Early Years

Theatre shows autistic children can enjoy

2013-05-25T07:29:02Z

Theatres are increasingly catering for children on the autistic spectrum with 'relaxed performances' where they can feel more comfortable

For most five-year-old boys, a trip to the cinema is a treat. But for Charlie Webb, who has Asperger's syndrome, it's a sensory overload – and not in a good way. He has finely tuned hearing and hates sudden loud noises: hand-driers and helicopters upset him, so you can imagine how he feels with Dolby Surround Sound. "I don't want to go again," he told his mother, Tracey, after his second and final trip.

Other family outings, along with his father, Dustin, and sister, Amber, two, can be anxiety-inducing. The slightest change to the usual setup – a slide moved, say, or the menu changed – upsets him. Trips to the local park in Oxford are full of everyday social rules that he finds hard to understand, such as queueing and waiting. "When he gets angry, it's like a classic two-year-old's tantrum but on a five-year-old," says Tracey.

So when she heard about a theatre show at the Oxford Playhouse in February of Spot's Birthday Party, aimed at children on the autistic spectrum, she jumped at it. It was a chance to take Charlie along to something stimulating, but not frightening. "I'd never been brave enough to take him before," she says.

The play was a "relaxed performance", which means the theatre turns a blind eye to – indeed actively encourages – potentially disruptive behaviour. It allows children to move around and provides a less frightening environment. Actors, front of house, back-stage crew and box-office staff are prepared for what to expect during the performance, and "visual stories" – simplified information about the play and the theatre – are emailed to parents beforehand.

"The aim is to cater for the full spectrum of autistic behaviour, from profound disability to anxiety," says Kirsty Hoyle, project manager of the relaxed performances project run by the Society of London Theatre and The Prince's Foundation for Children & the Arts. This means anything from children groaning and rocking in their wheelchairs to reacting to the action on stage in an endearingly pantomimic way – "Watch out!" During one show, a child repeatedly shouted "Mango!"

The theatre makes minor technical adjustments: it calms the lighting, removes strobes and leaves house lights on so it is never completely dark; and lowers the volume of incidental music and other noises. Staffed escape areas are placed in foyers so children have somewhere to go if they want to leave. But, importantly, the play is unchanged. It means families don't feel they are being singled out for special treatment and theatres aren't put off by a lot of extra work.

Charlotte Warner took her son Alex, seven, to see a relaxed performance of 1,001 Nights at the Unicorn theatre in London in March. Alex is lively and intelligent, but hyperactive with a low threshold for concentration. When I meet them, he is hugely excitable and constantly grabs my dictaphone, informing me how pitifully lo-tech it is.

He can't answer my direct questions about the play – they are met with a blank, "I don't know." Instead he scribbles answers to statements Charlotte has prepared, such as "Going to the Unicorn theatre with your mother is ..." (answer: Great! A+). Aspects of the play that he enjoyed, I glean, were the Arabic numbers projected on to the backdrop, and the fact it was "cool" and "funny".

"If I took Alex to see a mainstream play, he would provide a running commentary and run around," she says. "So I'd find it stressful spoiling other people's enjoyment. At relaxed performances, anything goes. During 1,001 Nights, he ran on stage, and the actors paused, waited for him to get down, and carried on. He really enjoyed it. Doing things like this is confidence-building – something he can tick off and say, 'I've done that', so he's more likely to do it again."

"The biggest fears among the parents of autistic kids is negativity directed at them from the audience or actors, and of their children having a bad experience," says Jeremy Newton, chief executive of Children & the Arts. As a result, they rarely go to cultural events. "What we're finding is, parents react in two ways [after attending a relaxed performance]: one, they wonder what they were worried about; or two, they thank God they had support. Both are really positive reactions."

Last month, Disney's The Lion King put on the West End's first ever autism-friendly performance. But it's not just shows aimed at younger audiences that are opening up. The National Theatre in London staged a relaxed performance of the multi-award winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time last October and plans another on 22 June at the Apollo theatre, following its West End transfer.

During the performance, children sniggered at swear words, shouted, walked out and leaned on the stage. One boy laughed every time someone said Christopher, the name of the lead character, who has Asperger's.

For the actor Luke Treadaway, who plays Christopher – and who won an Olivier award in April for the role – a lively, noisy audience was a new experience for him. Was it distracting? "No, because we were expecting it. I actually thought it would be more distracting. People whose phones go off or eat crisps noisily are far more annoying. I was more worried about offending the families with my performance, as they live with [Asperger's] every day and know what it's really like."

After the play finished, the cast remained on stage, introducing themselves and answering questions. "We wanted them to see the moment when we stopped acting," says Treadaway. What sorts of things did they ask? "Are you autistic? Is that real chalk [Christopher often has a stick of chalk in his hand], that sort of thing."

"It was a privilege to do the show – these kids had never been in a theatre before. Theatre shouldn't be exclusive and this chips away at highbrow preconceptions. It used to be quite riotous – it's only now that it's become hushed. The point of these performances is to say, 'Come in and we won't judge you. You won't annoy anyone, just enjoy it.' I'd do one [relaxed performance] a month, no problem."

The unselfconscious reactions of autistic audiences is invigorating for actors, says David Bellwood at the Globe theatre in London, which invited about 120 autistic children to a schools' performance of Romeo and Juliet in March. They ask pertinent questions, applaud in unexpected places, shout, ooh and aah, and wolf whistle at dramatic moments. They shrieked with excitement at Romeo and Juliet's first kiss. "For the cast, it's refreshing to have such honest responses," he says. "They know the audience is really listening. I like that direct reaction to what's happening on stage – it's inspiring."

Parents of autistic children who attend these plays naturally have concerns before they arrive. "One mother emailed me to ask if there were any witches or balloons in the production, as her child found them upsetting. There was, in fact, a balloon but after long discussions with the stage manager we kept it in, but moved it upstage. Another mum asked if there were any steps, so I called her to find out what her child's fear of steps involved. In both cases, they came to the play and their kids enjoyed it," says Bellwood

"It was a risky project for us, but we had fantastic feedback. Many parents told us how nice it was to do something as a family for once – rather than taking their autistic child off with other autistic kids. It's given these children a taste for theatre and we'd love to think they will continue to come as adults. This is what theatre is about: attracting as broad an audience as possible. It's good for autistic children and it's good for society."

Siblings of autistic children often attend relaxed performances. In the same way that parents can relax in the knowledge their child's behaviour won't bother anyone, their brothers and sisters also find it a supportive and non-judgmental environment – that their family isn't weird and getting funny looks.

For Charlotte Warner, it's vital that Alex isn't always taken off on his own, but shares childhood experiences like this with his brothers, aged five and three. "Building a shared family narrative is really important, so that when the kids grow up they will hopefully be closer."

Back in Oxford, how did Charlie and Tracey Webb enjoy Spot's Birthday Party? "It was brilliant. There was no tutting and it was really informal," says Tracey. "There was no pressure to keep Charlie quiet. He was up on his feet singing, he really enjoyed it. He's told all his friends what a great time he had and I can see it's boosted his confidence."

She took her daughter, Amber, too. "There's a three-year age gap, they're different sexes, and Charlie has additional needs, so it's hard to find something they can both enjoy. But they both got something out of it. The only person missing was my husband," she says, laughing.

With such positive experiences, you wonder if theatre could become more tolerant generally of audiences with different needs. Just as a minority of autistic children were integrated into a mainstream – albeit schools' – performance of Shakespeare, could autistic children and adults attend regular performances without anyone making a fuss – if they were prepared? As the Oxford Playhouse website states, its relaxed performances are aimed at anyone who would benefit from a laid-back environment, including people with learning difficulties and very young children.

Jeremy Newton is cautiously open-minded. "I think different theatres could offer different approaches. For some, the minimal changes needed for a relaxed performance don't feel much different from a mainstream one – like at a children's show or at the Globe." Children & the Arts's modest target is for one relaxed performance during the run of every play. "They offer signed performances [for hard of hearing], and nobody bats an eyelid. We've found in relaxed performances, the kids' behaviour really isn't that disruptive."

Perhaps it's also the start of a new, more positive way of looking at autism. For Charlotte Warner, Alex's behaviour is a joy. "He's wildly eccentric," she laughs. "He will just come out with something over dinner – like 'Did you know 65% of Americans have bad breath?' – and we've no idea where it's come from.

"We have always cherished eccentricity in Britain, and people who don't experience it are missing out."

Hannah Booth

Letters: Joyce Robertson's films had a huge impact on trainee social workers

2013-05-24T23:02:13Z

Barbara Richardson writes: The films made by Joyce Robertson and her husband James had a huge impact on me as a trainee social worker in 1969 and still inform my views on childcare and parenting. They deserved a much wider audience: the messages in them are still relevant for every carer who looks after very young children.

I was once told that the film about "John", a powerful study of the breakdown, in a very short time, of a small boy in residential care, could not be shown on TV because "it is too harrowing". It would be a timely reminder to policymakers seeking to increase the number of children looked after by one carer if the Robertsons' work could be the subject of a television documentary.

Malcolm Pim writes: While training as a social worker, I absorbed much from the Robertsons' Young Children in Brief Separation films. Together with the then relatively recent work of John Bowlby on maternal deprivation, their work is still an influence, if not often acknowledged. The current theories around attachment, of course, stem directly from their work.

Violence against women and girls: shifting culture | Editorial

2013-05-24T23:02:12Z

It is increasingly questionable whether government policy is keeping pace with the growing dangers to women and children

This week we have learned the following: the police still make catastrophic mistakes in the protection of women at risk of domestic violence; that children everywhere have access to pornography, and that this is influencing behaviour in dangerous ways; and that most parents think relationship education in schools is inadequate. In the background, Mark Bridger's trial for the murder of five-year-old April Jones is a running reminder that while rare, there is still murderous child abuse as well as the far more widespread exploitation revealed most recently by the Oxford grooming trial.

Bleak as it feels, perhaps some of this may be evidence of a long-overdue change in a moral climate which, as the Savile affair has revealed, was lethally complacent until all too recently. But it is also true that both technology and family breakdown have hugely increased the range of dangers girls and women face, and it is increasingly questionable whether either government policy or the wider culture is keeping up with the need for action.

Earlier this week, the family of Maria Stubbings, murdered by a former boyfriend who had already murdered another woman, launched a petition for a public inquiry that they hope could produce its own Stephen Lawrence moment – shocking government and society into self-appraisal and action in the same way that the Macpherson inquiry did with racism. They deserve support. For all that Theresa May's Home Office is tackling child sexualisation and violence against girls and women with renewed energy, it hasn't gone far enough. New research has shown that buy-in from other departments is limited. At Education, Michael Gove's emphasis on schools and his political commitment to a hands-off approach militate against promoting campaigns like the Home Office's excellent This Is Abuse initiative to alert young people to respect in relationships. Schools aren't obliged to teach students about appropriate behaviour, and there is slacker monitoring of what is taught in personal health and education classes than other subjects.

But the real argument for an inquiry is not just the accumulation of evidence. There are plenty of experts diligently toiling on inquiries and task forces. What an inquiry would do differently is wake everyone up to the sheer extent of violence and abuse, and the patterns of behaviour that support it. It would ensure that every police force prioritises vulnerable women and listens to abused children, that every teacher is familiar with the signs of abuse, and that every parent has the confidence to help make their children resilient in the face of internet porn. It is time to stop the endless repetition of the cycle of shock – and start acting.

We need to talk to children about porn | Justin Hancock

2013-05-24T23:02:20Z

Parents are worried about what their children view online, but we should talk to young people about that as part of sex education

Porn is now so easily accessible online, and so prevalent, that it is understandable that parents, teachers and policymakers are worried. What we aren't teaching about sex and relationships (at home or school) is brought into sharp focus when we think about what young people might be learning from porn.

But what do we actually know about what young people are seeing, at what age? What can we say about what impact it is having? And how should we, the adults who care about them, respond?

Today's report from the children's commissioner for England highlights just how complicated the picture is. Its headline finding is that there is a link between porn and the attitudes and values of young people who see it: "Pornography has been linked to unrealistic attitudes about sex; maladaptive attitudes about relationships; more sexually permissive attitudes; greater acceptance of casual sex; beliefs that women are sex objects; more frequent thoughts about sex; sexual uncertainty (eg the extent to which children and young people are unclear about their sexual beliefs and values); and less progressive gender role attitudes (eg male dominance and female submission)."

Another recent literature review by Ofcom, this time peer-reviewed, suggests the variance of these effects are tiny. In other words, where a study does find an effect – seeing porn leads to more permissive behaviour, say – the difference in behaviour between those who see porn and those who don't is very small.

Also we do not know whether porn has a causal effect. It may have caused a change in attitude, or young people may already have these attitudes, which makes them more interested in porn, or it could be a bit of both – or even something else entirely that hasn't been tested. Sue Berlowitz, the deputy children's commissioner, refers to an association with porn when young sex offenders referred to their actions, but this doesn't prove a causal link.

The report also highlights that children and young people are critical and literate viewers of porn, applying the faculties they develop from consuming other media. Young people report being able to look after themselves and know what to do if they see something they don't like.

Not all use of porn is for sexual arousal either. Some young people are exposed to porn without their consent (pop-ups, blind links); some go looking for it but become exposed to something "harder" than they were expecting; some look because they find something funny or shocking; some to rebel; some to learn; and some to be sexually aroused. Young people are more likely to be interested in porn when they start to get interested in sex – and most young teenagers aren't interested yet.

The EU Kids Online report by the London School of Economics found that just 11% of 9- to 16-year-olds in the UK had viewed sexual images online in the previous 12 months. Just 2% had seen something that showed sex in a violent way. Of the 11%, 24% (3% of all 9- to 16-year-olds using the internet in the UK) were upset by what they had seen. Older teens were more likely to have seen a sexual image than younger teens. The youngest were the least likely to see a sexual image but more likely to be upset by it (typically their response was to close the image down and tell a parent or friend). Young people in the UK are actually more likely to see sexual images on TV than on the internet.

From this confused picture, we can say a few things with some confidence: most young people aren't exposed to porn frequently, most aren't bothered about it, we can't demonstrate that porn causes an effect, and young people are critical and literate when they use it. So what's the problem?

While the "dangers" of porn are overstated by many, these studies should be a wake-up call. We must accept that the traditional "don't get pregnant", "wait till you're older" style of sex education doesn't cut it any more (in my view it never has). Schools and parents must talk about porn when they talk to young people about sex and relationships. This should not alarm people: it is really just another way of doing work on gender, sexuality, body image, safety, sexual norms, consent, arousal, desire, pleasure, power, lust, love and relationships – we should be talking about all this anyway.

It is made easier if you remember it's not about you. What the young person is seeing is not the same as what you see they are seeing. Listen more than talk. Talking may help adults feel better but it doesn't give young people the space they need. Kids should know they can tell someone if they are upset or confused.

And adults should be active in children's use of the internet, asking questions about what they are looking at, being interested – young people actually welcome this (though avoid looking at porn with someone under 18 as this may be considered unlawful). Filtering out sexual content may work (and should ensure young children don't see anything upsetting), but it's not a panacea and offers a false sense of security.

The best response when educating young people about sex is to be calm, measured and factual. It's very hard to do this when we hear about the "dangers" of porn and the seeming inevitability of young people seeing it, and being harmed by it.

Justin Hancock

Pornography: what we know, what we don't

2013-05-24T15:21:25Z

"Basically... porn is everywhere," says a new report from the Children's Commissioner. We try to find out just how much – and what the information we do have says about the UK's habits

• Read analysis of the report from Alexandra Topping
• More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

Unsurprisingly, on the Datablog we often write articles about data when we have data. But some topics, like pornography, aren't conducive to statistical analysis, no matter how important many claim they are.

Despite these challenges, a report released today has sought to assess children and young people's exposure to pornography and understand its impact. Led by Middlesex University and commissioned by the Children's Commissioner, this was a rapid evidence assessment - completed in the space of just three months as part of a much larger ongoing inquiry into child sexual exploitation.

The report found that a "significant proportion of children and young people are exposed to or access pornography", and that this is linked to "unrealistic attitudes about sex" as well as "less progressive gender role attitudes (e.g. male dominance and female submission)".

Though the report makes these and other important conclusions, you'll notice that numbers are conspicuously absent in its language. One reason is that its findings were not based on primary research but a literature review that began with 41,000 identified sources and concluded by using 276 of those that were deemed relevant.

Several of the articles in the references are however quite dated - some published as far back as 1980. That doesn't necessarily mean that the findings are irrelevant. Rather, it shows just how difficult it is to analyse an entertainment activity/hobby/addiction (delete as appropriate) that is as prevalent as it is provocative - or at least we think.

In fact, for a phenomenon that is believed to be so widespread and so regularly features in debates about the state of British society, there is virtually no accurate data on pornography.

In February of this year, I contacted academics that conduct studies on pornography (though many of these look at its impact, rather than its scale) as well as 'industry experts'. One of those was someone working at Erotic Trade Only, which describes itself as "UK's leading adult industry magazine".

I didn't get very far. The industry expert replied "there are no figures, unfortunately, and with the industry continually changing its delivery vehicles and routes to market that is unlikely to change anytime soon".

The academic meanwhile pointed out, "much of what's out there is either self-reported by the industry or by its opponents, neither of which is particularly reliable". That's not even to mention that while a precise definition of 'pornography' remains elusive, so too do efforts to define where the boundaries of its industry stop and where they begin.

So what can be said? Well, like shopping, dating and programme viewing, the proportion of pornography online is growing compared to that which is offline. Maybe then, it's useful to look at some trends on Google. Trends like, for instance, the frequency of porn as a search term which, as the interactive graph below demonstrates, is becoming more common.

This, as the next interactive shows, is a trend which is quite equally spread across the country. England tops the list for online searches, Scotland has 97% the amount England does, Wales 87% and residents of Northern Ireland produce 3/4 the amount of web searches for the term 'porn' that England does.

But since Google Trends doesn't show absolute values, we're still no closer to understanding the scale of porn or its place in British cultural life relative to other trends. Well, what about if we were to use data on the most Googled terms in the UK in 2012 (Euro 2012 tops the list) and compare it to searches for 'porn'?

It appears that even at the height of football madness in June, porn was by far a more interesting topic for those in the UK to type into a search engine. All of which suggests that researchers weren't too inaccurate in titling today's report 'Basically, porn is everywhere'.

Obviously, this approach is far from methodologically watertight. Do you have any suggestions about ways to collect accurate statistics on the prevalence of pornography? Do you know of any reliable sources about its scale in the UK? Share your views, either by posting a comment below or by contacting us via Twitter on @GuardianData or @MonaChalabi.

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Mona Chalabi

The Eton entrance questions every 12-year-old future PM should be asked | Daisy Buchanan

2013-05-24T13:30:01Z

'You are the prime minister,' candidates were told, not implausibly. But how would they fare with these humdingers?

Much is made of the fact that girls are expected to enter their teens in a state of anxiety, uncertain of their wishes, ambitions and future powers. Whether this is true or not, such allowances are rarely made for adolescent boys, who are expected to be filled with careless confidence. Especially if they're adolescent boys who hope to attend Eton.

The 12- and 13-year-olds competing for the school's King's scholarships in 2011 probably felt quite confident encountering a question that stated "You are the prime minister". We can't know whether the majority pictured themselves off camera in The Thick Of It or dancing around Downing Street a la Hugh Grant in Love Actually, but their moods may have darkened when it emerged they were being asked to justify the act of deploying soldiers who had opened fire and killed 25 protesters.

The scenario for the question was set in year 2040, when one of the candidates could feasibly be in a position to answer the question for real. Which makes me think Eton is the perfect training ground for future leaders, not because it offers an education better than anything else available in Britain, but for the reason that it forces its students to make their minds up about moral issues at an early age. If you want a decision made quickly and efficiently, you go to a person who sees the world in black and white – ideally, someone who thinks like a fairly bright 12-year-old.

Having made its privileged participants resolve the thorny issue of avoidable, government sanctioned fatalities, one can only hope the rest of the scholarship exam was packed with the sort of questions that would prepare them for other dramas that might present themselves as they approached middle age. For example:

• You're in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot when you notice your female companion is wearing the same hat as the Duchess of Cambridge. Do you?

a. Use your origami skills to quickly construct a brand new hat from your companion's pashmina.

b. Cry "Oh no, the wind!", grab hold of the offending headgear and fling it into the Grandstand.

c. Force your companion to spend the duration of the event locked in the lavatory.

• The year is 2050, and it's time to look into some London property for your grown-up children. Based on the anticipated fluctuations of the housing market, which area represents the best investment? Show your workings.

• Is it ever acceptable to appear on a reality television show? Write an answer, remembering to take into account the risk of besmirching your family name, the damage a camera crew could inflict upon any inherited carpets and the value of potential merchandising opportunities.

• You're staying at a friend's place in the country, and after too much port you eat your host's collection of Fabergé eggs when he's asleep. Write a full and profuse apology in 3,500 words.

Ultimately there are no right answers here – but as long as your response reveals the full, unwavering weight of your convictions you should be well on your way to leading the country, via the country's top public school. Perhaps a better question to set prospective Etonians would be "The year is 2041. You are the prime minister, and a full-scale class war has broken out …"

Daisy Buchanan

Voluntary sector consortium becomes DfE strategic partner

2013-05-24T13:19:19Z

cypnow

A consortium of charities has become the Department for Education’s voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) strategic partner.

Rochdale council chief says systemic failures prevented capture of child abuse gang

2013-05-24T23:09:48Z

Former Rochdale council leadership 'did not appear to be interested in children's social care issues' says report

The paedophile gang jailed last year for sexually exploiting girls in Rochdale would have been caught sooner were it not for systemic failures in the borough council's former leadership, according to the council's new chief executive.

Jim Taylor expressed disbelief that the nine men were able to operate for so long and said he was profoundly sorry for the failures revealed in a 137-page report into the council's handling of child sexual exploitation cases.

Taylor said five council social workers had been suspended pending disciplinary investigations. Eight former employees have also been referred to the Health and Care Professions Council, the regulator for health and care professionals.

Taylor, who succeeded Roger Ellis as Rochdale's chief executive in April last year, when the gang was on trial, pledged at a press conference on Friday to ensure the errors would never be repeated.

But he said the council was powerless to act against former employees, or to act on Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk's proposal to claw back payoffs and pension pots paid to the former senior managers who were blamed for the culture of complacency outlined by consultant Anna Klonowski in the report.

The report found Ellis "did not appear to be interested in children's social care issues" and said there was no evidence that he had any intention of investigating the events that led to the jailing of nine men in May last year for offences including trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

Ellis presided over a council with "a lack of consistent senior leadership, or a lack of vision and direction in relation to child sexual exploitation", the report said.

Taylor said his overriding emotion in response to the report was disbelief: "Why the issue was never given greater importance is inexplicable – and completely unacceptable.

"The report demonstrated that children were not listened to, and significant action was not taken. Therefore, the connections between cases were never made. If the pieces of the jigsaw were put together sooner, then I am sure it would have led to an earlier criminal trial."

Taylor rejected suggestions from a reporter that the nine men – most of whom were British Pakistanis – were not caught sooner because there was a desire within the council leadership to be seen as being "politically correct". "There is no evidence of a politically correct motivation to ignore what was going on," he said.

Taylor said disciplinary options open to the council in relation to the five current staff under investigation included dismissal.

Danczuk said: "The council now needs to tell us what package Roger Ellis and other implicated senior officers left with. If Roger Ellis has one iota of decency, he will return this money."

Mark Smith

Daily roundup: Carrie quits, childcare savings, and Devon criticism

2013-05-24T12:55:29Z

cypnow

Barnardo's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie is to leave the charity, research suggests extending child-to-staff ratios in early years could significantly cut costs, and Ofsted slams services for vulnerable children in Devon, all in the news today.

When kids ask the most annoying questions

2013-05-24T23:00:54Z

I can handle 'Why is the sky blue?' but less so 'Who do you love best?' and 'Why do people have to die?'

One of the most difficult problems you have to face as a parent is the tricky questions children ask. Contrary to my expectations before becoming a father, kids are annoyingly intelligent and ask things that most adults have long ago stopped asking because of their difficult and controversial nature.

A few you can just type into an internet search engine. "Why is the sky blue?" is not something I ever had a response to until becoming a parent, but now I know that it's because blue light has the shortest wavelength of all the colours and therefore gets scattered more easily than the rest when white light, which is made up of all the colours, hits the atmosphere. Feel free to write that down.

Others are trickier. "Which came first – the chicken or the egg?" is still one I tend to deflect as I haven't got a bleeding clue, and it seems to bring into play difficult philosophical questions that I am not equipped to process, still less communicate to a six-year-old child. So my response is usually a) the chicken or b) the egg. Either way, it usually buys me some time to find a distraction.

Until quite recently, Louise, my youngest, has been asking me if I believe in God. This is for the reasons that fundamentalist Christians usually ask the same question, ie, to browbeat you into agreeing with their point of view. Louise has long been a headbanger for the faith, not quite understanding yet that one only goes to a faith school in order to get better exam results, not to actually sign up for a medieval worldview.

So I usually tell her that I'm not sure – which, of course, doesn't satisfy her any more than it would satisfy Billy Graham. The fact that her sister, Eva, told her that Jesus hated her may have shaken her faith, but just last week she told me she didn't believe in God any more but science. That's probably a step in the right direction.

On a touchier note, and a more serious one, probably the most difficult question any of my daughters ever asked me was, "Do you still love Mummy?" when I was getting divorced from my first wife. There was no proper answer to this. A "yes" gave them false hope of reconciliation. A "no" broke their heart. I can't remember what I said because I have blanked the whole period out, but it was almost certainly obfuscation, which is an intrinsic part of dealing with these impossible questions.

One that has come from all of my children at one time or another is "Who do you love best?" To tell them I love them all equally doesn't seem to cut the mustard – they are determined to have a specific individual named, which they always assume will be them, or fear that it won't be. In the end, it's probably best to refer them to Frankie Boyle's response in the Guardian Q&A when asked "Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it?". His answer was "Only to my kids." That usually shuts them up.

It was a joke, OK guys. I love you all the most, right? Anyway, here are a few other impossible questions. What happens when you die? Probably best to resist the pat response, which is that you face oblivion and are then eaten by worms. No one over eight buys "heaven" any more, so I usually go for "no one really knows". This is rarely satisfactory and is followed by "but what do you think?". The answer, naturally, is "heaven".

Here are a few more to which I'm afraid there is no answer: "What was that funny noise you were making in the bedroom last night? Were you hurting Mummy?"; "When did people start?" and "Why do people have to die?". There is only one response to these, which also works for the other tricky posers. I find it infallible. "Ask Mummy."

• Follow Tim on Twitter @timlottwriter

Tim Lott

Joining hands: why ending child marriage needs global partnership

2013-05-24T10:40:56Z

Efforts to end child marriage must bring together community activists and those working on structural problems. But just how does partnership work between 250 NGOs in 50 countries?

Parents who decide to marry off their daughters when they are children do so for many reasons. Those living in poverty may feel they have little option but to accept the bride price offered for their young daughter's hand. Parents facing conflict and insecurity may feel that marrying off their daughter will ensure her safety. And some families may choose child marriage just because that is the way things have been for generations. Often, the toughest question we face from parents is: "What alternative do we have?"

When we are able to have these conversations directly with parents, it is a good sign: a dialogue has started, a key step in the process of communities deciding to stop the practice of child marriage. But when a community lacks safe, accessible, quality schooling or opportunities for girls to earn an income, it is hard for parents to imagine a viable alternative to child marriage. The challenge, therefore, is to make sure that we can link community-level work on changing attitudes with efforts to address more structural challenges, such as insecurity, poor schooling and a lack of economic opportunity.

Take education as an example. Much progress has been made in trying to achieve the second millennium development goal of universal primary education. But there has not been the same drive to ensure that girls complete their secondary education. A study published by professor Anita Raj in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year found that, over the past 20 years, rates of child marriage in south Asia have declined for girls of 14 and under – in Pakistan by as much as 61%. Yet marriage rates for older girls remain static.

Professor Raj believes that community-level efforts to change perceptions towards child marriage – in tandem with improvements in girls' education – have been vital in reducing the practice among younger girls. Indeed, because many girls drop out of school between the ages of 14 and 18, this may explain why rates of marriage among that age group have not decreased, she said.

It is clear that to end child marriage we need to combine work at the local and community levels with efforts to improve broader structural factors, such as access to quality education. But how can this be achieved when the scale of the problem is so huge? Every year approximately 14 million girls marry before they turn 18; some 400 million women aged between 20 and 49 were married as children.

Girls Not Brides, the global partnership to end child marriage, was formed in September 2011 to address that challenge.

The merits of partnership are self-evident: organisations that have long been changing attitudes towards a practice which, until recently, received little or no media attention can feel isolated. Many of our members have faced resistance, hostility and in some cases outright threats to their personal safety. When you know you're not the only one trying to do this work, it does bring strength. The other main advantage is the opportunity to build a community of practice, learning from the experiences of those outside one's silo and sharing best practice. It's a concept that is proving popular: in little over a year and a half, the partnership has grown to include more than 250 non-governmental member organisations in more than 50 countries.

But simply filling out the membership form doesn't create a community. As the secretariat, it is our responsibility to foster the environment that allows for those actions to take place. We know that we will not be able to achieve our goal of ending child marriage if national, regional and international-level advocacy efforts are not shaped and informed by the reality of local and community-level action. So we have been finding ways to facilitate knowledge sharing. So far our members have met in India, South Africa and most recently in Turkey, but it is not always feasible to bring 250 NGOs together. We are also exploring online tools, such as webinars, for information-sharing and fostering a sense of community.

The more the partnership grows, the more we learn. First, what we learnt that it is important to share how the efforts made by members at grassroots level are helping to shape the events hosted on the international stage. Using, adapting and sharing the same material across our membership is key to developing a common message. Second, we've had to build trust. For a year before the partnership was launched, there were consultations taking place to find who the key stakeholders were, what they were working on and what value the partnership could add. Ours is a mandate we have to revisit frequently, proactively seeking feedback from our members on what works for them and what doesn't.

We try as a secretariat never to take credit for other people's work. At launch there might have been a fair amount of suspicion about who we were and what we hoped to achieve. We therefore try to be open and honest about the learning process that we ourselves are on and the value our members bring.

Ultimately, we must accept that there exist fundamental differences in local contexts; there is no one approach that can work across all levels and countries to change attitudes to towards child marriage. Limited internet connectivity and language barriers are other realities we must confront.

We by no means think that having a global partnership is itself the answer to the problem. However, given the fact that child marriage links to so many other issues, and the groups working on it are coming from different cultures, contexts and disciplines, by building a sense of solidarity, pairing community-level efforts with national and international advocacy and encouraging a growing global movement on the issue, we are convincved it will be possible to provide parents with a viable alternative to child marriage for their daughters.

Lakshmi Sundaram is global co-ordinator at Girls Not Brides

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Protect children from internet pornography, report demands

2013-05-24T16:09:53Z

Report finds evidence of a high correlation between exposure to violent and sadistic images and behaviour

Children are exposed to violent and sadistic imagery which risks distorting their attitudes towards relationships and sex, according to the children's commissioner for England.

A report released on Thursday by the commissioner's office found that children who watch pornography are more likely to develop sexually risky behaviour and become sexually active at a younger age.

It called for urgent action to "develop children's resilience to pornography" after discovering that a significant number have access to sexually explicit images. It also called on the Department for Education to ensure all schools delivered effective relationship and sex education, including how to use the internet safely.

"We are living at a time when violent and sadistic imagery is readily available to very young children … even if they do not go searching for it, their friends may show it to them or they may stumble on it while using the internet," said the commissioner, Maggie Atkinson.

"For years we have applied age restrictions to films at the cinema but now we are permitting access to far more troubling imagery via the internet. It is a risky experiment to allow a generation of young people to be raised on a diet of pornography."

The report, based on a review of academic research, also found that pornography could influence children's sexual attitudes, foster a negative attitude towards relationships and lead them to engage in risky behaviours such as unprotected anal sex, sex at a younger age and the use of alcohol and drugs during sex.

Sue Berelowitz, the deputy children's commissioner, said compulsory education was the only way to ensure children were guarded "against the possible impact of pornography on them and their relationships". She said: "As part of our inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children in gangs and groups we have seen that young perpetrators of sexual abuse describe their activity as 'like having been in a porn film'. This report provides the evidence to support there being a high correlation between exposure to pornography and it influencing children's behaviour and attitudes."

Miranda Horvath, senior lecturer at Middlesex University, which led the review of academic evidence, said: "When pornography is discussed, it is often between groups of people with polarised moral views on the subject. Rather than adopting a particular ideological stance, this report uses evidence-based research to draw its conclusions and further the debate."

The report's recommendations echo calls made by the End Violence Against Women coalition to make sex and relationships education compulsory in secondary schools. A recent survey by the National Association of Head Teachers found many parents believe schools should teach about the dangers of pornography as soon as children are old enough to use the internet.

Alexandra Topping

Rochdale child sex abuse case: council apologises for failings

2013-05-23T23:03:02Z

Report says culture of complacency within the local authority allowed paedophile gangs to prey on girls

Rochdale borough council has apologised for letting down victims of child sexual exploitation after a damning report laid bare a catalogue of failures and a culture of complacency within the authority that allowed paedophile gangs to prey on the area's most vulnerable girls.

The independent report found that the council's former chief executive Roger Ellis "did not appear to be interested in children's social care issues" and said there was no evidence that he had any intention of investigating the events that led to the jailing of nine men in May last year for offences including trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

Ellis, who stepped down while the court case was ongoing, presided over a council with "a lack of consistent senior leadership, or a lack of vision and direction in relation to child sexual exploitation (CSE)", according to the report's author, independent consultant Anna Klonowski.

Frontline staff "did not know what to do about CSE and how to deal with it". Furthermore, the 135-page report stated that social workers within the service "did not have a working knowledge of effective risk assessment".

Ellis's successor as chief executive, Jim Taylor, said: "It is clear from this review that some children were let down by Rochdale council. On behalf of the council, I am deeply sorry these young people did not get the care and support they deserved.

"We must never forget that the sexual exploitation of children is an appalling crime carried out by the worst kind of criminals. But keeping children safe from harm is the most important thing a local authority does, and we accept the conclusions and recommendations in the report.

"This review paints a poor picture of the way elements of Rochdale council has previously been run. Hard-working, dedicated staff were also let down by some senior managers who appear to have shown no leadership and taken no responsibility. I am absolutely determined to ensure these mistakes are never repeated."

The report makes 16 recommendations, including that the council review the ways it suspends and/or revokes licences for taxi drivers and fast food establishments, helping to disrupt the environments in which the 2012 trial found that the abusers operated.

Klonowski also urged Taylor to ensure that any necessary disciplinary investigations against individuals relating to CSE be finalised and the "appropriate actions" taken.

Rochdale's MP, Simon Danczuk, said it was wrong that senior officers such as Ellis had been allowed to escape disciplinary action by taking early retirement and called for systems to be put in place that would allow their pension funds to be clawed back.

"This report shows that there were alarm bells going off all over the place and they were ignored," he said. "Senior officers turned a blind eye to child abuse and didn't want to know. The perpetrators of these terrible crimes and some senior council officers have brought shame on our town."

Danczuk also criticised what he called "appalling complacency" after it emerged that senior managers viewed CSE as being "no more or less prevalent in Rochdale than in other local authorities". At one point a senior officer – believed to be the former executive director for children's services, Terry Piggott – is quoted as saying that they viewed CSE "as part of the combined evils that many children faced".

Danczuk said: "The council now needs to tell us what package Roger Ellis and other implicated senior officers left with. If Roger Ellis has one iota of decency, he will return this money.

"Jim Taylor has a very difficult job but he has decided to grasp the nettle that his predecessor ignored," he said. "He has inherited a completely dysfunctional children's services department and it will take time to turn it around."

Ellis was unreachable for comment on Thursday night.

Mark Smith

Nursery reforms could cut childcare costs by 28%, DfE calculates

2013-05-24T10:04:15Z

New calculations released by Department for Education will boost those seeking to push stalled plans through

The cost of childcare could be cut by as much as 28% if the government was to go ahead with stalled plans to raise ratios of children to staff in nurseries.

Government plans are currently stalled due to a disagreement within the coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

The new calculations released by the Department for Education under a freedom of information request said parent costs could be cut from £4 an hour to £3.49 an hour (a 12% cut) while teacher salaries could go up. Alternatively, if the extra revenue was used solely to reduce costs for parents, this could yield costs savings for parents of up to 28%.

Conservative ministers had been hoping to relax staff-child ratios by September, but Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, vetoed the plans saying he thought the proposed ratio changes would lower the quality of childcare. Conservatives are likely to use the figures to show they have been on the side of parents and choice, but are being blocked by the Liberal Democrats.

Department estimates suggest that if legal ratios for under-threes rose from four children for each member of staff to six and increased from a ratio of one to eight to one to 13 for staff looking after over-threes, the number of full-time places could be expanded by 52% to 73.

This increase in places creates a gross additional revenue of around £200,0000 based on the nursery charging £4 an hour. Even assuming the setting required the employment of a graduate, revenue would rise by £166,0000. Distributing this over 73 childcare places for 52 weeks a year and 39 hours a week the nursery could maintain its revenues and reduce its fees from £4 an hour to £2.88 an hour, a reduction of 28%.

The figures are bound to be raised by allies of the education secretary, Michael Gove, and the children's minister, Liz Truss, to show that parents are being denied a large-scale cut in their childcare costs by Liberal Democrat objections.

It is not yet clear if the plans can be revived, but Gove has acknowledged that his plan to introduce the changes by September are looking hard to implement. He claimed that Clegg had vetoed the plans because he was worried he was about to be challenged for his party leadership by the business secretary, Vince Cable.

The Daycare Trust earlier this year showed nursery costs rising while wages are stagnating: it found average childcare costs were increasing by more than 6% a year (more than double the rate of inflation).

After-school care costs more than a family holiday to Florida and the costliest nurseries are more expensive than top public schools.

Patrick Wintour

Nursery reforms could cut childcare costs by 28%, DfE calculates

2013-05-24T10:04:15Z

New calculations released by Department for Education will boost those seeking to push stalled plans through

The cost of childcare could be cut by as much as 28% if the government was to go ahead with stalled plans to raise ratios of children to staff in nurseries.

Government plans are currently stalled due to a disagreement within the coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

After-school care costs more than a family holiday to Florida and the costliest nurseries are more expensive than top public schools.

Patrick Wintour

10 years of bullying data: what does it tell us?

2013-05-23T17:20:34Z

A decade of global data attempts to analyse the details of bullying. But what can the figures really tell us about an issue that is so difficult to record?
• Get the data
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The evolution of social media and mobile communication may have made it easier than ever for young people to share but they also create an environment that can make bullying "inescapable and even more threatening than ever before" according to a new report by Child Helpline International (CHI).

CHI, a network of government and civil society organisations, operates 173 child helplines in over 142 countries and in the past 10 years has collated a database of more than 126m contacts by children and adults on behalf of young people from its member helplines.

The 126m refers to the number of conversations that have taken place between a child or young person and a counsellor of a child helpline somewhere in the world, on any subject a child or young person wanted to talk about. The database has collated data through any form of communication used by child helplines including telephone, chat, SMS, message boards, walk-in centres and outreach activities.

Of the 126m, nearly 4m have been about abuse and violence, including categories such as bullying, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. And since the CHI started collecting data on cyberbullying in 2011, more than 27,000 contacts have been recorded on this subject.

On average, every child helpline in the world receives nine contacts from children and young people per day who are suffering the effects of bullying, according to CHI.

Of course the results of this report don't tell the whole story, for every child that seeks advice by contacting a helpline, there are many more that either do not have the access, confidence or privacy to do the same.

As a result, gathering data on the number of children suffering from bullying has never been simple, but the CHI's analysis helps give an insight into a global problem affecting many.

NSPCC statistics on bullying collated from government reports and research suggest that almost half of children and young people have been bullied at school at some point in their lives. The NSPCC also report that 38% of young people have been affected by cyberbullying.

Figures from a 2011 report by the Department of Education (DfE) also show that girls are twice as likely to experience persistent cyberbullying than boys.

This trend was also apparent in CHI's analysis - the number of girls contacting them about cyberbullying was slightly higher than boys, although 90% of those contacting child helplines "hesitated to disclose their gender to protect their identity and maintain their anonymity after having suffered online abuse".
The overall proportion that were not willing disclose their gender for recording purposes was 71%.

Ofcom research, published in 2008, showed that almost half of children aged 8-17 who use the internet had set up their own profile on a social networking site. The Ofcom research also reported the following observation:

It also appears likely that when children receive hostile, bullying or hateful messages, they are generally ill-equipped to respond appropriately or to cope with the emotional upset this causes

So what else does the release by CHI show? Well, the number of contacts received in 2012 was more than double those received in 2006, but as CHI note, the rise in contacts could also be associated with growing awareness of bullying amongst children.

Bullying can take many forms but analysis on information gathered since 2011 has highlighted four major categories; emotional, physical, exposure and theft.

Almost half of the contacts on bullying could be be categorised as emotional bullying and nearly a quarter as physical abuse. Instances where young people have been either exposed to bullying as a witness or have had belongings stolen accounted for 12.5% of contacts each.

Emotional bullying and theft were the most common types of bullying reported by girls, whereas boys were most likely to contact a helpline due to physical bullying, exposure or theft.

Analysis of contacts made with child helplines show that nine out of ten cases of bullying take place at school, although this fact may not come as a surprise, the breakdown of who the bullies are makes for interesting reading. Over a third of indicated perpetrators were adults and globally, teachers were responsible for more than 23% of bullying; more than 14% by male teachers, 7% by female teachers and 2% gender not known.

Regional breakdown of the data also provides some fascinating insights into how differences in culture and community affect the figures. Whilst in Europe around 4% of contacts about bullying involved a teacher, this figure reaches 37% in Africa.

But as we know bullying can be much more complex than the figures can possibly show. Differences in culture, attitudes and laws against corporal punishment can help to explain the vast differences in percentages.

More children and young people in Europe contacted child helplines on the issue of bullying than any other region. More than half a million contacts have been made in Europe over the past 10 years. Asia Pacific follows with almost 135,000 contacts, America and the Carribean with nearly 100,000, Africa with 55,000 and lastly the Middle East and North Africa with 8,856. As discussed above, culture and socioeconomic factors (the likelihood that a family will even have a phone or access to a counsellor) are likely to influence these geographic trends.

In all regions except the Middle East and North Africa, the majority of contacts on bullying were from girls. In the Middle East and North Africa however, 55% of contacts were made by boys.

Bullying can be a problem for teachers as well as students as a NASTUWT survey published last April demonstrated. 42% of those teachers filling out the survey said they had received an insulting comment, allegation of inappropriate behaviour with a pupil, comment on their performance or other comment posted online or on a social networking site.

Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary said at the time of release that:

A significant minority of our members are being abused by their pupils and that in too many cases the action taken does not reflect the seriousness of the abuse

CHI acknowledge that as with any, empirical study, there are certain strengths and weaknesses to the release. So here are some things to consider when looking at the data:

• The numbers in the Excel files might slightly differ from the data in the thematic briefing paper. This is due to the fact that CHI are currently still working on their data collection for 2012 and at the moment, are continuously updating the database. They assure us that "Overall, the proportions will not affected much".
• The category 'Unknown' is not included in the data on the involvement of peers and teachers as for the majority of contacts, the status of the perpetrators is not known
• In the case of gender disaggregated data, the unknown category is also been left out for similar reasons as above.

How useful is data on bullying? Did CHI's analysis tell you anything you didn't know before? Discuss the results in the comments thread below.

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Ami Sedghi

Stephanie Sinclair's best photograph: child brides in Yemen

2013-05-22T23:00:04Z

'The girls are both eight. You can tell at once that the men are their husbands, not their fathers'

I have been to many countries to document the issue of child brides: India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Ethiopia. But it was important to cover Yemen because it is so prevalent there – in fact, it is considered normal. Some people in their communities, however, want it to stop, and this project was only able to happen because of them.

This shot shows two child brides in rural Yemen with their husbands. Tahani, the girl in pink, is eight; her husband Majed is 27. Ghada, in green, is also eight, while her husband Saltan is 33. Every day around the world, around 39,000 girls – children like Tahani and Ghada – get married.

Tahani got married when she was six and was a wife in the full sense of the word. She had not reached puberty so hadn't had kids yet, but this was expected as soon as she was able to. Ghada is the sister of Tahani's husband, Majed. She was still living with her family, though, and attending school, since her father felt she was too young to live with her husband.

I met them twice in 2010, when I was in the country for National Geographic. The first time they were without their husbands: they were just little girls, sweet and forthcoming, excited I was there and wanting to hang out. I decided to shoot two couples to show that this huge age disparity wasn't a one-off. Both of the men are in the Yemeni military and were working, so I had to wait for them to return.

When I finally met them, it was noon and the light was really bad. I scoped out the location, then waited until it got very overcast. I moved them around a little and took 50 frames in 15 minutes. They were all amenable. I didn't tell either girl what expression to have. I don't think they had any idea that the rest of the world would see their marriages as wrong – but somehow I felt they knew that I was there out of concern.

The image works because the girls opened up to me: Tahani, especially, has a look in her eyes. They are communicating to us in a different way than their husbands, who clearly feel no shame. Looking at it, you know at once that the men are their husbands and not their fathers.

My visit started a campaign: we got a local doctor and midwives to come and discuss health issues for girls – that if they get pregnant too young, their bodies and their children may have problems. They may even die. The community agreed to stop the next wedding.

CV

Born: 1973, Miami.

Studied: Journalism with photography at the University of Florida.

Influences: Eugene Richards: his work has an intimacy and brilliance that is beyond compare.

High point: Being part of the Too Young to Wed campaign, which policymakers around the world are responding to.

Low point: The colleagues I've lost over the years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Top tip: Be versatile. Listen to your heart about what you respond to and make projects that matter to you.

• Stephanie Sinclair's work is at tooyoungtowed.org

Sarah Phillips

Birth registration could be ‘game changer’ for children's centres, says MP

2013-05-22T12:54:00Z

cypnow

The Department for Education is to assess whether children's centres that offer birth registration engage with more parents, according to an MP who wants the practice extended.

Malaysian rape accused marries 13-year-old alleged victim

2013-05-22T12:26:30Z

Government 'questioning validity of marriage' after 40-year-old man took girl he allegedly assaulted as his second wife

The case of a 40-year-old Malaysian man who is charged with raping a 13-year-old girl before marrying her under sharia law has provoked national outrage.

The alleged rape happened in the eastern state of Sabah, where more than half of such cases involve underage girls, according to human rights activists.

Riduan Masmud, a restaurant owner, was charged with raping the girl, whom he had known for six months, in a parked car in February. He took her as his second wife – by mutual consent, he said – soon after that.

"There are many cases of men marrying underage girls," Masmud told reporters outside court. "I do not see why my case should be any different."

Masmud said he planned for the girl to finish her studies and then "take up a cosmetics course with my first wife". The wife told reporters she had accepted the girl as Masmud's second wife.

The girl's father claims Masmud had paid the family 5,000 Malaysian ringgits (£1,100) in compensation, and told reporters he accepted the marriage. "It is best for her that they get married," he said. "What else can I do?"

Human rights groups urged the government to press on with charges when the prosecution tried to drop the case after the marriage.

"This case is part of a worrying trend in which older men proposed marriage after being charged with statutory rape to circumvent the mandatory provisions of the penal code," Mary Lee, of Sabah's Action Resource Group, told the Star. "The state cannot be seen by the public to condone such action by letting off the accused under the guise of marriage."

The state minister of community and consumer affairs, Datuk Jainab Ahmad, said her ministry was "questioning the validity of the marriage", and that she had told Sabah's welfare services department to put the victim under protection.

"As a mother, I am still puzzled: how could the father or the girl allow his daughter to be married to the man who had raped her?" Ahmad asked.

"The girl was only 12 years and six months. I believe the victim is in a trauma. She should be protected instead [of] marrying the man who had raped her."

The Malaysian anti-corruption commission is investigating the claims that Masmud paid the family.

Kate Hodal

EYP Diary - getting ready to celebrate success

2013-02-13T15:59:40Z

Those who started the EYP programme at the University of Chichester in January 2012 are looking forward to celebrating their graduation on 22 March. This promises to be a fantastic evening and there will be time at the end for EYPs to network and catch up with each other, says EYP programme co-ordinator Nikki Fairchild