Hohoho

[Rachiegarlo]

While sitting in the qantas club lounge down at the airport this morning eating my breakfast and perusing the Advertiser's offerings for today, a small piece of vital info caught my attention. Read it out to my son who also laughed at this silliness.

 

Basicly some council in Watford ( yes that is in the UK) has banned parents from accompanying their offspring into local playparks unless they can show a clear CRB and employ a playpark ranger to supervise the kids while the parents look on from over the fence.

 

It went on to state that they are following their duty of care as how are they to know whether those adults are paedophiles.......

 

Seem to remember a park bench constantly being removed from the playground in the park near us in London due to complaints about elderly men sitting there watching the kids play. If anyone had actually bothered to talk to them they would have discovered that they missed their grandkids and just liked to watch the kids play!!! Of course caution has to be shown, but if the kids have no sense then they need to be accompanied by a parenbt or other guardian responsible.

[Guest steph&neil]

that proves it - the worlds gone mad & people get paid to make up these ridiculous rules??? I would like to know what they are thinking, then again.................I prob still wouldn't understand the craziness of their logic (if you can call it that???) x

[Riponian]

truely mad... so glad that we are not living with that silliness and the aussies are not like that yet!

[Guest Lulujim]

Another example of why I'm so pleased we've moved here - hope Oz never gets as silly as that

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

that proves it - the worlds gone mad & people get paid to make up these ridiculous rules??? I would like to know what they are thinking, then again.................I prob still wouldn't understand the craziness of their logic (if you can call it that???) x

 

Not the world mate just the UK....

 

PS we better watch this thread closely i can envisage it getting out of hand....due to Rach quoting summat about the UK......

 

HG

[Guest the4hopes]

Another example of why I'm so pleased we've moved here - hope Oz never gets as silly as that

 

Here here!

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

Here here!

 

We have our kids sports day 2moro, and we are allowed to cheers them on and take our cameras.

 

 

The kids have even made banners, and all that jazz.......looking forward to it !!!!

 

 

HG

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

Does this mean that parents will have to employ a CRB checked person to take your kids to school in the future, as the schools dnt want to risk any paedos mixing with the school kids.

 

Crazy.....

[Guest BAZnDAF]

Can only imagine how crazy things will be in a hundred years time!

 

Soon we won't even be able to think for ourselves!

[jim and adel]

Seems like this is being reported out of context (what, in the Advertiser - surely not?) It isn't all playgrounds in the council area that are affected but two drop off playgrounds. The purpose of these is for parents to leave their children in a supervised environment.

 

In explaining the decision, the Mayor of Watford, Dorothy Thornhill, wrote on her blog:

 

 

'When a council fails to safeguard children they are, quite rightly pilloried in every newspaper. Yet, when we take a positive decision to safeguard children, by ensuring that all children left at a supervised play session are only left under the care of qualified CRB checked and legit staff, we get hounded for it! ... The bottom line is we run two great adventure playground facilities that operate as a drop off for parents after school and at weekends. We have done this for years, no worries, parents happy and appreciative. At one playground a few parents started to stay around for all the sessions, this increased to the extent that staff felt they were spending more time worrying about what the parents were up to rather than watching and supervising the children! They should not have been allowed to stay that’s never been the policy, so yes we were lax in allowing it and have now decided to tighten up.

 

'Imagine what those same papers would say if a child was snatched from the playground and we were accused of allowing free access of adults onto our site. Or worse still one of those adults was using it to acquire knowledge of and groom other children - yes sadly it happens we all know that. Again, we would rightly be pilloried . Those same parents don’t stay at school with their kids nor would any one expect them too. If parents want to play with their kids great there are loads of parks and places to go – we’ve got over 40 in Watford along with children’s centres and community centres; but our adventure playgrounds are supervised drop off schemes, where the only adults are our staff who will care for and look after your kids while you do something else. Bliss and oh and it’s free….. As a society we really can’t have it both ways.'

 

The decision the council has taken might or might not be the right one, but to me it doesn't seem like something to get overly critical about.

 

Jim

[Guest guest3462]

Well after reading Jim's post i'd really like for someone to set one up near the collonades please!!!! Child free shopping while they have a blast at an adventure pplayground and being well looked after by responsible adults! What more could a girl want~?