Telford

I'm in Telford on a Safeguarding Instructor's training course. To be fair I could be in any whitewashed office complex in any bland nowhere in the northern hemisphere. But Google tells me I'm in Telford. I can't pass comment having both arrived and left in the dark through a system of roundabouts and bypasses so ubiquitous that any sense of identity or place has been erased. I'm sure it's very nice really.

This is however a course that is important to me and close to both my heart and my past. But I have to say its been a tough day.

We've discussed at length, and in a level of detail that's been hard to want to look deeply into, the evolution of child protection. To see problems first identified in the 40's repeated decade after decade after decade, lessons not learnt and worse ignored, to see how slowly we've chosen to peek behind the curtains, it's been hard. To see how repeatedly and easily we've sought to blame the individual rather than the system, to find a scapegoat rather than a solution, it's hard to fathom.
Many of the behaviours and patterns we've discussed have been painful reflections of my own childhood experiences. Ive never really been angry about my past, but today I've come to understand a little better how it could seem to not be seen, how easily a child can fall through gaps that shouldn't be there. It's been a day of both clenching teeth and giving thanks.

But, the purpose of being here has been to find ways to share the lessons we as a society have learned, and more importantly are continuing to learn. The modern world is often decried by halcyon fools but our ability to learn, to share knowledge, to disseminate best practice, it all means we have the opportunity to make tomorrow better and safer, to start to fill in those gaps. The advances technology offers in the sharing of information, the ability to work together, for accountability, it offers a way for us to shine a far brighter light into the dark places. Yes that means we'll see more that will be hard to bear, but that brighter light will also, hopefully, guide more souls out of the dark and show them that they are not alone.

And yes, dry January went right out of the window!