Under-age training misconduct

Glass fused light wrote: »

Not a lot of good that will do ,as they apparently dont follow the rules anyway.

I wasnt aware of any of their own club rules that they breached??

Glass fused light

danganabu wrote: »

I wasnt aware of any of their own club rules that they breached??

Apparently neither were they.

evolving_doors wrote: »

That's not the issue.
Talking about something which happened subsequently is moot.
You may as well be saying it was wrong that the young lads were let have ice cream before their dinners... after being sworn at and held in a room on their own by an adult.
Unless of course it's trying to sully the reputation and motives of the parents.

Not the issue? I would consider it a relevant piece of information as regards getting a true reflection of the events rather than a one-sided narrative. Surely finding out such details is in fact the whole point of investigation? If you dont have all the details then how can you decide what the issue is and what isnt?

What you are saying is basically, the details dont matter. If a guy steals a loaf of bread to feed his kids, or steals a bus full of kids for a joyride, would you say well they both stole, the other details are not the issue? The other details are completely relevant.

As for trying to sully the motives and/or reputations of the parents, I would in fact consider it to be developing their motives. Those motives can turn out to be completely above board also, can they not?

K.G.

Do people think things are going to change in the club after this.i doubt it.i suspect they will window dress and pr things better but nobody is going to change what has worked so far for them

Billgirlylegs

K.G. wrote: »

Do people think things are going to change in the club after this.i doubt it.i suspect they will window dress and pr things better but nobody is going to change what has worked so far for them

Are they still suspended.?
If so, it isn’t going too well.
Apparently they have also lost at least one player.

No idea why people are calling the journalists motives into question.
The club was (is?) suspended.
The “story” is not makey up fantasy

danganabu wrote: »

I wasnt aware of any of their own club rules that they breached??

They breached nearly every child protection guideline in the book, isn't that enough?

John_Rambo

danganabu wrote: »

I wasnt aware of any of their own club rules that they breached??

Do they have their own club rules that contravene the organisation rules?

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Not the issue? I would consider it a relevant piece of information as regards getting a true reflection of the events rather than a one-sided narrative. Surely finding out such details is in fact the whole point of investigation? If you dont have all the details then how can you decide what the issue is and what isnt?

What you are saying is basically, the details dont matter. If a guy steals a loaf of bread to feed his kids, or steals a bus full of kids for a joyride, would you say well they both stole, the other details are not the issue? The other details are completely relevant.

As for trying to sully the motives and/or reputations of the parents, I would in fact consider it to be developing their motives. Those motives can turn out to be completely above board also, can they not?

The motives of the parents and the rights and wrongs of playing U-14 are completely immaterial.

The handling of the case by the club was abysmal. It was like something from the 1950s.

blanch152 wrote: »

They breached nearly every child protection guideline in the book, isn't that enough?

Yes, yes it is but how is that relevant to the claim that they would breach their own club rules?

John_Rambo wrote: »

Do they have their own club rules that contravene the organisation rules?

No club rule can contravene an organisation rule, but every Club has supplementary rules governing the day to day running of a club, to be honest I thought this would have been obvious

blanch152 wrote: »

The motives of the parents and the rights and wrongs of playing U-14 are completely immaterial.

The handling of the case by the club was abysmal. It was like something from the 1950s.

Immaterial to what end though?

Personally, I am trying to work out the full details of the case, and to that end they are completely relevant.

Maybe you could expand on what these, to my mind, completely relevant details, are immaterial to?

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Personally, I am trying to work out the full details of the case, and to that end they are completely relevant.

No no Mayo you can't do that, you must pick a side and hammer the other side without any consideration to any other 'facts' or factors..........have you never read a Paul Kimmage article before at all??

Tell me how

MayoAreMagic wrote:

Maybe you could expand on what these, to my mind, completely relevant details, are immaterial to?

Even "If" if the claims of the parents initially, were made to be troublesome (which there is zero evidence that they were), the behavior of the club in holding a meeting where they were effectively ostracized is not in line with any good practice by member clubs of the GAA. And so those details (which are irrelevant to my mind) are immaterial.

Tell me how wrote: »

Even "If" if the claims of the parents initially, were made to be troublesome (which there is zero evidence that they were), the behavior of the club in holding a meeting where they were effectively ostracized is not in line with any good practice by member clubs of the GAA. And so those details (which are irrelevant to my mind) are immaterial.

But the same point could be made the other way, i.e. the parents actions are not good practice in respect to the running of a sports club, with the clubs subsequent actions 'immaterial' to that also.

Neither point is particularly useful as regards developing the full story though...

Furthermore, the details regarding the meeting were the parents were 'ostracised', is clearly debated by the club in the article. They contend that the parents refused to show up to several meetings. If that was the case, then that puts the club committee in a tough situation, and in those circumstances you could see how people might come to the conclusion that they 'better call a meeting about all this to let everyone involved know what is going on', rather than 'we need to row the wagons against these people'. For that reason, the details are anything but immaterial.
I don't see how you can take one version of events and decide that everything they say is correct and the other's wrong. The attitude seems to be just because they got the journalist involved, therefore everything they say must be right.

Gaillimh1976

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

the parents actions are not good practice in respect to the running of a sports club,

.

The parents were not running a sports club ???

Gaillimh1976 wrote: »

The parents were not running a sports club ???

All members of a club are involved in running a club, its how a club works.

brocbrocach

This outrage and slant that's being put on the young lads being spoken to on their own is really getting my goat. When did these newly introduced guidelines become a moral code?
It's bad practice and a breach of child protection guidelines but it happens a hundred times in a thousand sportsclubs and schools every year and sometimes it's for the best. Like a lot of Health and Safety and Child Protection guidelines it's a hit and miss way to cut out margin of error. If there wasn't bad relations between the club and parents and if there weren't question marks over what the official said to them it would be so trivial that it wouldn't be worth commenting on.

Gaillimh1976 wrote: »

The parents were not running a sports club ???

Well it remains to be seen if they themselves were members. That was left out of the article also... If they were members then the running of it is their shared responsibility, and choosing to flout club protocol, in what I would argue is an inflammatory manner towards other club members, is detrimental to the running of a club.

If they are not members, but their children are then they would still be expected to go along with how the club operates, with the assumption being that their getting involved with the club would mean that they actually want to be part of what they club does, so the above still applies. This idea that a club is there to serve you/your kids, and the other members are there to do all the running of it, is unfortunately as prevalent in clubs today as it is flawed.

To say it bluntly, pulling your kids and then putting them in at 2 age groups up, is delivering a bit of a message to the management and other parents in their proper age group and it very much goes against the club ethos in general. That would create unrest in any kind of club up and down the country and it is more than a little inflammatory. Particularly when the u14 team were in fact one of the best teams in the county at their grade. I dont believe that these parents were naive to the levels required for all that to be entirely lost on them. Do you?

That is why these details are important - it shows that this thing probably wasnt as one-sided as kimmage suggests.

Glass fused light

brocbrocach wrote: »

This outrage and slant that's being put on the young lads being spoken to on their own is really getting my goat. When did these newly introduced guidelines become a moral code?
It's bad practice and a breach of child protection guidelines but it happens a hundred times in a thousand sportsclubs and schools every year and sometimes it's for the best. Like a lot of Health and Safety and Child Protection guidelines it's a hit and miss way to cut out margin of error. If there wasn't bad relations between the club and parents and if there weren't question marks over what the official said to them it would be so trivial that it wouldn't be worth commenting on.

In this club a complaint of assault on an child by an adult was made to the Gardai in 2015, unproven.
There was a written letter of complaint sent in about a the behaviour of the u-10's coach, and no apparent action was taken.
This behaviour continued and apparently resulted in two lads being moved out from the team.
Then an offical 'cornered' the two childern by isolating them away from the parents and the team and the other adult mentors, and made comments which should have been directed at the parents or the u-14 coach.
The parent went to HQ, who asks the club to resolve the issue and no apparent action was taken, and HQ had to step in.

The protection works both ways, and in this instance the club failed to act or failed to be seen to be acting, and by doing that put the adults at risk. Every club has issues at some stage. If there was a conflict between mentors and the parents, the club had a duty of care to the adults to have a dispute resolution system in place for the adults.

If the dispute was over the bad language and the club resolution was that the lads moved up the second incident would not have happened. The official should have approached the u-14 training team and objected through them. An alternative resolution could have been that the parents were told that they needed to find a new club as the children could only train with the u-10's. Realistically the coach should have been asked to clean up the languge. But there should have been a way for the mentors and parents to communicate.

The club meeting after the first phase of the investigation is where the real issue lies. The club itself acknowledged that there were 2 child protection issues involved.
1) The bad language which may be classed as trivial by some (not to me)
2) The being alone with a minor which can't be classed as trivial by anyone, it's there to protect both the adult and the child.
The meeting breached the confidentiality of the report, by doing this moved into a serious child endangerment problem. That the club would support the officials at the expense of the guidelines.
By this act they were pitting the club against the children, they send a clear message to all members to put up and shut up.

Realistically, today, if a child was worried about the behaviour of an adult or older child member who was well liked would they or their parent, now, make any effort to bring that behaviour to the attention of anyone in the club? IMO when the adults in charge cant or wont see the danger is when it has to become a moral code.

Gaillimh1976

Glass fused light wrote: »

The meeting breached the confidentiality of the report, by doing this moved into a serious child endangerment problem. That the club would support the officials at the expense of the guidelines.
By this act they were pitting the club against the children, they send a clear message to all members to put up and shut up.

.

Exactly !!!

There is no doubt there was wrong on both sides, but at the end of the day the paragraph above is the meat of the issue

Calling that meeting puts the club 100% in the wrong as far as Croke Park are concerned and they have dealt with that accordingly

brocbrocach

There was no "serious child endangerment".
There was a potential for guidelines to be disregared at the whim of the club officials but there's a huge difference between the two.
Accepting that the club was in the wrong for not following best procedure is a long way from saying that they put children in danger.

Glass fused light

brocbrocach wrote: »

There was no "serious child endangerment".
There was a potential for guidelines to be disregared at the whim of the club officials but there's a huge difference between the two.
Accepting that the club was in the wrong for not following best procedure is a long way from saying that they put children in danger.

IMO By not following procedure put in place to investigate a child welfare issue they put every child and adult associated with the club in danger.

In a club with conflict, had the adults been protected, even if from themselves, by not being allowed 'whimsical' behavior it would not have ended up in the national newspaper. The guidelines are there to protect the good name of the adults who give their time and energy to train the children. There would have been no story if the club had actually made some attempt to follow the guidelines before and after it ended up with the complaint going into HQ.

This * edit * whimsical behaviour in these circumstance*end edit * while foolish was (other than learning to use bad language) a long way from putting the childern in danger.

As for the breach of confidentiality.
Once the club was forced to acknowledged that both complaints needed to be taken seriously and that HQ was stepping in?
Their reaction was to attempt to interfere with the process by publicly naming the childern in a meetings of parents.
Parents who would all have had an opinion and children who would be associating with the two 10 year old children ie the alleged victims and their parents.

The shut up message was clear, if you make a complaint be prepared to run the gauntlet of disapproval. In this case it was a physical gauntlet of adults showing up at the hotel.

What happens if it was a claim of a more serious nature should a child have to be prepared for this or a worse reaction from the adults who should have known better. In real life the child and parent won't report a concern to the club they will just leave. Leaving the "offender" within the club and leaving the remaining children at risk.

Why do you think that the physical and sexual abuse of women and men and children was swept under the carpet for so long in this country? Why do you think that the we have to introduce legistation to protect whistleblowers? Could it be that we tended to shoot the messengers rather than recognising that shoot first and ask questions later is as dumb as it sounds.

So yes the action after the first meeting is a serious child endangerment issue.

brocbrocach wrote: »

There was no "serious child endangerment".
There was a potential for guidelines to be disregared at the whim of the club officials but there's a huge difference between the two.
Accepting that the club was in the wrong for not following best procedure is a long way from saying that they put children in danger.

There absolutely was.

Any organisation that breaches confidence around child protection complaints is guilty of serious child endangerment. No ifs or buts.

I am astonished at the failure to understand this throughout the thread.

For an organisation involving children to function at all requires confidentiality around all issues to do with child welfare. Anything else means that no parent or child can have confidence in the complaints process. That means that there is a serious child protection issue.

I am glad that the GAA has been so proactive in this regard and suspended the club. The club should respond by banning the officials involved in the meeting with all parents from holding any official position for life in the GAA. An apology needs to issue to the parents and the two children.

Think about it. We should not be able to discuss in a public forum the rights or wrongs about what two clearly identifiable children and their parents have done in a club. The reason we can is because the club broke the confidence. The club are a disgrace.

evolving_doors

danganabu wrote: »

The incident in the dressing room happened after they were moved to U14 so your point is moo

And as a teacher I would expect you would have a small bit more concern for two 10 year olds being thrown into a highly physical sport with boys 4 years their elder and who have gone through puberty.

Oh well that makes it all ok so doesn't it!

evolving_doors

Calhoun wrote: »

Classic deflection, the issue as i see it was the clubs handling afterwards but you know how it is in Ireland some things are sacred until something really bad happens.

Right back at you. The issue as I see it was kids being swore at and detained in a room on their own with an adult.

evolving_doors

Gaillimh1976 wrote: »

The parents were not running a sports club ???

danganabu wrote: »

All members of a club are involved in running a club, its how a club works.

Oh , i get it now, so its the kids parents fault for having their own children sworn at and detained in a room alone with an adult.

evolving_doors wrote: »

Oh well that makes it all ok so doesn't it!

evolving_doors wrote: »

Oh , i get it now, so its the kids parents fault for having their own children sworn at and detained in a room alone with an adult.

For an alleged teacher your reading and comprehension skills leave a lot to be desired :rolleyes: