On seeing my daughter in her wedding dress

Two days ago I walked into our lounge to see my beautiful daughter, Esther, standing in her newly-bought wedding dress. Radiant.

And I had to leave the room.

Overcome by crushing emotions.

Does every father go through this intense turmoil? What a mix of feelings: pride; incredible joy; hope; fears; love; nostalgia; wonder; sadness; love. Above all, love.

I thought back to that moment, 23 years ago, when I had helped ease her into this world; to the many times I had sat with her on my knees, gazing into her eyes, or holding her close in a loving cuddle.

But that, my dear Esther, was nothing compared to the wonder of your birth: to help ease you out into the world, watch you fill your lungs and let out your first cry, cut the cord that had kept you alive those nine months, and pass you up to your mum, knowing that you were my daughter. Growing up to be a child, p3

I pondered in wonder how I had watched her grow and develop: taking her first hesitant steps; learning to use her hands; chattering away in beautiful baby babble; giggling in delight at games of peek-a-boo and round and round the garden.

And now, my little child, no longer a child, stood before me, resplendent. A stunning, grown woman, soon to be a bride.

She could have been her mother. Twenty eight years ago Helen, unseen by me, had tried on her wedding dress and no doubt brought tears to her father’s eyes. Perhaps Helen, too, in a greater light, is joining her heart with mine: filled with hopes for our daughter’s future; knowing that it is her journey now, with Rob; that it will have its share of joy and pain, laughter and tears; trusting that they will learn to love and cherish each other even more as the years go by; and blessing them with our undying love.

Six months from now I will walk down an aisle, my beautiful daughter on my arm. And once more my heart will be torn: filled with that incredible jumble of emotions, and that painful privilege which is to be a father.

March 26, 2016March 26, 2016

Easter Weekend: Holding Hope along with Anger

Just days after writing my two ‘angry’ blogs (SIDS, restorative justice and big tobacco: why I’m feeling angry; and George Osborne’s budget: more reasons to be angry), Europe was racked by another terrorist attack, this time in Brussels. Violence continues to shake our streets. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, innocent women, children and men continue to flee from their homes in terror, and risk their lives in desperate bids for freedom. And, closer to home, it seems to me, as I walk through the streets of Coventry, that the number of homeless young men is once again increasing.

The inequalities, the injustice, the violence, hatred and greed seem to continue unabated.

And yet, in this same week, we saw David Cameron’s government do a U-turn on cutting disability benefits; a WHO report highlighted that the proportion of British 15 year olds who reported having their first cigarette at age 13 fell from 24% to 17% from 2009-2010 to 2013-2014; and the House of Lords voted to amend the immigration bill in order to require the government to allow 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees into our country.

In spite of the darkness, there is always reason to hope.

Good Friday

Yesterday, I sat in silence and tears for our Good Friday service; angry still at the injustice of our world.

Like many other good men and women, Jesus was assassinated because he dared to confront the unjust powers of his day. He walked the road of non-violent confrontation, and it cost him his life. Others, too have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for speaking out for justice and peace: one only has to think of people such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Oscar Romero, or Aung San Suu Kyi.

When I wake tomorrow, 2,000 years after Jesus gave his life, the injustice will still be there. So, too, will the terror, hatred, greed, violence, and the untold suffering of millions around our world.

So I will still be angry.

But I will also carry with me a ray of hope.

Easter Day

If (and I accept that for many this is a huge ‘if’) Jesus truly did rise from the dead as the gospels tell us, then there really is hope. The resurrection of Jesus boldly proclaims that violence, suffering, injustice and greed do not have the last word. That ultimately death itself is defeated and has no power.

So I will hold onto my anger, believing that this world should be different. And I will hold onto hope, believing that this world will one day be different. And I will celebrate the gift of love that is stronger than death.

March 20, 2016

George Osborne’s Budget: more reasons to be angry

A report from the Resolution Foundation has estimated that the UK Chancellor’s raising of the higher rate income tax threshold in this year’s budget will boost incomes for higher rate taxpayers by £200 per year.

At the same time, his increase in the personal tax allowance will raise incomes for basic rate taxpayers by just £60 per year.

When you look at the changes by distribution of household income, these inequalities are even more stark, with the poorest 10% of UK households receiving less than £10 per year extra, while the richest 10% (myself included) will receive an average of around £270 per year extra.

Distributional impact of income tax threshold changes in April 2017

But it gets worse.

When you take into account other changes to benefits and taxes, the Resolution Foundation calculate that by 2020-21, households in the bottom half of the income distribution will be £375 worse off, while those in the top half will be £235 better off.

How can this be right?

Having had a few days now to reflect on this budget, I am appalled by the preferential treatment of the rich:

As a high earner with a secure job, I will gain by an extra £2,615 of my salary being taxed at a lower rate;
As someone who can afford to save, I could invest in shares and pay less tax when I sell those shares for a profit;
I could give up to £4,000 per year to each of my children to put into a new lifetime ISA, to which the government will add £1 of tax payers’ money to every £4 they save;
When Esther and Joe move away from home later this year, we could rent out the extra rooms through AirBnB and earn up to £1,000 per year tax-free.

Meanwhile, the chancellor has announced that he will cut £4.4 billion from benefits for disabled people. Apparently this means that 200,000 disabled people who are dependent on personal independence payments for help in personal care will lose out on these benefits, while a further 400,000 will see them cut.

If the health of our nation is measured, even in part, by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable of our neighbours, it seems to me that we are sadly lacking at present.

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5:24

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016

SIDS, restorative justice and big tobacco: why I’m feeling angry

The other day I visited a couple whose baby had recently died suddenly and unexpectedly. This family stood out as unusual in that neither parent smoked. The vast majority of bereaved parents whom I have visited over the past years have been smokers, and it seems clear to me that this is one of the biggest modifiable risk factors for SIDS.

In our South West study of sudden infant death in 2003-6, we found that 59% of mothers of SIDS infants had smoked during pregnancy, compared to just 14% of mothers whose babies had not died, equating to a 13-fold increase in risk[1].

And this makes me angry.

Not at the mothers or fathers who expose their babies to such risks, but at the callous greed and indifference of those who continue to produce and market the cigarettes that are killing these babies.

Over the past few months, Lois and I have had the privilege of visiting a local family assessment unit as lay chaplains. The families placed here for assessment come from a range of backgrounds, but all have been treated harshly by life, and the odds seem stacked against them and their babies. Every Saturday night many of these parents come to the chapel with their babies for a bit of space: away from the constant scrutiny and surveillance. Here in this sacred space they can be themselves. We have a laugh together, share some of Lois’ home baking, and join in a simple liturgy of reflection. Many of them ask us to pray a simple prayer of blessing over their baby: they, like all parents, long for their babies to have a better life.

After our time together, almost without exception, these parents congregate outside the chapel, with their babies, in the outdoor smoking shelter. We sometimes stop and chat a bit longer before heading off. And I feel angry. There in that shelter, these parents are slowly poisoning themselves and their babies.

But the parents themselves are victims: victims of the aggressive marketing of the cigarette companies that got them addicted in the first place; victims of a society that alienates and marginalises them; victims of their background and culture that leaves them feeling powerless to change, so that often the only solace they can find is in that little fix of nicotine and tobacco.

And meanwhile, the tobacco companies continue to produce their poison.

In 2012, 5,800,000,000,000 cigarettes were smoked globally.[2]

The WHO estimates that one person dies from tobacco every 6 seconds; 10% of these as a result of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

Meanwhile, the tobacco giants continue to rake in their profits. Jonathan Gornall, writing in the BMJ, cited operating profits of 9.2 billion pounds for Philip Morris International, and £6.1 billion for British American Tobacco.

When I sit down with a parent whose baby has recently died and they ask me that deep, deep question, ‘Why?’ I am sometimes tempted to cry out in pain, ‘Because of the greed and indifference of the chief executives, the board members and the shareholders of the big tobacco companies who have made you and your baby victims! Don’t ask me why your baby died, go and ask them.’

But surely those people, too, must have a heart, somewhere, that beats?

Is it too much to hope that somehow those hearts could be changed?

In his book The Book of Forgiving, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with his daughter, Mpho, reflect on their painful experiences through their lives in South Africa, and particularly the Archbishop’s involvement in the Truth and Reconciliation commission. Back in the 1980s it seemed impossible to hope that the perpetrators of apartheid and the unjust systems of that country could ever change. And yet, they have found that through the hard, long road of restorative justice, people have changed; truth has come to light; and reconciliation has occurred.

Do I dare to dream of the possibility that just one of these CEOs, or a board member of one of the tobacco companies could one day accompany me as I visit a bereaved family; that they, too, could hear their story; and maybe, just maybe, a glimmer of compassion could be awakened in their heart?

[1] Blair, P. S., et al. (2009). “Hazardous cosleeping environments and risk factors amenable to change: case-control study of SIDS in south west England.” BMJ 339: b3666.

[2] Gornall, J. (2015) Slaying the Dragon: how the tobacco industry refuses to die. BMJ 2015;350:h2052

March 13, 2016May 31, 2016

Safer Sleep Week

Safer Sleep Week, from 14-20 March, is The Lullaby Trust’s national awareness campaign aiming to raise awareness of the importance of safer sleep and how to reduce the chance of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

In the early 1990s the UK, along with many other countries, saw a dramatic reduction in the number of babies dying as SIDS. In the 1980s over 1,000 babies in England and Wales died suddenly and unexpectedly each year. Following the Back to Sleep and other campaigns, this figure dropped by 2/3, and has continued to fall since. Nevertheless, every year over 200 families lose a baby in this way.

SIDS Incidence, England & Wales, 1985-2011

Over the past 15 years I have met and spent time with lots of families whose babies have died suddenly and unexpectedly. Every single one is heart-breaking: to sit with parents whose baby has just died, to feel their anguish, and to hold their big questions, knowing that there are no easy answers, and nothing I can do to take away the pain.

And yet, perhaps the most heart-breaking thing of all is that so many of these deaths could be prevented. We may not know the causes of SIDS, but we do know very clearly how to prevent it.

The messages are really very simple:

So please, share this blog, get the messages out, and maybe you might help to save a baby’s life.

You can get more information, support and resources on the Lullaby Trust website: http://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/LThome

March 3, 2016

The shifting culture of child protection

The year 2016 marks the 25^th anniversary of Child Abuse Review and I am pleased to announce that our first issue of the anniversary volume is now freely available online. The issue contains five stimulating original articles along with two training updates, two book reviews, and our accompanying editorial.

The primary paper to launch this anniversary volume is Nigel Parton’s review of the contemporary politics of child protection, based on his Founder’s lecture at the 2015 BASPCAN congress in Edinburgh. Parton provides a wide-ranging review of the issues facing child protection in the UK today and his paper is well worth reading.

Over the past 25 years a lot has changed in the child protection field.

Parton argues that the child protection systems introduced through the Children Act 1989 were in response to a number of high-profile cases of physical and sexual child abuse within the family, and that this created a tension between professionals intervening ‘too little and too late’ or conversely, ‘too early and too much’.

‘The Children Act 1989 was thus centrally concerned with trying to establish a new set of balances between the state and the family in the care and protection of children. I argued (Parton, 1992) that the idea of child protection at that time, in the early 1990s, was essentially concerned with both the protection of children from ‘significant harm’ in the family and also the protection of the family from unwarrantable and inappropriate state interventions. Crucially the focus of law, policy and practice was how we could best address the abuse of children within the family and the primary concerns were physical and sexual abuse.’

Over the past two decades, however, the nature of child protection has changed, and reflects broader shifts in our culture. The recognition of both physical and sexual abuse within a variety of institutions and community settings, along with research highlighting the long-term impact of chronic abuse and neglect, has led to a broadening and an increasing complexity of what now constitutes child protection or safeguarding:

An increasing focus on the full range of the life-course from pre-birth to young adulthood, particularly as the dangers of child neglect in the early months of life and its impact on the brain and child development have received considerable attention;
The recognition that young people themselves, as well as adults, can perpetrate abuse;
The growth of new dangers including those related to the internet and a range of forms of social media and, most recently, the dangers of ‘radicalisation’;
The identification of new forms of abuse which include female genital mutilation, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation.

Within this context, child welfare professionals across the country work incredibly hard to support families and protect children. In the research I am currently working on for the Department of Education, we have identified a year-on-year increase in child protection activity, but in spite of this, no change in the number of deaths directly caused by maltreatment, and, if anything, a reduction in fatality rates in all but the late adolescent group.

During the years 2011-14, a total of 1,856,400 referrals were received by children’s social care services in England, an average of 619,000 per year.

However, in contrast to this recognition of the extremely good and sensitive work being done by professionals, Parton argues that ‘debates about child protection have become increasingly emotionally charged and politicised’ with what he calls ‘a politicised narrative of blame and failure’. Rather than being seen as motivated professionals who are committed to working for children’s safety and well-being, child protection workers are blamed both for failing to protect children and for disrupting families.

In a complex world in which children grow and thrive, are abused, exploited and neglected, have fun and participate, laugh, play, cry and cower in fear, we need to challenge this culture of blame and failure, and instead work to support children and families, and the professionals who work with them every day. We need to move to a narrative of ‘progress and hope’, celebrating all that has been achieved in supporting children’s rights, and taking those opportunities to learn and improve.

I’d encourage you to take a look at Nigel Parton’s paper and the other papers in this special anniversary edition of Child Abuse Review.

Child Abuse Review, Volume 25, Issue 1: Contents

Jane V Appleton & Peter Sidebotham. 25 Years of Supporting Professionals in Safeguarding Children (pages 3–8)

In the footsteps of Finn MacCool

It is February the 14^th and I have fallen in love – with the Antrim Coast.

With its wild Gaelic beauty, its depths of a history in which men and women pitted themselves against the forces of nature to eke a living out of the cliffs and sea, and its thin places where ancient Celts, with heightened intuition, sensed a deeper presence of the divine – this is a land where time and eternity dwell.

It being a fine, sunny day, we decided to take the long way round to the Giant’s Causeway, following the advice of my good friend, Colin.

Starting out at Dunseverick Castle, thermal-layered against the winter wind, we set off to walk the five miles that would bring us to this incredible site. The last vestiges of the gatehouse are all that remain of this once-proud castle, a salutary reminder of greater, harsher days.

The coastal path stretched out before us, climbing gently to each new headland, so to open up ever new vistas of towering cliffs, secluded bays and gambolling rocks. The occasional seagull gliding carefree, uplifted on the rising breeze.

The earth was soft and firm under our feet, the springy turf belying the steadfast basalt beneath. Above us the sun’s fire gently warmed us, taking the chill out of the otherwise biting wind which urged us ever Westward to our goal. Far below, the treacherous rocks tumbled out to sea, the crashing waves which once – and not so long ago – had furiously raged, now seemed almost tender in their bathing. These four elements which can so cruelly challenge humankind, today seemed set to bless us, holding us in the palm of God’s hand.

And we were blessed.

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Across the Eastern reaches of the Atlantic, the cliffs and mountains of Islay and the Western Isles created for us a stunning panorama, basking in sunlight under clear blue skies. And all this beauty, just for us. We met just one solitary walker, striding bravely into the wind, and otherwise the route was ours, to share with heavy-wooled sheep who balanced precariously on cliff-edge paths. In one isolated bay a carefully restored bothy spoke of a time when men, too, were perhaps as hardy, braving all weathers to fetch their catches of salmon.

And so we came at last to our final descent, 162 steps down to Fionn mac Cumhail’s bay. To join our fellow human beings and wonder at this marvel, pieced together some 50 million years ago.

Just a handful had climbed those steps, or ventured part-way along our path. This place held mystery and beauty of its own, and on this day, St Valentine’s call held love-struck couples in timeless portraits on these geological pillars, while children climbed and jumped and laughed.

And we –

we took the road less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

February 8, 2016February 8, 2016

A Sacred Gaze

encountering Jesus through art

in Lent or in Ordinary weeks

This series of eight meditations draws on the art of Sieger Köder, selections from Psalm 107, and passages from the gospel as aids to being open to God, encountering God’s presence and love, and reflecting on personal and global issues.

The meditations can be used through Lent, Holy Week, and the week after Easter, but can also be used at other times throughout the year, as a series, or as individual meditations.

Each meditation is ‘located’ in a particular time of day, but can be used at whatever time works best for you.

It is our prayer that you will find them a helpful source of inspiration, comfort and challenge.

Author: Peter Sidebotham