Kids Company’s place in the ‘big society’

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/06/kids-companys-place-in-the-big-society

Version 0 of 1.

The fact that Kids Company has been so successful in addressing the multiple and complex needs of some of our most damaged and at-risk children is down to Camila Batmanghelidjh’s passion and determination (Batmanghelidjh to leave Kids Company, citing political ‘ugly games’, 3 July). Take her out of the equation and this groundbreaking charity will soon become a bureaucratic, 9-to-5 provision. It will lose its magic as far as children are concerned.

For aspersions to be cast about her alleged financial mismanagement and bullying shows a lack of respect to a woman who has committed almost 20 years to developing Kids Company. Every CEO is accountable to their board, and ensuring that finances are rigorously monitored is the treasurer’s responsibility. Camila Batmanghelidjh is a formidable fundraiser, but dependence on government funding is not healthy for any charity in the long term.

The solution to this crisis could well lie in the Guardian profile (4 July), where we read that the multimillionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia will give $33bn to charity: what a coup this would be for Kids Company, and of course for the current CEO.Norma HornbyWarrington, Cheshire

• Vulnerable children are being sacrificed because the Kids Company founder dares speak truth to power about the failure to prioritise investment in child protection. This government has maintained old people’s welfare at the expense of the young and the future in the pursuit of votes. There are over 12 million people in this country of state pension age. Surely at least 1% of us could afford to donate our winter fuel allowance to Kids Company and so double its annual income. What better way could there be to recycle welfare payments to a worthy cause?Dr Bruce TofieldLondon

• Camila Batmanghelidjh is dead right to believe there is resentment at the £25m in public funding that she has persuaded successive governments to give to Kids Company since 2008. While she has hogged the limelight and the funding, other vital child-centred projects in south London and elsewhere have struggled to survive and had to close. Her unorthodox approach to dealing with “troubled” young people while denigrating the efforts of cash-strapped social service, health and youth workers won her few local admirers – though there is no doubt it won her admirers in the Westminster bubble, where such denigration is de rigueur, and among philanthropic celebs.

The “charismatic” Ms Batmanghelidjh now complains of bullying at the hands that have fed her, but surely the “give us more money or we’ll close down” tactic could be similarly construed. As any sensible parent knows, giving a troublesome child money to go away and keep quiet leads to lots more problems.Barbara RichardsonLondon

• The Kids Company impasse is not only a specific matter of provision; it symbolises the psychological and social costs of Britain’s austerity policies. What has made this organisation vulnerable is not the charismatic and highly individual approach of its founder, but the fact that its ethos derives from that of psychotherapy and hence may disturb the worldview of the political class. In this therapy perspective, what goes on inside children (and adults) is deeply affected by what is happening in the society wherein they are imbedded. We call it introjection or internalisation. Whether the clinical phenomena are behavioural (gangs) or emotional (depression), they can no longer be understood as failings of particular individuals or families. A national debate is now needed on how policy damages psyche.Andrew SamuelsProfessor of analytical psychology, University of Essex

• Might Kids Company’s difficulties with the Cabinet Office be accentuated by a lack of large infrastructure such as that characterising those larger charities with whom governments sit more comfortably? Large children’s charities seem well equipped to present expenditure as near always pertinent to the needs of children irrespective of numbers receiving a direct service; and present data and children’s stories that cajole rather than challenge colleagues in Westminster and Whitehall. It would be a pity, but perhaps essential to survival, for Kids Company to thus evolve.Alan CoombeIndependent adviser on child protection and early intervention, London

• With the Cabinet Office seeking structural changes at Kids Company, Camila Batmanghelidjh “pray[s] to God it is not coming from David Cameron and his team”, adding: “I still have faith that he wants to do the right thing by children”.

One certainly needs a lot of faith when tackling child poverty, neglect and abuse, particularly when welfare is sidelined in favour of corporate profit. Batmanghelidjh has faith by the busload, which is admirable. Considering she was one of the “big names” enthusiastically propping up the PM’s populist notion of the “big society”, losing some faith in the actions and pronouncements of our current cabinet of horrors can only be a good thing. I pray that she loses faith completely in the current government.Manu BazzanoPsychotherapist, London