The report, written by Jim Gamble, independent child safeguarding commissioner at City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership, looks at progress made by the council against 14 recommendations put forward in a review of the incident in 2020.
The girl, who was 15 at the time, was strip-searched at school by police officers while on her period after being wrongly accused of possessing cannabis.
In his latest report, Gamble describes “a tentative optimism about the efforts to build and improve relationships between the police and the community” following the incident.
“Not one child has been subject to a strip search in Hackney over the past 14 months and we've seen significant levels of good work from many organisations,” he adds.
However, the commissioner puts forward 12 further recommendations designed to “eradicate racism and increase levelling up opportunities” for all Hackney residents.
Among key recommendations is a call for the council to “consider how best to develop a comprehensive strategic mechanism to oversee the work of all the agencies and individuals tasked with eradicating racism and delivering levelling up opportunities”.
This should include solutions to issues from housing to health, social care, education, and policing, according to Gamble.
“If an individual is appointed to lead this work, it should not be an add-on to a day job but a focused new role, working with the authority of the mayor and cabinet,” Gamble adds.
A comment from Child Q, included in the report, says: “Things need to change with all organisations involved. Even I can see that.”
Further recommendations put forward by Gamble include working with headteachers to develop an overarching approach on searching pupils and the list of items that should be considered as prohibited in schools.
He also advises the Department for Education to reword its guidance on strip searching in schools “to better emphasise the very exceptional circumstances in which such action would ever be considered appropriate”.
Gamble praises the “remarkable courage and resilience” shown by Child Q who contributed to the report, which is entitled Why Was It Me? – a question she says she is still asking herself.
The commissioner concludes that, following the latest report, “we need to give her time and space to grow and build her own life. We owe this to her. Others now need to take up the challenge of delivering change”.
A joint statement by mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville, deputy mayor councillor Anntoinette Bramble, cabinet member for education and children’s services, and Cllr Susan Fajana-Thomas, cabinet member for community safety, published in response to the report, says: “We have always said that this journey to create an anti-racist borough will take time. The report recognises that lasting, systemic change is a deeply complex issue and that there are no easy answers. We are prepared for difficulties and frustrations. For tough conversations and decisive action.
“But we are committed to justice and success - however long it takes. Which is why we also accept the recommendation in the report for additional and strategic oversight of this work.”
Read Hackney’s full response here.
