When ideology trumps safeguarding

The combination of a lack of resources and ideological fervour is causing a crisis for children with Special Educational Needs.

I’m introducing a new section to my Substack called ‘The Whistleblower’ which will feature eye-witness accounts of the damage caused by gender identity ideology across society. This first account is by a Learning Support Assistant demoralised not just by the lack of resources available to her and her students, but by the influence of a creepy, imported ideology that undermines safeguarding.

If you have a story for The Whistleblower, send details to thewhistleblowermailbox@gmail.com

Anonymity is guaranteed should you need it.

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I live in a rural city in England which has expanded its access to further education (FE) for students over 16. It has also expanded its capacity to accommodate young people under the care of the local authority. These are young people considered at risk and/or have additional Special Education Needs (SEN).

On leaving university, I wanted to make practical use of my skills, so a teaching and safeguarding role supporting SEN students was an alluring job opportunity. Working one-on-one with vulnerable young people who had been disregarded or underserved by mainstream education seemed a great way to start my career. Most were young people with autism, dyslexia, global delay (a term used when a child takes longer to reach certain developmental milestones), and mental health issues. My work comprised of providing face-to-face tuition for students to ensure they had equal access to learning. 

For want of a better phrase, I was in the trenches, responsible for intensely personal learning support with a challenging cohort, whose progress had been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 lockdowns. Typically, I would support 6-8 young people at a time, in a class of 20+ every day. Tending to their mental health and wellbeing was another part of my remit, acting as a first line of defence to monitor emerging or worsening problems so that we could intervene. 

Unfortunately, the reality of the job was overwhelming. Under-resourced and lacking essential support from management to maintain basic safeguarding, I quickly felt overburdened by the range and sheer numbers of students for whom I was responsible. The vast majority had specific learning and emotional needs for whom I had not been given any training or even a basic hand-over of essential information. Despite meeting all legal requirements to equip us for the role, we were becoming overwhelmed by the increasing number of students needing support for mental health issues. 

Each term, we were allocated 3 paid days of compulsory Continuing Professional Development. My colleagues and I requested that some mental health first aid be one of the skills provided during our frequent, supposedly enriching, 'professional development days’. The ‘first aid’ would involve essential skills such as learning how to be aware of factors and warning signs of mental health problems, and how to develop a practical action plan to de-escalate and help manage symptoms in the moment.

 Instead, the money was spent on sustainability skills workshops, notably one which taught us to ‘forage’ for food. This was before the cost-of-living crisis hitting the headlines. Perhaps the college were forward-thinking in one aspect at least.

Meanwhile, my department was also short-staffed, with ad-hoc cover becoming a frequent occurrence.  Many of our students have specific Educational Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) to ensure that adequate care is given for conditions such as epilepsy, autism, and learning delay. Such students often require a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP), which should be known and understood by the staff caring for that student in case of a fire, or even a fire alarm test. When we were required to do cover or supply work, none were in place as we did not know the students and had not received the information or training to keep them safe. Support staff frequently cared for students with epilepsy and other unfamiliar conditions while lacking the training to meet safety requirements.  I never received training in case of an epileptic fit. I never received training in case of emergency evacuation for students with physical disabilities.

Instead, we learned  how to correct SEN students who may say “pregnant woman” instead of “pregnant person”, we learned how to explain ‘Hormone Replacement Therapy’ and ‘Gender Affirmation Surgery’, we learned how to reprimand students who failed to pepper their speech with terms like ‘cis’ and ‘non-binary’. 

I was exhausted, overworked, and not supported by my management, yet asked to incorporate the incoherent diktats of gender ideology into an already difficult job. We were, in fact, encouraged to promote it to a population of vulnerable young people. Young people who are known to be susceptible to seeing ‘transness’ as a panacea for the difficulties of puberty, of autism, or just not fitting in. 

We didn’t know how to help the pupils with an epileptic fit, we didn’t know their personal escape plans in case of fire. But I knew how to help the autistic and at-risk teens in my care to fill in legal forms to change their name without their parents’ knowledge.  I knew one girl who went through three name changes in nine months. Had I followed the instructions that were given me, she would have been able to legally achieve that with no parental input and the full backing of both the college and wider society. 

Even though most students were very accepting and showed no signs of prejudice, an excessive amount of time was dedicated to fear-driven training, often at the cost of addressing our working conditions, pay, and staff retention. The focus on reactionary and ideologically driven practices took precedence over the physical and psychological safety of young people.

I had direct experiences where we were unable to refer students at risk of self-harm, alcohol or substance use, or family conflict to the designated services. The wellbeing department which would usually deal with this had haemorrhaged staff due to organisational failures, leaving us powerless to help. We were overloaded with vulnerable students, and given only a basic online form to flag these issues and hope they would be followed up by safeguarding officers. I felt I was working with my hands tied, leaving students in my care vulnerable to online grooming, sexual predation and radicalisation.

For instance, I had spent a year or more slowly building trust with another autistic female student, who previously had been out of mainstream education. As she was comfortable sharing with me, I became aware that her sense of social isolation had led her to internet forums with the stated goal of ‘making friends’. Some of these ‘friends’ then would contact her through other platforms, late into the night, encouraging that they meet up or swap photos.

I hope this highlights the scandalous imbalance of resource allocation and training priorities that placed the notional safety of a tiny minority of ‘trans’ students over the actual, physical safety of all students. I came close to whistleblowing on this issue many times but was quickly overwhelmed by the end of my lunch break and another 4 hours back at the coal face, drained of any faith that it would be thoroughly investigated or rectified by the powers that had allowed it to become standard practice.

I wasn’t suffering alone. The strikes that have overwhelmed the country in the past year at FE institutions were in no small way driven by the depth of our frustration. These strikes showed that FE institutions simply cannot run without the vital role of support staff. Classed as unskilled workers and paid less than minimum wage, we are nonetheless entrusted to nurture and protect the most vulnerable young people in our society.

Even without considering the local SEND offer, Further Education colleges receive up to £6,000 per student with an EHCP. That is roughly half the salary of a full-time Learning Support Assistant, with many still failing to pay a living wage. Shouldn’t this money be spent on the wellbeing of the students, and not an imported ideology from a corrupted American academia?