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Friday 4 July 2014

The Scottish Commissioner welcomes the announcement of more health visitors

Tam Baillie

Reflecting back on BBC `s Sunday debate about the named person to be introduced into Scotland in 2016, it was astonishing to hear Aileen Campbell, Children`s Minister, assert that the introduction of named persons would cut down bureaucracy and reduce costs. How can that be the case when an extra 500 health visitors are going to be phased in at a cost of £40 million in order to ensure that health visitors will be able to fulfil their role as named persons?

What extra work will they be doing?

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27897719

Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People has welcomed the announcement. He seems to believe that named persons will provide a service to children that they have a right to expect. What service - intruding, collecting and sharing private data?
"I have previously said that for us to be confident that health visitors could properly fulfil their responsibilities under the ‘Named Person’ proposals in that Act, more health visitors were urgently needed and this action will make a big difference.

It will make a big difference but there is sure to be more negatives than positives.
 
Jean Robinson from the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS) reported in 2005 how health visiting was increasingly dominated by surveillance, rather than support, with mothers being surreptitiously assessed for risk of child abuse at the first meeting. Failure to invite the health worker in when she appears at the door unannounced can be reported to social services. Mothers see this kind of behaviour as snooping and resent it.
 
"Research shows that mothers like, and find helpful, health visitors who treat them as equals, respect their knowledge and experience, and exchange ideas rather than impose their own agenda."
 
More and more health visitors are expected to screen parents for likely risk of child abuse and the health visitor who treats a mother as an equal is disappearing.  Jean Robinson believes that the roles of surveillance and support cannot easily reside in one person and must inevitably involve a betrayal of trust. 

In Scotland the extra 500 health visitors will screen for SHANARRI risk factors. Surveillance is mandatory. When it becomes more widely known, it will undoubtedly destroy the trusting relationship between health visitors and mothers once and for all. Some of the likely consequences of seeing the health visitor as a threat to the family are easy to imagine.

A woman suffering the `baby blues` after the birth of her baby will attempt to keep that to herself rather than go to her doctor for treatment. After all, the health visitor has access to her medical records and too many children have been taken into care for `potential` emotional abuse. A woman who is the victim of a domestic abuse incident will not call on the police because if she does the named person will be informed. Too many children have been removed from mothers for failing to defend their children from witnessing their abuse.

The ramifications are endless and none of them make Scotland a better place for children. It is a pity the Commissioner for Children and Young People lacks the imagination to figure them out.

http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol16No3/HealthVisitors.htm 

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