My letter to the editor of The Times, below, was published on 7 February 2017:<\/p>\n
Sir
\nNicola Woolcock reports that social workers have blocked access to boarding schools for vulnerable youngsters, and not for the first time.
\nOn the two previous occasions, in 2006 and 2009, I was National Director of the Boarding Schools\u2019 Association, which included almost 40 state boarding schools.\u00a0 The willingness of the schools to make places available for disadvantaged youngsters, offering an excellent education and, for term time at least, a \u2018home away from home\u2019, was wholehearted and compelling.
\nSocial workers were downright hostile.\u00a0 Their resistance \u00a0was unshakable and shocking. \u00a0Great opportunities? No.\u00a0 Education as a route out of poverty and disadvantage to better things?\u00a0 Not interested.\u00a0 I will never forget explaining the 2009 scheme to \u00a0a group of social workers in the North of England.\u00a0 I was met with sullen silence.
\nAnd here we are again: undeterred, the Buttle Trust and the schools have kept going. \u00a0\u00a0They are to be commended. These are life-changing possibilities. Offering them is worth the effort. \u00a0But social workers? They say no.\u00a0 How dare they?
\nHilary Moriarty
\nMonmouth<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My letter to the editor of The Times, below, was published on 7 February 2017: Sir Nicola Woolcock reports that social workers have blocked access to boarding schools for vulnerable youngsters, and not for the first time. On the two previous occasions, in 2006 and 2009, I was National Director of the Boarding Schools\u2019 Association,\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15,16],"tags":[46,51,127,192,215],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-letter","category-policy","tag-boarding","tag-buttle-trust","tag-letter","tag-social-workers","tag-the-times"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}