The BBC has reported that Donaldson’s School for Deaf children has produced an improvement plan after urgent concerns were expressed over how the school is being run, which led to half the governors at the school resigning last week.
Extract:
An improvement plan has been produced to deal with urgent concerns over how the national school for deaf children is being run.
Scottish government ministers gave Donaldson’s School in Linlithgow seven days to respond to concerns
The government says school managers have submitted their response and it is now being “carefully considered”.
A new principal was recently appointed and many of the school’s governors have resigned.
Meanwhile, police have been looking into claims that sexual offences may have been carried out at the school.
Donaldson’s is a grant-aided special school supported by the Scottish government.
Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30191746
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Linda Richards
November 26, 2014
Tragic. Absolutely tragic.
donaldo of the wasatch
November 26, 2014
And I ABSOLUTELY AGREE! That is why my central premise, as a pre lingual deaf adult, is that isolating from the “mainstream” is only a prescription for wider and deeper dysfunction. The Deaf must step out of the cocoon of silence and demonstrate the worth they have in the mainstream of society. It runs totally counter intuitive to what the Deaf Culture suggests, but isolation is what is so dangerous. It is hard, it is difficult, it is too often traumatic, but that is where the full measure of opportunities are. I know it, talked it, walked it and endorse it.
donaldo of the wasatch
November 26, 2014
In the United States most residential schools of the Deaf were closed down by the 1970’s for the very reason this article states. Done in the most hush-hush of intonations. Most cocoons of silence become incubators for abuse. Hearing parents, in general, offloaded their children to residential schools and rarely communicated with their children. Schools for the deaf here were only a tad bit better than insane asylums, where most deaf individuals were sent, principally before WWII as a rough time reference.
The not written yet scandal is how poorly governmental agencies and societies monitors the care of Deaf/deaf specifically, and disabled in general individuals who are in guardianships and conservatorships. Lots of subtle to outright abuse, whether emotional, physical or both. Families and particularly the person who is supposed to be ennobled, enabled and empowered should be extensively trained, mentored, and supported in there skills to resolve issues and conflicts. We are often legally entangled, but not protected.
We are not as I painfully know. Ignored and neglected is too often the scenario, which I have painfully encountered too long. Then folks wonder why we deal so often with anxiety, depression, anger and its co-hosts.
Mentoring for success, not validating victimhood status is what must the strategy going forward.
Hartmut
December 1, 2014
No residential schools were closed in the U.S. not due to sexual abuse, but to decreased enrollments. Many residential schools closed just for this reason. Yet several flourished with an increased enrollment, due to ASL-English bilingualism that the schools adhere to.
I am wholly perplexed how some schools survived despite the abuse scandals running for more than 10 years. Such a thing should have become apparent with the Deaf grapevine operating in the schools much sooner. Even Deaf teachers and counselors in these schools failed to notice the practice from the “rumors”.
I don’t think any governmental monitoring would be able to detect such an abuse, if the school’s supervision could not do it.