Two families faced very different traumatic events this week

Last Wednesday, five-year-old Ashya King was reunited with his parents at a hospital in Malaga. God knows what the days without them must have been like for him, in a strange place with a strange language, and no sign of his mother, who had slept by his side in the hospital during all of his treatment in Britain.

And all, apparently, because desperate parents wanted to do what was best for their child. In the Telegraph this week, a UK-based doctor and commentator on medical matters, Phil Hammond asked if better communication and information transfer could have prevented a European arrest warrant and handcuffing?"

He said that more than 90 children are sent abroad each year for proton beam therapy, the mainstream but relatively new therapy for cancer that Ashya’s parents wanted to try. He wondered why Ashya’s records and scans “were not sent for an opinion to one or more of the centres that the NHS already uses and trusts to do proton beam therapy”.

We have heard a great deal of the King family’s side of the story. The hospital strongly disputes some of their version of events, such as the claim by the father, Brett King, that he informed the Southampton hospital that he would be removing his child as he was not happy with the treatment on offer.

Dr Hammond’s question still seems highly pertinent.

Would better communication and being encouraged to seek a second or even third opinion have prevented the Kings’ flight to Spain? It is difficult to see how the best interests of the child were addressed by locking up the parents.

Home-educated

Here in Ireland, another mother, Monica O’Connor, got locked up this week, albeit very briefly. She and her husband Eddie O’Neill have home-educated all their children, with notable success.

I have known Monica and Eddie for nearly 30 years. Despite the way their position has been represented in some quarters, they have no objection to registering as home educators but they object to being assessed to see whether they are suitable to educate their children.

People have raised the sensible question as to how the requirement that a child receives a “certain minimum education” can be vindicated if assessments do not take place. What they do not realise is that the system of assessment does not even have to happen in the home. It is only if the preliminary assessment fails to establish whether an adequate education is taking place that a visit to the home is mandated.

Also, it is perfectly possible that someone could pretend to be doing all sorts of things for their child only to stop once the assessment was over.

Monica and Eddie’s case is replete with ironies. Some of the National Education Welfare Board personnel (the agency is now named Tusla) who dealt with them had been in the O’Connor-O’Neill home, and passed them with flying colours as suitable home educators for a foster child.

Separately they had also been approved as foster carers and had helped 22 children of all ages, including taking four siblings at one stage. What would any new assessment teach the State about this family?

Just as the situation with the King family might have been prevented if better communication skills had been applied, Monica O’Connor might never have had to go to Dóchas women’s prison if home educators had been communicated with and listened to better.

No resources, no help

Every child in school-based education receives (an admittedly inadequate) capitation grant, and teachers are paid by the State. Parents educating at home receive absolutely nothing. No resources, no help with particular difficulties, nothing.

Imagine a different model, where there were regular visits designed to support and celebrate home education. Say, for example, every family had to confirm once a year that they were home educating, and that a friendly visit or two followed in order to support that decision.

A person knowledgeable and enthusiastic about home education would arrive, spend some time getting to know the family and then make suggestions and offer educational resources.

Or, indeed, if it were patently obvious that the children were thriving, the visitor might sit back and learn so as to pass on valuable tips to parents who are new to home education.

Eddie and Monica don’t object to such visits. In fact, they have actively suggesting this kind of support for years.

Yet in a time of limited resources the State thinks it is a priority to force them to accept a different, inferior model of assessment.

Obviously, the Kings’ situation is far, far worse, but when I watched RTÉ news as Monica stuffed a blue bear into a bag as she prepared for prison I knew that it was a very special loan from her little son. He has to undergo medical treatments that are sometimes painful and he wanted her to have the teddy bear who accompanies him at those times.

Was any of that trauma necessary? Would better communication and a change from a culture of control to a culture of support have led to better outcomes for everyone involved? And is the same true of the King family?