Last year, Bridge of Weir-based care charity Quarriers had to defend itself against damaging allegations concerning child abuse. In what was a worst case scenario, the organisation from the onset adopted a policy of openess and cooperation. Robert Armour discussed the issue with Quarriers’ PR adviser Colin Adams.
Scotland’s third largest care charity, Quarriers, faced a year of negative media attention when a historic child abuse case came to be tried at the High Court in Glasgow.
When the scandal first came to light the organisation’s future was in the balance. But through co-operating fully with the ongoing police inquiry and chief executive Phil Robinson’s assurance of transparency and openness, Quarriers has went some way in regaining the public’s confidence.
Even as former Quarriers housemaster Samuel McBrearty was being convicted Phil Robinson was setting up a helpline and appealing through the Quarriers website for other possible victims to come forward. The few who came forward were directed to the police, so that their cases could be fully investigated.
Colin Adams, operations director with PR agency The Business, who manage Quarriers media relations account, maintains Quarriers is dealing with the situation in the best way it can: by confronting its past.
“Phil Robinson will tell anyone prepared to listen that his main priority is to allow former boys and girls who were abused while in Quarriers’ care to exorcise the ghosts of their past. If it cannot be done, for whatever reason, through the courts, he will offer expert counselling and support.”
Adams emphasises that Quarriers today is a totally different organisation to the one that existed 30, 40 and 50 years ago. Then it had up to 1,700 boys and girls in residential care in Quarriers Village and, in an age of relative innocence, a misplaced belief that people in positions of trust would simply not abuse it.
Now its activities are spread all over Scotland and encompass children, young people and whole families. Where children are involved, Quarriers are proud to be at the cutting edge of protection systems.
“By and large the media has been fair and balanced in its reporting and even where there has been adverse publicity, there is no evidence that it has damaged fundraising or Quarriers’ reputation among stakeholders or care sector professionals,” says Adams.
Sunday newspaper readers may be aware of a ‘long running investigation into sexual abuse at Quarriers’ by one journalist. TFN published Quarriers’ response to one newspaper article, which condemned Phil Robinson for failing to reveal that suspected paedophiles were living, quite legally, within Quarriers Village.
The results of a more recent ‘investigation’ appeared under the heading: ‘Revealed: the scandal of Scotland’s lost children’. It contained demands from the Scottish National Party for an inquiry into the number of people raised in residential care, who were never told of the existence of siblings.
“It centred on an interview with one woman who spent the 1940s and early 50s in Quarriers and it leaned heavily on my guess – and I stressed it was a guess – that thousands of people in Scotland could be in that position.”
“The revelation caused no surprise to Cathy Jamieson, the minister for children, who recalled in the same article that she was personally aware of the problem in 1983, when she qualified as a social worker.
“Nor did it come as a shock to Dr Lynn Abrams, the University of Glasgow historian and respected author of the book, The Orphan Country, when I spoke to her about the article she said: ‘I read it and thought…hello…this is not new.’ ”
Quarriers has offered to help any former boy or girl discover if they have siblings and begin the process of tracking them down. Last year they appointed an aftercare worker to help individuals go through their own files and, where necessary, provide counselling. The organisation has the records of 30,000 children and in recent years has helped around 1,000, who were keen to know their background.
“Phil Robinson feels that it would be impossible in practical terms for Quarriers to be any more proactive in reuniting families,” says Adams.
“It is not task of trawling the archives, but the enormity of tracking down boys and girls, then their siblings that presents the problem. Quarriers does not have access to a national database,” he points out. “Even if they had, is it really their place to turn up on the doorstep of a middle-aged or elderly person and break such news?”
The last 18 months have forced Quarriers to confront many difficult questions like that. Adams says while the organisation does not have all the answers, he insists that Robinson’s job would have been infinitely harder had he not pursued the policy of being open and honest with the media, and through the media, the Scottish public.
“The strategy has had its dangers: play with fire and you risk being burned; talk to journalists and you risk being misunderstood, misrepresented or misquoted. Think how much worse it could be however, if there was something to hide and keep hidden.”
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