Safeguarding Children in Regulated Activities

As an education consultant, qualified teacher, child protection and safeguarding officer, safeguarding children in my care over the years has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever had to do. Over my 30 years in education I have worked on some extremely challenging child protection and safeguarding cases covering serious neglect, paedophilia, grooming, substance abuse and serious domestic violence . Even as an experienced practitioner managing large day nurseries and working in schools all over the world, making a child protection referral is not only hard to do, but also unpleasant and scary.

Within my many years of training, it is stressed, I have a duty of care to the children I work with and should comply with the early years foundation stage statutory framework. As a professional I work by these policies at all times and would never practice any other way. The welfare of every child is always my main, immediate and first concern. I am an experienced, confident practitioner who doesn't have issue with standing out, coming forward and speaking up; many less experienced may not be so bold.

Some signs of child abuse are difficult to spot and assess. Some signs can resemble other issues. Covert child abuse is not simple. Young children cannot and sometimes will not disclose. It's impossible for very young children to verbalize. Some are groomed to keep it secret. Less experienced practitioners may find it hard to assess and also be scared to report in case they get it wrong. There is still a taboo and silence around child sex abuse; it's hard to believe it's happening right under your nose. It's hard to discuss it and hard to discuss with parents and carers. Paedophilia is a very uncomfortable subject and for less experienced practitioners, hard to assess, recognise and report.

Safeguarding Children does not just cover child abuse any more, it encompasses every aspect of keeping children and young people safe. Safeguarding covers every aspect of a practitioners day from door safety, stranger danger and managed risk to sun safety, safe equipment and health, and this just outlines a very small proportion of the role of leadership and management in early years settings and schools. Safeguarding today is an onerous and complex issue and one is required to be vigilant, aware, confident and buckets full of common sense.

Whistleblowing is another difficult and unsafe area within safeguarding and child protection. The whistleblower has no safe place and is not protected in law and cannot currently remain anonymous. As an experienced leader I have blown the whistle when practice has not been safe for children but soon after I have been thrown to the wolves with no protection from anyone and had to resign from my employment. Lesser experienced bold ethical leaders would chose not to come forward and whistleblow. Many could not afford to lose the job or stand the stress. I was extremely ill after whistleblowing an extremely unsafe environment for children in my care.

Referring is a complex process also. It requires keeping your wits about you, remaining calm and level headed and being confident in your practice. Telephoning First Response and reporting to the Local Area Designated Officer (LADO) the concerns you have is daunting and the process that follows is daunting and scary. The note taking and accurate confidential recording of conversations with all parties concerned in draining and exhausting in itself. Advising the parents, attending Team around the Child Meetings with all the professionals working with the child and completing referral forms and issuing comprehensive reports is hugely challenging for an experienced practitioner let alone an inexperienced one.

There is a major argument and requirement for mandatory reporting of known abuse in all regulated activities. This would require all practitioners in regulated activities to report abuse by law; currently it is discretionary. Yes, unbelievably, it is discretionary, so why would anyone report when they are scared in the first place, have no idea of the process once they have reported and if they are wrong could lose their job, business, reputation or all three.

All establishments working with vulnerable children and adults must have safeguarding policies and procedures in place but these are only as good as the individuals implementing them. A piece of paper in a file in an office that is not adhered to does not, and will never, safeguard children. Staff training is another big issue as the current training is very limited and does not cover the processes and procedures once a referral has been implemented.

Children and adults involved in the historic cases in the press currently would not have had to wait 30 or 40 years before someone listened and believed their pleas for help. Someone must have had suspicions; that someone would have been obliged by law and legislation, and with protection and support, to report their suspicion of abuse if it had been mandatory to report. Mandatory reporting of known child abuse would safeguard everyone involved once drawn up in legislation and I would have been protected as a whistleblower and possibly kept my job.

Follow: @mandatenow @jonathanwest _ @ed2inspire @paulabarrow

Child Development & Trauma

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow

Raze out the written troubles of the brain

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart

  William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V Scene iii

Children can appear traumatised for many reasons including being gifted and talented. For some children and young people the stress of being highly able can be a lot to deal with especially on top of other difficulties and trauma in their lives. Take the following as a scenario:

               What we may know:

A young child in primary school has an EP assessment and has been identified with a full-scale IQ of 140 and is high ability in literacy. The child is in the top set in class. Not particularly high ability in any other area. Is bored in school and under challenged coasts and is extremely disruptive in class. Can be difficult, arrogant and indifferent to staff. Has social and emotional difficulties with their peers; find playtimes particularly challenging. Can discuss on a very adult level, asks difficult questions and is bossy and opinionated.

What we may not know:

The child is from a poor socio-economic background, was premature at birth and the mother is an alcoholic and the father has passed away. The family live and depend on benefits. The child is the middle child of seven children and has to help with taking care of their brothers and sisters. Prior to going to school the child has to deliver his two younger brothers to school (which is two bus rides away) and then get him to school. The child’s support systems at home are poor and the child is left to his own devices more often than not. After school this child picks up the two younger children, goes home and helps to make dinner and get the children to bed, then endeavours to do his homework and get himself to bed and so the scenario begins again at 6am the next morning.

If you add all this together and then consider anything else that we may not know, you may begin to see how a child maybe suffering from the symptoms of trauma and how this will impact on their behaviour. If you then add to this the characteristics, traits and behaviours associated with high ability you may then begin to see how the behaviours can be heightened.

Behaviours we may see as a result of ability and trauma:

Disruptive                                 
Fidgets                                     
Precocious
Rude                                           
Competitive                              
Pedantic                                                                      
Passionate                                   
Perfectionist                              
Argumentative                                      
Aggressive                               
Anger                                       
Frustration
Intolerant                                 
Abusive                                    
Unreasonable
Stuttering                             
Selective Mute                          
Dissociation      

When children are traumatised from a young age they can develop Acquired Brain Injury (injury to brain function). Children who are traumatised may find school difficult to manage and the trauma may lead to some of the following impairments and distortions:

• Speech, language and processing disorders
• Learning difficulties
• Distorted education narrative
• Emotional and behavioural difficulties
• Difficulties with social connectedness and integration

Research tells us that adversity prior to birth can lead to lasting developmental impairment and impaired brain function. Such adversity can also have an impact on the capacity of the child to benefit from the attachment process. Impairment can be caused by some of the following:

            Adverse genetic inheritance                                       Maternal exposure to illness

            Extreme deprivation                                                    Trauma

            Toxic substances, e.g. alcohol, drugs, radiation     Head injuries at birth

            Lack of oxygen at birth                                                Complications of prematurity

            Low birth weight

Alcohol is a neuro-toxin which adult brains can tolerate – baby brains cannot. Certain traumatised individuals have the capacity to turn off the pleasure parts of their brain and start to crave mind altering substances, e.g. alcohol, sugar, caffeine and nicotine – to name but a few. Some traumatised individuals show signs of other illnesses, e.g. migraines and headaches, breathing problems, aches and pains and avoidance techniques, e.g. not wanting to go to school.

Human brain development (the useful brain) develops after birth. Very few neuro-connections are there at birth but during the first year of life the brain mass doubles and the foundations are laid in the brainstem to begin to regulate our emotional life. In year one of the development of the baby brain, social interaction is the main influence. In year two those neuro-connections that have not been used and developed in babies first year of life “drop away” and the one that are left become coated in myelin, stay and become physical structures, e.g. fixed and firm in year two and we begin to integrate all the mass of sensory information our presents to us. From years one to four the foundations are laid to regulate our emotional life and from years two to six we begin to establish the foundations for the thinking cortex. It is now that we begin to be capable of abstract thought, cognition, meta-cognition, learning and learning how to learn.

If all goes well we have laid the foundations for development capacity of integrating our physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual development. Personality is not a given from birth. If all does not go well…… our brains can be depleted, damaged or injured so that the developing personality can be harmed. With help and support all is not lost and we are never beyond the reach of healing. Primitive patterning can be changed with time and patience of the caregiver, e.g. parent/carer, teacher, foster parent.

If a baby’s attachment needs are not met at birth and soon after, this can affect the structure of the developing brain. Symptoms for a child can be lack of self-regulation, e.g. temperature, intake of food, stress and processing disorders. Many high ability children have great difficulties with the processing of information, e.g. reading, writing, visual and auditory processing; some children with VPD/APD may have poor filters in areas like noise, light, crowds.

Babies are born completely helpless and to survive they must develop a bond between themselves and their main carer/s through scent, taste, touch, sound and the parental gaze checked constantly by the baby. To feel safe the baby must develop a deep sense of safety with their parent/carer in order to become less controlling and develop a healthy dependency.

Older children and young people with unmet needs may seek the attention of their parent/carers and be very controlling and/or very dependent. Children with unmet attachment needs may:

• Be unable to form core identity
• Be profoundly puzzled by relationships of every kind
• Lack any fundamental sense of safety
• Be very demanding of attention
• Be very controlling
• Be very dependent

Children with behaviour difficulties may be suffering from trauma driven by unmet primitive needs at birth – they are NOT naughty children.

Babies and young children require physical attunement with their parent/carer; babies and children need a network of main carer's and bonders in order to survive and develop into balanced adult individuals. They engage in an intimate dance of conversation from birth where their bodies and brains, feelings and thoughts begin to work in tune; this attunement patterns within the baby brain. Attunement provides the blueprint for all human interaction and stress regulation is the first pattern. Young babies cannot regulate stress and unregulated stress injures the brain. When a mother or carer is soothing a stressed baby as the carer’s heart rate, blood pressure and muscles calm, so the baby’s calm. Self-regulation of stress at birth is nil and children who do not have these needs met as babies may be unable to regulate stress. It is important to help children self-regulate.

Children suffering from trauma can be:

             Hyper-aroused                               OR                    Dissociative                  

             (Gifted/Over-excitable/ADHD)                                            (Gifted/hypersensitive/solitary/isolated)

Dissociation reduces pain and creates a coping mechanism for the survival of acutely traumatic situations.

Dissociation – a defense against overwhelming stress where the individual cuts themselves off from conscious awareness of their senses that makes use of the human capacity to split awareness.

Hyper-arousal – a disorder involving persistent deregulated stress.
Attunement – the process through which the infants carer, by mirroring and then leading change in the vitality and effect of the infant, enables the young child to develop regulation of stress, affect and impulse.

Extreme stress causes loss of blood to the brain and this incites rages. Traumatised children often find it difficult to self-regulate mood. Young children are subject to limbic storm rages when their brains are at an unstable point of development consequently they need their attuned carer to keep them safe, contain the rage and reintegrate them. When this happens the adults are role modelling self-regulation patterns and the young child learns:

• To manage aggression
• To manage destructiveness
• To manage anger

Limbic System – A group of linked structures in the brain centrally involved in emotion, memory and the processing of complex social and emotional information.

When children do not develop these skills they may find it hard to manage such behaviours. Add to this the stress and misunderstanding of being gifted and having to manage the traits, characteristics and behaviours associated with high ability and you can then, perhaps, understand the impact of trauma on a gifted and/or high ability child. Many of the processes for speaking our feelings can be knocked out of us by trauma. The child that stands blank when asked why they did or said something often really cannot remember why or what they said due to trauma and dissociation.

Children with positive attachment will generally respond: 
impulse – thought – action

Traumatised children will often respond:                             
impulse – ACTION – thought

This may account in many cases why gifted children tend to display what some professionals may consider negatives behaviours. When working with children how do we know what traumas they may have dealt with in their short personal lives (and may still be ongoing)? Add to this the traits and characteristics of giftedness (which many professionals do not recognise or understand) and it may begin to come clearer as to the levels of trauma in some children within our schools.

Being gifted, or having gifted characteristics that are not understood, can, and will, cause trauma in children which can lead to (or exacerbate) unwanted behaviours. Children who have unmet attachment needs from birth and who are gifted will have double the dose of difficulties. When working with children we need to be aware of these concerns and difficulties in order to have empathy, compassion and understanding of what is required to endeavour to support, help and heal and traumatised child.

Recovery is not quick, but traumatised children can learn to think differently and have healthy happy lives. The traumatised child will need to be surrounded by a secure team of adults who understand and are able to work with the child; a multi-disciplinary team. Trauma disrupts cognitive functioning and some children can think it is their fault, they can try to stop themselves recovering because we do not know how or who we will be once we recover and this can be extremely scary. Trauma can take over our identity and being gifted may be one of the triggers for trauma. Trauma can stop articulation as it turns off the part of the brain that enables us to articulate our feelings. Intelligent individuals can’t articulate under severe trauma or stress.

You will find that traumatised children/individuals tend to stick together because their internal physiology matches and mirrors each other – like minded. Just like gifted individuals understand each other and stick together so do traumatised.

Carers, teachers and professionals living and working with traumatised children are likely to suffer from Secondary Trauma which is where it becomes very stressful for the caregiver or teacher to be in the company or around the traumatised child; they may be unable to continue to enter the emotional space of the traumatised child and begin to share the child’s avoidance. They too will begin to show the following symptoms:

Anger                           
Tearfulness                  
Fearfulness                   
Changes in health

Eating disorders            

Excessive drinking

Substance abuse         

Illness                          

Jumpiness

Anxiety                                

Nightmares                       

Hyper-vigilance             

Change in sleep patterns

Depressions

Those working with traumatised children are the ones most likely to suffer from Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD). The three key preventative factors are training, support and regular supervision.

Traumatised children need:

1.             Help to develop trust - Affective attunement – soothing, stimulation, trust

      2.             Responsibility - Re-integrative shame – impulse, choice, responsibility
      3.             Self-control - Sociability – self-control, reflection, reciprocity

Appropriate treatment for trauma:

1.             stabilization – safety, explanations, words for feelings

      2.             Integration – physiological, emotional, cognitive
      3.             Adaptation – social connectedness, self-esteem, joy

 Working with traumatised children:

1.                Safety  – soothing hyper-aroused children

      2.             Engaging – stimulating interest and teaching about trauma
      3.             Trust & feelings – learning connectedness
      4.             Managing self – regulating impulse and the body
      5.             Managing feelings – choices and emotional processing
      6.             Taking responsibility – making sense of the world we share
      7.             Developing social awareness – learning self-control
      8.             Developing reflectivity – promoting self esteem
      9.             Developing reciprocity – learning that life can be joyful

You have brains in your head

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose

You're on your own

And you know what you know

And you are the child who will decide where to go

Dr Seuss

They say I am Autistic

I like to bounce because I like the way it feels; I like the rhythm and sensorial feeling it gives me. I also like to bounce when I am happy and I like to feel the wind and air as I flap my hands and arms. People ask me not to flap which I do not understand; they don’t seem to understand how good it feels to me or why I need to do it. Why do they not flap, spin and circle?

I also like to circle open spaces, going round and round and round and round. This is another action that feels good and I like the giddiness I feel and the way the room spins and how items whiz past my eyes and brain. People do not seem to understand that this is a calming effect for me or sometimes exciting, again they ask me to walk but they do not understand that most of the time I cannot.

I like to suck on white tac, in fact any kind of putty or tac including play dough. The texture in my mouth is wonderful to me and chewing gum has the same effect. I steal my mum’s chewing gum because I cannot get enough of it and she gets upset with me. She asks me not to swallow it and tries to retrieve it from my mouth which I do not like and it annoys me. This is when I like to scream. I also like to eat mud, worms in fact anything feels good to explore in my mouth. I like to check things out with my mouth. This helps me to understand the world around me in a way that no one else seems to understand. I do not understand that they do not understand. Strangely I do not like squidgy foods only dry crispy ones. I cant explain that either and nor should I have to, we are all different aren't we. All of us unique.

Screaming is a quick and intense way of making the world understand my feelings. They certainly stop and listen when I scream. I also make noises to get another person’s attention or to ask for something. I growl when I do not like something, this usually ensures my peers move away from me. My peers seem to understand my noises even if some adults do not. My words come differently and not like theirs, noises work better for me.

I like rhyming and copying sentences from others though; I like certain rhythms of words and sentences and certain intonations. I only like some words and some sentences and some intonations. Not all words make me happy.  I like to copy adults and find it amusing to repeat what they say over and over and over. I like to listen to music and I usually stand very still and listen hard which is unusual for me. The adults are often surprised I can stand so still. I love nursery rhymes because they rhyme and have a rhythm, it’s obvious isn’t it?

Numbers make me happy. I like to match numbers, line them up, walk on them; my world is one big code. Everything I see and hear has a number code allotted to it in my brain. I do not like anyone to take my numbers, move them or share them. They may spoil them or I may not get them back. It scares me when someone touches or takes my numbers; this is when I might scream again or I move away. I recognize numbers everywhere in the world and repeat them out loud when I see them.

I like anything that flashes, lights up, makes noises or spins. My favourite toys are my number V-tech, my spinning top, my noisy microphone, flashing ball and my iPad. All these items can make me calm when using them or excited. When I get excited about using them I like to bounce, flap and spin because that is how I express my excitement and as I have said before I love that spinning dizzy feeling. It makes me sad when they take my flashing noisy toys away because I am intense with them. This is another time that I scream but also cry because I have no idea why they are taken from me and when I will see them again. They hide the toys from me and I find this distressing because I may never see these toys ever again. I feel anxious that they disappear. I like anything that spins or flashes like the washing machine or an electric fan; I can sit and watch for great lengths of time. The flash of a camera stimulates me and I enjoy the photographer when she comes to school – not for the photos but for all the flashes, lights and equipment.

I tend to operate best with structure and routine and I like to do the same things each day. When routines change I seem to twirl, flap and spin more than usual. Changes seem to upset my equilibrium and brain and I find I do not know where I am and feel lost. On these days I seem to be less well understood by anyone and find the adults around me are just as confused as me which only makes me more stressed and confused.

I love water and messy play. I can spend a long time in the bathroom washing my hands, running the water and watching it swirl down the plug hole and listening to the sound of the running water. It is very soothing and pleasing to my ears and brain. Reflections fascinate me also and I love to look at my reflection in the taps, windows and mirrors. Reflections in windows are very distracting for me and I like to stop and watch but my adults tend to move me on, they are always in a hurry for something I do not want to do or understand. Often, when they try to make me move on, I lie on the floor and go all floppy and that gives me a bit longer with my special pastimes and obsessions. They find it hard to move me when I am floppy and I can enjoy whatever pleasure I am experiencing a little longer. I can be very clever and manipulative, you know!

I enjoy playing with anything messy like corn flour, paint, food play and mud so long as I can put my hands in and move and squish it about. I can spend great lengths of time doing this activity; it feels great and the messier I get the better. I often cover myself from head to toe in messy play. No one seems to mind this which is great and I do not get moved away for a long time. I never want this activity to end. It's one of the things I like very much. Squishing between my fingers feels very good, you see they say I am hypersensitive.

I love technology and am very competent with it. I can become obsessed with technology and refuse to stop using my toys by using my loudest noises. My noises are very expressive. I do not understand why I have to stop doing something I enjoy in order to do something I have no interest in. Technology can over stimulate me and then I cannot wind down or sleep so I cannot use my technology close to my bedtime as I might keep my family awake all night.

I find it difficult to sit down or sit still; I need to move so eating times are challenging for me. I am not that interested in food really. Any quiet time or sitting time is a huge challenge and makes me stressed and I need to circle the room, bounce and flap. The only things I can sit at are puzzles and books but they have to be special books that I love and am obsessed with in order to hold my attention. Generally the Gruffalo book and puzzle work best for me. I am very good at puzzles and can do extremely difficult puzzles for my age very quickly , so my adults say. I do not want anyone to touch them and I certainly do not want to share. Someone might damage or spoil my puzzle or take the pieces and this would upset me after I have worked so hard to complete the puzzle. I like the patterns of puzzles and these patterns become codes too. I can do puzzles without the picture as I see the pattern and not the picture. I also like any puzzle or book with numbers in and can spend a long time counting the numbers.

I don’t really have any special friends I just play alongside everyone. Everyone is my friend. They all seem ok with that. They get on with their day and I do mine. Everyone is kind to me except when they take my special toys but generally the teacher will help me out. The teachers seem to keep a close eye on me and make sure I am safe and happy. You see I have no fear of anything; the world is a fascinating place to be explored and I love to explore everything. I just do it differently to you.

A boy called Jay

What a beautiful boy, he looked like the male version of the Pears Soap advert little girl. Blonde curls, lily white skin, sea blue eyes and a smile to die for. Tall for his age and gangly, he was often awkward in movement and space. He was happy, spritely, bouncy and eager to learn craving more and more knowledge. He was cuddly in a non-cuddly fashion but his eyes, when you could catch them, spoke a million words. You see (pardon the pun) my beautiful Jay at age two and a half had no language but when you were lucky enough to engage eye contact he spoke a million times over beautifully to you. He could be funny and cheeky and he and I had an understanding like no other. What an honour to work, teach and care for this beautiful boy.

I had never heard him speak a recognisable word for several years but he made noises all the time; grunts, squeals and groans, growls and hysterical laughter. In his own way he understood (and found the world funnier) than we gave him credit for. He could make himself understood at all times and knew exactly what he wanted and I understood every grunt and growl. He was very good at a meltdown too if he couldn’t get his own way; make himself understood or didn’t want to comply. Throwing himself on the floor and becoming a floppy mess he could lie there forever or until a new puzzle was offered to him. I could observe him for hours; he was one of the most fascinating and beautiful specimens of the human race I had ever encountered.

At two years he was stubborn and feisty; determined and persistent. He played alone, didn’t acknowledge his peers and could concentrate for great lengths of time on a topic or resource of high interest. He loved numbers, trains, puzzles, science and patterns. He disliked craft and creative projects, messy and outside play. Trains with numbers were like chocolate to him. By the time he was four he could do sixty to one hundred piece puzzles with no picture, upside down and back to front. I will never forget the day he took a puzzle box with three different puzzles inside (all mixed up) and without the pictures and in no particular order that made any sense to me (or anyone else) he sorted the pieces for the most difficult within a few minutes by throwing over his shoulder the pieces he had no use for! He then proceeded to complete the puzzle (with no picture) and with the pieces the wrong way up. He seemed to be able to complete puzzles by shape and pattern, it was astounding and a miracle to watch.

Always in his head and his world he amused himself very well and happily with his high interest toys and cruising the room searching out numbers on a daily basis. He would line up toys with numbers in order, all around the room and was very unhappy if you moved a number out of sequence. He could count to in sequence to infinity before the age of three. He recognised every number in the world around him (in and out of order) and could add and subtract very large number patterns. James was an enigma at age four.

At four years he began to speak in extremely adult language and using mathematical and scientific words, although he used short sharp sentences. When asking for his milk at snack time he would ask by the literage that appeared on the four pint semi skimmed bottle, for example, 2.272 litres. Everything in his world represented a number; he spoke of no one by name. Everything and everyone was a number in his world. The staff were given numbers as names; I was number six? The only acceptable books for our Jay were books with numbers included in the pictures and story line, which he would read (and repeat) over and over; Jay was fascinated and obsessed with rhyming and language. He taught himself to read at a very early age and could read and recognise complex words without understanding the meaning of them. There is condition called Hyperlexia which is where a child has an intense fascination for letters or numbers and the ability to read far beyond their age but has a below average understanding of the spoken word and interacting and socialising. Jay loved numbers and scientific words especially but at times I don't believe he understood what he was discussing.

Jay was the third child of a family of four children, very much loved and very much understood by his highly intelligent parents. The eldest daughter also had a diagnosis of high functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder, passed the 11+ and was on the gifted programme at the local grammar school and top of the class. Jay also received a diagnosis of high functioning ASD and a statement of educational needs to follow him to reception and assist him through his primary education and beyond if necessary.

Jay would be eight or nine now; I often wonder how and where this beautiful able boy is today?

Jay was twice exceptional – Gifted with ASD - some children have a learning disability alongside their giftedness or high ability, which adds another dimension, difficulty and frustration.  It is important to see the whole child and the two individual learning needs; it is important to not let the disability get in the way of the high ability of any child and vice versa.  Many learning difficulties do not interfere with intellect.

The Ferrel Child

During my teaching life I have worked with, and helped, some very sad cases in many wild and remote parts of the world. It's always challenging and heart wrenching to be a prominent integral piece of the jigsaw of a very young child's sad story; but when you work hard and with passion, as part of a team, and actually make a difference and change something so very negative into a positive it makes the difficult periods in life worth the fight. I have often quietly told myself “I have seen most things” but then some other horrendous situation pops out the woodwork and I am faced with a new and daunting challenge that takes me on another difficult journey with a small innocent child.

This little boy, who I will refer to as Jon, arrived in my nursery school aged two years, still in nappies. Jon spoke well for his age and appeared a clever capable little boy. At nursery he seemed happy enough although I noticed he was a slight loner. He still parallel played alongside his friends and he liked spending time with his adult carers engaging in pleasing conversation and chit chat. He attempted to participate in all activities with great enthusiasm and often struggled to end an activity and move onto the next task. He often became so fully engrossed in an activity he was “lost” in his own little world. I remember thinking on many occasions that it was obvious he had never experienced most of the play and craft activities offered to him.

I noticed that Jon came to nursery, each day, in grubby clothes and often wore the same clothes all week. Sadly, it was reported to me that he was rather smelly and unclean and consequently I asked the staff to change him into clean clothes as often as necessary and give him a wipe down to freshen him up. Sensitively and tactfully (and on many occasions) I mentioned this to his mummy, but nothing really changed. Still he came to play in a rather unkempt, grubby and smelly condition.

It was also very quickly noticed that Jon was always hungry and very thirsty. He would “woof” down his snacks, lunch and tea and was always the first to ask for seconds and he never seemed to be full; he wanted to eat and eat, as if he just couldn't get enough. The same was noticed with drinks; he was thirsty all day, every day, and would gulp down his drink and immediately ask for more. I began to realise that maybe he was scared that if he didn’t fill up at nursery he would go hungry at home until he returned the next time to nursery. Again, very sensitively and tactfully, I had a difficult conversation with his mummy and I decided to begin to keep a confidential diary of events.

Jon's mummy showed no concerns, she said he was same at home and was "just a greedy child". His mummy commented that “she tried to restrict his food and drink intake at home” and that we should do the same at nursery. She said he was always hungry and had an antisocial relationship with food. I very quickly advised her that I could not withhold food and drink; it was against the law and if Jon was hungry and thirsty we would be sating him adequately while in our care. Disturbingly, we had even seen him scrabbling to eat food off the floor. When we asked him not to do this, he would take the food and run off and hide. I learnt from other professionals that once a teacher got close to mum she did not stay in the setting for long. As soon as you got close (or wise) she made her excuses and moved Jon to a new nursery setting, hoping to blend into the background and remain off the radar. I knew I needed to move quickly and wisely. I knew I had a difficult task ahead of me. I also knew I had a duty of care.

Within twenty four hours, Jon made my next move easier; he made the decision for me. Unbelievably I found him lapping water from the children’s miniature stalls. Down on his knees, bending over the “little” toilets in the miniature stalls, Jon was lapping like a dog. Distressed and shocked, I gathered him in my arms, took him to one side and asked him to try to tell me what he was doing and why. He told me, in his own words, clearly and succinctly, that "this is what I do at home". I asked him to try to explain why, he replied "mummy doesn't allow me to eat or drink". I was horrified and I immediately referred.

Jon was taken into foster care and later adopted, joined a Preschool and, I am pleased to tell you, thrived.

Sadly, Jon's birth mother showed no remorse or conscience and went on to have another child with another partner. There was much more depth to this story but I am sure you get the picture. My duty of care was to Jon. For him to be deprived of food and water, strapped in a high chair all day in order for a mother to continue her substance abuse and not have to bother to take care of her precious baby was completely unacceptable and abusive. To see him acting like a feral child was heartbreaking and I had to act and act quickly before she moved her family on again, got lost in the system and Jon possibly became a statistic.

As you can imagine, sweet tea served in my Royal Doulton rose encrusted fine bone china mug was a welcome interlude while dealing with this distressing scenario.

Thank God this child was saved.

The characters in this story have been anonymised and names changed to protect identification and respect confidentiality.