One of the questions at this year's Children's Media Conference was about the lack of disabled representation on children's TV.

Anna Home agreed with the questioner that more needs to be done. She mentioned that, in the distant past, there was a BBC programme specifically for deaf children, but nowadays it's felt important to avoid ghettoising kids. Anna said that drama is a very good way of bringing in more diversity.

Alice Webb, Director of BBC Children's told the CMC that she was very proud of what the BBC is doing on TV: "26% of portrayal on CBBC & CBeebies are of diverse characters."

Alice Webb: I think it's right that we look at the whole range of diversity, not just disability. I think we cover that with LGBT, and, as I say, we cover 26%. I don't think that we need to do any more in terms of measuring individual elements because we cover it all.

Steve Hewlett: Except that the overall figure hides a multitude of sins, doesn't it potentially? Especially if you're disabled?

Alice Webb: Yeah. And I'll look to the guys across the piece in terms of how we break that down. I don't exactly ... I'm very happy to get those figures out.

More recently, a piece appeared in The Guardian entitled Children's TV pretends disability doesn't exist. The journalist, Tim Smedley, believes that it's mainly the commercial TV channels, rather than the BBC, which are at fault. I did ask Mr Smedley whether he'd also investigated the lack of LGB portrayal on children's TV, but failed to get a response.

Children's Media Conference 2014

The Conference begins this Wednesday, 2nd July.

BAFTA Award winning drama, ‘The Dumping Ground’, continues to resonate with its young audience. Or at least that's what the website says about a conference session entitled BAFTA Creative Masterclass: Laying Foundations for The Dumping Ground. The panel have been asked to examine the programme's "winning formula" by talking about emotional truth, moral and editorial responsibility, and on screen diversity, with reference to specific case studies, including gay adoption and racism.

Presumably the "gay adoption" case study will look at episode 5 from the first series: What Would Gus Want? The episode has been discussed by Newsround Blog on a few occasions, including 26th, 29th and 30th January 2013.

Lesbian couple Ronnie and Dawn (foreground)
Some points the CMC panel might like to consider:

1) Children's programmes which deal with gay themes are extremely rare.

2) The words 'gay' and 'lesbian' were used more than a dozen times in that episode. Those words are never heard on other kids' dramas or, for that matter, on other episodes of The Dumping Ground.

3) It was quite unfortunate that such 'loopy' lesbian characters were portrayed in the episode - all the more so in view of the scarcity of other lesbian and gay portrayal on kids' TV.

4) The arguments against prejudice were made by children, none of whom identified as gay. The result is that, in contrast to the racism storyline, we didn't get to see the hurt caused to children themselves as a result of homophobic attitudes.

5) The BBC children's department is refusing to converse on matters of fair portrayal and representation.

Newsround Blog regulars may recall that, in March 2012 on The Big Questions, Michael Johnson disturbingly appeared to condone homophobia while rightly being vocal in condemning racism. He drew attention to the way racism had affected his seven year old son, who had been called names at school. I suggested that BBC programmes aimed at young people mirror Mr Johnson's stance towards diversity.

Mr Johnson was appointed to the Football Association's Inclusion Advisory Board in December 2013, but it seems the FA were unaware of his previously stated views. Concerns over his appointment appeared in The Guardian and other newspapers and media outlets last week.

The BBC chose not to report the furore, but it has now reported Michael Johnson's decision to step down from the FA's Inclusion Board.

Mr Johnson has said that he no longer holds the homophobic views expressed back in March 2012