The Magic Wand, or how to do multi-agency working in an age of austerity

As the cuts continue to bite, the various agencies that work with vulnerable children have become more and more stretched. Multi-agency working has become ever more difficult to achieve. Fortunately there is a standard letter, which I’ve seen increasingly in use by these agencies. Feel free to copy this letter and use it in correspondence between social services, CAMHS, GPs, schools, Youth Offending Services and voluntary agencies. Lots of other professionals already do.

Exeter church plays Pontius Pilate over Palace Gate abuse case

In recent months I’ve covered the Palace Gate abuse case, in which the two directors of Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter, were struck off by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. John Clapham was found to have taken sexual advantage of two women during therapy sessions. His co-director Lindsey Talbott then aided him in a lengthy campaign of harassment and defamation against the complainants.

Palace Gate Counselling Service rents its premises in the Palace Gate Centre from South Street Baptist Church. Because counselling has only voluntary self-regulation rather than state regulation, Clapham and Talbott have been able to continue running their firm despite the striking-off order. Which is not to say their business hasn’t been impeded. Outside agencies have stopped referring clients there. Fundraisers have pulled their support. Even so, they’re still there at the Palace Gate Centre.

Which begs the question, why haven’t South Street Baptist Church evicted them from the premises? I now have a statement from the church.

CAMHS and gender identity

I work in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). One of the roles of CAMHS is to act as a gateway to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman in London. GIDS is the only service in the NHS that can prescribe hormone treatments to young people under 18 with gender identity issues. I’m something of a CAMHS jack-of-all-trades, and gender identity issues aren’t a large part of my role, but they’re a part of my role nonetheless.

The purpose of this blog post is to assemble some of my thoughts on the role of CAMHS with regard to gender identity. It’s a bit different to my usual blogging content in that it isn’t so much giving my own views as inviting others to give feedback. I think I should give the usual preface that any opinions I state here are personal ones and not necessarily those of my employer.

When the Pick-Up Artists came to Iceland

[Trigger warnings: sexual harassment, misogyny]

I’m currently sat in a hotel in Raufarhöfn, on the North East coast of Iceland, which is  pretty much the closest you can get to the Arctic Circle and still have a decent wifi connection. I’m partway through a long road trip through this wonderfully strange and strangely wonderful country. It’s my third trip here and it’s a land I’ve come to love.

A couple of days ago, I picked up a copy of the Reykjavik Grapevine, a local English-language circular, and promptly discovered that a spectacularly vile online movement have been making their way here. The Pick-Up Artists, or PUAs.

Some unfashionable opinions on the Glastonbury Festival

Over the past week, this blog has been rather quiet. This isn’t because I’ve dropped off the ends of the Earth – not quite, anyway. I’ve been volunteering at the Glastonbury Festival with the Oxfam Stewards, who raise money for charity by helping to run festivals across the UK, and who I can’t recommend enough.