British Authors Boycott school Readings

Just found this today. Is this a coming trend?

Teaser: Some of Britain's leading children's authors are refusing to do readings in schools because of a new policy requiring them to be
registered in a national database and undergo criminal background checks to prove they aren't sex offenders.

British children's authors boycott school readings

We had a great school alcohol and other drug abuse program in the 1980s. It was part of a multi-million dollar grant program where the money for the grants came from drunk driving fines. We were required to do evaluation and our program was making great strides. We depended on volunteers and outside sources including outside counselors for consultation and community involvement. These people were never alone with the children, always accompanied by someone working for the school.

But little by little everything became illegal. Volunteers and community professionals were not allowed in the schools. However the police department could present their program. A few years later the police chief was sent to prison for embezzlement, but other good people were not legal.

I was invited to view the play I had written for kids to present to other kids at another school. It was one of the great days of my writing life as the actors and actresses gave me a special chair and each of the kids came and shook my hand afterwards. I guess I would have had to pay to get a background check.

We had a Kids Companion Program in our town and that one required police checks, but this was a program where these adults were alone with the kids and none of us connected with the program wanted to take any chances with these kids.

Carol

I have planted several ponds that were around new schools. Myself and all my workers were required to have background checks.

In Florida, you cannot find a white person who will wade out in three foot deep retention pond water that has snakes and aligators...no matter the pay, bend over 7000 times and sitck a plant in the mud.. Most of my workers had green cards but to put them through a background check was nothing any nursery person could do with faith. All the ponds we planted, we did on the week ends.

When I went to do reading in the schools, they did a background check on me. I do not mind that. I know they found I was who I said I was.

Love,
Betty

I would boycott the readings, too, under those conditions. Such background checks are an invasion of privacy without probable cause.

Malcolm

Some of the things being done today were unimaginable 50 years ago. Many of these "let's keep everyone safe" rules and regulations have the opposite effective. The real sex offenders know how to get around them, as do the people intending to blow something up.

As I see it, those same things still unimaginable, not to mention unconstitutional.

Malcolm

This is one of the responses to the article:

"It is a good thing in this case because so many perverts would stoop so
low to write a silly book. They just want to get at the kids. We live
in a dangerous world and such safeguards are there to protect kids from
bad people. Sorry story writers I disagree with you. Think of others
and not yourselves."

Unfortunately, pedophiles volunteer to spend time with children and then become their abusers. Genuine children's authors are not a threat to schoolchildren. Yet, there is always the risk that someone might appear to be an author to gain access to children in school. This doesn't mean that pupils within the school would be at risk. However, fake authors might want to be recognised outside of school so that they can strike up conversations with school-age children. Authors are not the only ones being checked; the policy is to check all school visitors who wish to address a class of schoolchildren. As an author, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

It's been my experience that no matter what you advise the kids by way of safety (or anything else), the real learning comes by their mistakes. Telling a kid to be careful not to fall out of a tree means nothing. Once they fall, the lesson is learned.
Of course a parent must warn kids against dangers, and there are some things where no, means no! No exceptions!