Name	National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
Founded date	1884
Location	London
Key people	Chairman Mark Wood (Financial Figure)
Area served	England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands
Product	Campaigning and working in child protection
Revenue	£157.5 million
Num volunteers	17,000
Num employees	Approx. 2,500
Homepage	http://www.nspcc.org.uk

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.

On a trip to New York in 1881, Liverpool businessman Thomas Agnew (1834 – 1924) visited the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He was so impressed by the charity, that he returned to the UK determined to provide similar help for the children of Liverpool. In 1883 he set up the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LSPCC). Other towns and cities began to follow Liverpool’s example, leading in 1884 to the founding of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (London SPCC) by Lord Shaftesbury, Reverend Edward Rudolf and Reverend Benjamin Waugh. After five years of campaigning by the London SPCC, Parliament passed the first ever UK law to protect children from abuse and neglect in 1889. The London SPCC was renamed the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Children in 1889, These offer general family support, as well as more specific services such as working with families with alcohol problems.

As well as its main web site, the NSPCC provides a specialist web site for professionals called NSPCC inform.

Campaigning and controversy

The NSPCC's campaigning role has often been controversial. The Guardian reported New Philanthropy Capital recently concluded that its campaigning is "flawed and naïve" and that there is "zero evidence" that £250m the NSPCC has spent on its recent "Full Stop" campaign actually benefited any children. The NSPCC also received complaints, amongst other things, for "cold" mailing young mothers with a "babies' names" booklet containing instead a detailed list of the deaths of babies.

In recent years, the charity has faced criticism for its stance on contact visits to children following parents' separation. The NSPCC has consistently opposed an automatic right of contact for both parents, arguing that this is not necessarily in the best interests of the child. This stance has led to criticism both in Parliament and by the fathers' rights group Fathers4Justice. In 2004, the London headquarters of NSPCC were briefly invaded and occupied by Fathers4Justice supporters, claiming that the NSPCC "ignores the plight of 100 children a day who lose contact with their fathers" and that they promote a "portrayal of men as violent abusers."

The NSPCC also faced criticism for failing (along with other organisations) to do enough to help Victoria Climbié and prevent her death, and also for misleading the inquiry into her death..

The organisation has also faced criticism for its allegedly increasing obsession with publicity and advertising, for fear mongering and supposedly fabricating or exaggerating facts and figures in its research. In an article on Spiked, Frank Furedi professor of sociology at the University of Kent, branded it a "lobby group devoted to publicising its peculiar brand of anti-parent propaganda and promoting itself."

David Hinchliffe, Labour MP, supported expenditure on campaigning, stating that the NSPCC's role should be about raising awareness, whilst Conservative MP Gerald Howarth described it as "completely incompetent" although he cited the charity's support for reducing the homosexual age of consent to 16 as the reason for him withdrawing his support for the Full Stop campaign.

Satanic ritual abuse scandal

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, a moral panic emerged over alleged ritual satanic abuse. The NSPCC provided a publication known as 'Satanic Indicators' to social services around the country that has been blamed for some social workers panicking and making false accusations. The most prominent of these cases was in Rochdale in 1990 when up to 20 children were taken from their homes and parents after social services believed them to be involved in satanic or occult ritual abuse. The allegations were later found out to be false. The case was the subject of a BBC documentary which featured recordings of the interviews made by NSPCC social workers, revealing that flawed techniques and leading questions were used to gain evidence of abuse from the children. The documentary claimed that the social services were wrongly convinced, by organisations such as the NSPCC, that abuse was occurring and so rife that they made allegations before any evidence was considered.

Values

The NSPCC's stated core values are based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

They are:

Children must be protected from all forms of violence and exploitation

Everyone has a responsibility to support the care and protection of children

We listen to children and young people, respect their views and respond to them directly

Children should be encouraged and enabled to fulfil their potential

We challenge inequalities for children and young people

Every child must have someone to turn to

See also

Kidscape

Internet Watch Foundation

The Children's Society

Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

Timeline of young people's rights in the United Kingdom

References

External links

NSPCC Homepage

Charity commission registration

Bibliography

Susan J. Creighton, "Organized Abuse: The NSPCC Experience", Child Abuse Review; Volume 2, Issue 4 (1993), p. 232-242.

Jean La Fontaine, The Extent and Nature of Organised and Ritual Sexual Abuse of Children, HMSO, 1994.

Jean La Fontaine, Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Department of Health and Social Services Inspectorate. North West Region, Inspection of child protection services in Rochdale, Greater Manchester: Social Services Inspectorate. North West Region, 1990, viii, 33pp.

Clyde, James J., The report of the inquiry into the removal of children from Orkney in February 1991 , Edinburgh : HMSO , 1992, xiv, 363pp. ISBN 0102195935.

Department of Health and Social Security and Welsh Office, Working Together: a guide to arrangements for inter-agency co-operation for the protection of children from abuse , London : HMSO, 1988, 72pp. ISBN 0113211546.

Eleanor Stobart, Child abuse linked to accusations of "possession" and "witchcraft", Nottingham : Department for Education and Skills, 2006.

Category:Children's charities based in the United Kingdom Category:1884 establishments Category:Organisations based in the United Kingdom with royal patronage Category:Lobbying organizations

Frank Budgen (1882 – 1971) was an English painter acquainted with the author James Joyce. Born in Surrey, Budgen spent six years at sea before working in London as a postal worker. He changed jobs a number of times before travelling to Paris in 1910 to study painting, moving to Switzerland in time for World War I. Here he was employed by the British government at the Ministry of Information, an institution established in Zürich for "the spread of British propaganda in neutral countries." He returned to London in 1920, where he remained until his death.

Joyce and Budgen spent much of the war in the same city and similar social circles. According to Budgen's 1934 memoir James Joyce and the making of Ulysses, Joyce discussed aesthetic matters with Budgen a number of times, often referring to the content of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The last of these three, Budgen stated, Joyce referred to at the time as Work in Progress; indeed a number of the conversations he reports as having had with Joyce imply that the author was working out the form and content of this work in part by arguing with Budgen.

External links

Digital copy of James Joyce and the making of 'Ulysses', and other writings

Category:1882 births Category:1971 deaths Category:James Joyce Category:English painters Category:People from Surrey