The
use of medication to change the behaviour of children in care and young
offender institutions. The role of the statutory Inquiry now chaired by
Professor Jay and of Parliament.
Serious
allegations have been made concerning authorised use of medication by the NHS
with State knowledge to achieve short and long term change in the behaviour of
children and young people in the care of local authority and other authorised
bodies, in addition to their use on those committed to young offender
institutions and the former approved schools, including the experimental use of
medication, and which also raises the issue of legal approvals.
The allegations have been made
in comments to a Needle Blog on the publication of the report on Kendall House.
One correspondent mentions being asked to provide information to the Statutory
Inquiry (under the Truth project and I have submitted a note on the two aspects
about which I have direct knowledge from my experience first as a child care
officer and then as a Director of Social Services.
I believe that the use of medication in an
attempt to make permanent changes to the personality and behaviour of children
and young people in care or to temporarily prevent self-harm or harm to others
is a relevant matter for the Inquiry to investigate despite its focus on sexual
crimes and their perpetrators. The departure of Justice Goddard and the
appointment of a non-lawyer as chairperson and Inquiry leader, together with a
new national political administration under the former Home Secretary who
commissioned the inquiry for the Coalition government, also provides the
opportunity for Parliament to seek clarification of what the inquiry is doing,
the presently estimated timetable and costs, and if Professor Jay and her team
now wish to change any aspects in light of the information already obtained.
The House of Commons Select
Committee on Home Affairs will meet on September 7th at 3pm to
question the new Home Secretary on the departure of Justice Goddard, the
appointment of Professor Jay and hopefully also raise some of the issues which
cut across party political considerations.
My interest and concern has
been that in several respects the remit of the Inquiry was too narrow and
potentially flawed if one objective is to draw a line for victims, their
families, and campaigners on the past and to provide solutions which will work
for the future.
The problem can be summarised
by saying that it impossible to separate the causes of sexual crimes against
children whether in public care establishments or in domestic situations from
those involving crimes of violence- physical, emotional and psychological and
this quickly became evident when the Inquiry gave priority to what happened at
Medomsley, the inclusion of the role of
the of military and where the ongoing contributions from victims to Blogs is
about the physical and other forms of violence as well as sexual. I suggest
that no line will be drawn on the past until all unresolved crimes against children
are addressed and which is one aspect of the Truth project may have already
developed with its referrals to the police and other appropriate bodies if may
already have been developed.
I suggest that in the public
mind and that of the media there is confusion about the reference to
institutional abuse. The decision was taken to separate allegations of a sexual
crime committed in a domestic setting from those in an institution. The broad
investigations of the extent of crimes against children in a domestic setting was
referred to the separate Children’s Commissioners for England and Wales and
where in fact the devolved administration for Wales has devoted proportionately
more resources to the work of the Children’s Commissioner that the British
Government has for the Commissioner for England.
However, the line is not so
clear cut because sexual crimes against a child by a representative of an
institution, a school teacher, a priest, an army officer, a Member of
Parliament or Government Minister may take place in any location, including a
home for children, a foster home, or in a custodial environment[CS1] .
Early on in my managerial
career attention was drawn to a young person who righty today is now regarded
as still a child rather than a young person who had courageously reported that
her father had raped her and invited his drinking partners to rape her at
weekend, and the reason why she had decided to come forward was because her mum
had grown weary of also being offered and raped and had proposed that a younger
daughter join her older sister. Because of the courage of that child action was
possible, but in how many other situations has a child been raped, their life
changed negatively and without the recognition or redress now being provided to
those where the representative of an institutional body was the perpetrator? Is
that child former child to be treated as second class where it comes to
national attention?
Whatever the limitations of
the UK People’s Tribunal it has not made this arbitrary separation and I
suggest that the summary at the commencement of its recent Interim Reports says
much of what the Statutory Inquiry will say but at dramatically less cost.
This brings back to the issue
of the use of medication to achieve a permanent change in social behaviour and
in a particular instance to stop a child at school from coming to the repeated
attention of the police, the juvenile court and being sent to an Approved
School.
This used of ‘medication’ was
developed in the 1960’s by Dr Milner, the Psychiatrist superintendent of the
Staffordshire County Psychiatric Hospital, and promoted by Dr and Mrs Kahan, a
Child Psychiatrist and the Children’s Officer, for Oxfordshire and subsequent,
Deputy Chief Inspector at the Children’s Department of the Home Office and who
then transferred to the Social Work Advisory Service of the Department of
Health with the creation of Social Service departments in 1971 in England and
Wales.
The Kahan’s organised a
presentation by Dr Milner attended by Councillors, Magistrates, management and
staff from the Oxfordshire County Council where I worked as a child care
officer and at which I believe a number of subsequent Directors of Social
Services were also present (Donal Morrissey- Trafford, David Clifton-
Bedfordshire, and Louis Minister-Richmond, and Deputy Directors Jenny Fells-
Oxford City and Keith Hall- Essex). There were also representatives from Oxford
City and at least one neighbouring County.
In summary the medication, a
form of LSD, sent the subject on a controlled bad trip as part of regression
therapy and where Dr Milner, a fundamentalist Freudian, argued that
contemporary and previous behaviour was being governed by sex and death wishes
or actions which occurred in childhood. The subject was played back recordings
of what had emerged and because the behaviour causative event occurred as a
child, was persuaded that the event should not be allowed to govern the rest of
their lives.
I was asked to undertake one
case before the Juvenile Court where the subject was placed on an interim care
order rather than sent to an Approved School and where the school age subject
and parents had to give consent following a visit to the hospital to meet Dr
Milner where the process was explained to us both and then there was a private
visit between the Dr and the subject. The treatment had an amazing positive
outcome and with the approval of the Court the subject was immediately returned
home under supervision with the order discharged. I met the subject and the parent
by chance a year later when having a haircut and they insisted on taking me to
tea so I could see and hear of the transformation that had taken place. The
substantive causation presently falls within the remit of the Peoples Tribunal
but I not thought by the Statutory Tribunal but is now more likely.
Some years later I became
aware through Community Care and Social Work Today in a particular that that
the use of the medication was discredited and the subject of litigation. I
cannot remember if there was any kind of formal investigation and I cannot
recall further issues about this kind of permanent personality changing use of
medication since. This is something which members of the Social History network
may have more knowledge or be aware who has. The Departments of Health and
Education as well as the Home Office may have records or be aware where records
are located in national archives.
What I became more familiar
with, as I assume are former colleagues who worked as managers or social
workers in care and protection within Social Services Departments after 1971,
was the use of medication for short term control of behaviour to prevent
self-harm or harm to others. In the North East the main centre where, I believe
medication was used was Aytcliffe, a former Approved school and which became a
Community home with education on the premises (Controlled/Assisted Status) and
which also provided the Regional Observation and Assessment Centre and which
included a secure unit.
As stated I was alerted to the
issue through a 36-page discussion in the Needle Blog following the publication
of a report on Kendall House and which covered the use of medication with
devastating consequences. I have been directly contacted by one victim survivor
who previously had not pursued a potential referral involving a now convicted
individual because there was no memory of the event and the allegation had been
made to another individual from the same care establishment in question who had
been present. Reading the Kendall House discussion reminded the individual that
according to their local authority care record they had been prescribed
medication used to help those with epilepsy but where there had been no event
or diagnosis and therefore the medication may have been used as a sedative or
to behaviour control.
From the viewpoint of the
those who worked for a Children’s Department Authority or Social Services
Department was the legal guardian for the child or young person consulted in
advance and permission gained? This would have been even more significant if
the medication was experimental and the side effects or potential long term
implications of the ‘treatment’ were unknown.
We now know that medication is
used in order to rape and that some victims have no memory but only the
physical evidence afterwards. Is the
statutory Inquiry focussed on this aspect or will it be?
Coinciding with the Needle
discussion the important and influential Cathy Fox Internet site republished an
extraordinary writing alleging the influence of the London Tavistock Institute
on personality behaviour changing on the United States and includes references
to the role of social workers.
The Institute has been
separate from the Clinic since WWII although there was continuous cross over in
terms treatment theory and practice and for once the Wikipedia entries are
inadequate, given failure to make reference to the Winnicotts, with Clare one
of the key founders of professional child care and social work based on
fundamentalist Freud who ‘bossed’ the child care course for many years at the
London School of Economics and where her husband bossed the Clinic with its
Advanced Child Care Course. Dr Donald Winnicott who started as a paediatrician
and became a psychoanalyst Changing Minds (See Cathy Fox Tavistock-The best
kept secret in America)
It is also important to
appreciate that the use of medication has always been one aspect of changing
behaviour and mind control with psychoanalysis and behaviourism two commonly
known methodologies.
Mrs Kahan was a major force in
the Inquiry led by Sir Alan Levy called Pindown 1990/1991 on the importation the
Approved School and Young Offender Institutions of the use of behaviour control
and behaviour change methods in Staffordshire Social Services department and
where government then asked all local authorities and care bodies to undertake
an audit of past and ongoing practice in all establishments.
As emphasised earlier there
can be no drawing of the line on what happened in the past if physical
mistreatment of children in care is kept separate from situations where the
physical violence was part of a sexual crime.
It is also significant that
the Inquiry has separated the search for Truth from the Hearings where my
understanding is that the Hearings are about the establishment of fact
according to due process and where I am puzzled about how those already
announced and underway fit into the promise of comprehensiveness and
thoroughness, especially if the six to eight weeks of length is to be adhered
to.
I was involved in one inquiry with
a number of core participants where three weeks of hearings became eleven and
where the recent Hillsborough Inquest took significant longer than anticipated,
that involved the decision to go to war in Iraq spread between Parliaments.
Leveson II does not appear to be taking place and the belief that the Bloody
Sunday Inquiry would draw a line is being shown misguided. It is not clear to
me if the decision to hold up to twenty-five Hearings was part of a clearly
worked out plan in terms of meeting the core objectives of comprehensiveness
and thoroughness and it is difficult to understand their point if they are not
to be open in terms of streamed media, or what part they play in determining
who participated in the cover by state
institutions, religious and other bodies, and why and where presumably if there
is any suggestion of an illegal purpose, especially attempting to pervert the
course of justice, then this is
a separate matter for the police
and related professional bodies, if for example,
the use of medication was unauthorised.
When I contacted the Inquiry
to clarify if the Hearings announced was an amended total I was advised they
were the first tranche and Justice Goddard then made this public at a
preliminary hearing
I am puzzled that the Inquiry
is concentrating on only one individual at present, Lord Janner (a Labour man)
than say Jimmy Saville, Cyril Smith
(Liberal Democrat and Labour) or Lord Leon Brittan (Conservative) who all are
dead and where police investigations have concluded or are more advanced, and
in terms of officers, the roles of Peter Righton for example and the paedophile Information Exchange, or that of the former Director of Social
Services Newcastle who recommended placement in the homes of the twice convicted owner of Bryn Alyn Homes sending 69 Newcastle children to the
homes (both also dead) would appear merit
just as great attention. Given the ongoing Parliament concern that the Macur,
Waterhouse, Jillings and Banham inquiries were limited or constrained to get to
the truth it is puzzling the Bryn Alyn privately owned homes are not the focus
of a Hearing in the context of the mentioned inquiries.
By now the Inquiry should be a
in position to provide some idea of its overall timetable and expenditure plan
and to confirm that it will issue individual reports, findings and
recommendations in relation to each Hearing and if a mechanism has been
established for making interim recommendations which have a more general or
wider significance than arising from an individual hearing and if the
recommendations are being made direct to
Government or will be available to Parliament as they are made rather than
await the concluding report of the Inquiry. Clearly service providers, future
victims and their families do not want to wait five or ten years for a
recommendation if it could prove of significance now.
It was always debateable
whether the Home Affairs or Education Select Committees were the best forum for
considering the work of the inquiry, its Chair persons and terms of references
and the issue of medication now brings in the Health Select Committee and which
was responsible for Child Care and Protection service policy and resources
1971-2006 the greater period of the Inquiry investigations, together with the
role of the justice department and services.
The most obvious way for
Parliament to learn the plans, the progress and developments of the Statutory
Inquiry is for some form of Joint Select or ad hoc committee representing all
the relevant interest in both House to be invite attendance and the provision
of information in advance, but if this is not possible or appropriate then I
suggest the Inquiry would be wise to issue progress, plans and budget reports
to sustain parliamentary and public support.
The is also a need to make
available the work of the research group at appropriate times together the
established historical narrative about what was done in the past: the changes
in the law, the completed national, agency and local inquiries and the
completed police operations. There has been some attempt to publish lists of
completed Inquiries. The Department of Health published information and analysis of Inquiries in two
publications covering the period 19731-1990
Child Abuse 1973-1981 with a forward by Norman, now Lord Fowler, and but covering 1980-1990 but because the
Director of Social Services (Newcastle) was allowed to conduct his own
investigation into the most serious crime of an
officer in charge of an establishment committing crimes against children
in the home (and for which he was convicted) uncovered to that that time
1975/1976, the 73-81 Government report on Child Abuse made no mention.
There was a further attempt to
list investigations by Corby, Doig and Roberts in Public Inquiries into Abuse
of Children in Residential Care 2001 and
various social media interests and bloggers have attempted compile lists
including completed police operations, but my understanding is that each
individual survivor support group and lawyer group has to try separately to
locate information in relation those
they represent, the individual perpetrators, institutional bodies and
locations. The early publication of the information centrally by Government, or
the Inquiry would be helpful again once police inquiries and the judicial
processing has been completed.
I suggest it would also be
helpful for publication of the key research and other publications upon which
the narrative of what happened and why is being based. The failures and
limitations of residential and fostering care 1948-1966 was covered by the
National Children’s Bureau in two summaries and overviews of research in its
studies of Child Development Facts and Fallacies (Dinnage and Kellmer Pringle
1967) and which included research in the USA, Western Europe and Israel.
As the Home Affairs Committee
and interested parties have been aware much of the work of the Inquiry on
establishing what happened and why, especially on the issue of failure has
already been undertaken. The first Blair administration spent a year
considering findings of the Utting inquiry and report People Like Us. Over a
decade and a half before the Lord Tebbit explained the British Way of cover up
on the Andrew Marr programme, Frank Dobson on behalf of the government wrote in
1998, “This was not just a failure by the care staff. The children had been
failed by social service managers, councils, councillors, police, schools,
neighbours, the Social Services Inspectorate, Government Departments, Ministers
and Parliament. Some people from all these categories and institutions had
worked hard to do a good job for these children but many did not. The while
system had failed. “The Government then concluded Additional Resources are
being made available (my insert £450 million over three years). There can be no
more excuses. On November 5th
in the statement made to House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Health
and Baroness Hayman in the proposed action was outlined and John Bercow
established the money was additional, and not recycled, while former Minister
of State, Virginia, now Lady Bottomley, explained the problem was intractable. A
similar study and conclusions took place in Scotland in the Systematic
Historical review of abuse in Residential Homes and Schools 1950-1995 and
online via devolved administration.
The other key documentation
available on line is the Fourth Report of the Home Affairs Committee Cm 5799
April 2003 into the Conduct of Investigations into Past Cases of Abuse in
Children’s Homes together with the seventy plus responses to a questionnaire
from the Committee under the Chairmanship of Sunderland South MP Chris Mullin
and where former Prime Minister David Cameron and present Deputy Leader of the
Labour Party Tom Watson were members and
where many believe it was the PMQ from Mr Watson to David Cameron which kicked
off events which have led to the current
Police Investigations and the Statutory inquiry.
Hopefully everyone next week
will be focussed on the needs of victim survivors and those who have not
survived and their families given the Parliament returns for the political
knockabout before the conferences to enable the broad strategy and tactics for
the rest of the Parliament to be launched.
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