of mouth.
Because of my current job I have been CRB checked at “an advanced” level & passed but I still can’t help out at my kids school because I need a separate check for that ?? :?The CRB is a bloody farce anyway, hasn’t there been cases recently where people working with children have been checked & passed but, had previous history that wasn’t declared.
Like everything it’s subject to abuse. I personally think that too much trust is put in a CRB check.
@sarah_1 wrote:
@anc wrote:
When I was a single mother I had to go back to work. This involved me employing aupairs. I was lucky all six of them were brilliant. However I did hear some horrendous stories about others who weren’t including fully qualified nannies.
How are they going to implement the CRB of these foreign students I wonder?! Personally I think it will be a big loop-hole! :?
I was a childrens nanny for 12yrs during the mid 80’s – 90’s long before CRB checks were around & most of my jobs came through Agencies or word of mouth.
Because of my current job I have been CRB checked at “an advanced” level & passed but I still can’t help out at my kids school because I need a separate check for that ?? :?The CRB is a bloody farce anyway, hasn’t there been cases recently where people working with children have been checked & passed but, had previous history that wasn’t declared.
Like everything it’s subject to abuse. I personally think that too much trust is put in a CRB check.
I agree with you it is absurd!
I totally agree Sarah.
These CRB checks are only ever a good thing if a persons history is declared and as we all know, there have been so many cases, too many! where the complete history hasn’t been declared and abusers have gotten positions they’ve no business having.
ANC has a point also. Employing people to look after children who are from overseas. Yea a CRB check can be run on them here, but would it take into account their previous history from their own country. Or in this case, is it going to come down to parents who hire Au Pairs, Nannys etc., having to have strategically placed camera’s around thier homes to check that their children are being cared for and not abused. I’m happy to not have to be in that situation, it must be a nightmare.
There’s a lot of tosh talked about CRB checks (or even “enhanced” CRB checks) and the presumption that a “pass” is somehow a guarantee that the subject won’t do anything untoward.
The applicant supplies their name address and date of birth to the organisation checking them. This is in turn sent on by that organisation for a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check.
All the check is doing is specifying whether or not a) the subject has or has ever had a criminal record (and for what offence) and b) verifying whether or not any ‘intelligence’ information is held on the subject – i.e. arrested but not necessarily charged or convicted; or known to associate with criminals or be involved at the edges of criminality.
Passing a CRB check is in no way a GUARANTEE that the subject is ‘clear’ – it is simply an indication that they haven’t previously come to the attention of the authorities, particularly for sexually related offences.
There will always be the relatively few people who manage to avoid detection for a while (and thus pass their CRB check) but when you think about it, there really isn’t another way of dealing with this issue.
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