[DanaC]

We've had some horrible cases over here in recent years, of little ones who've been completely let down by social services (child protection). The most well-known are Victoria Climbie and 'Baby P'.

In both cases, multiple failures across the different official organisations led to the deaths of these children. In the Climbie case what came through was a profound lack of inter departmental communication, and overwillingness on the part of the social workers involved, to take the carer's words at face value. There were very clear systemic failures, as well as clear professional failures at an individual level. This carried across both the child protection services, and other external agencies and individuals such as the child's family doctor, the local police and so on. It provoked a review of the whole care and social work system, which attempted to put in place measures to ensure this wouldn't happen again.

Jump forward a few years to 'Baby P' (again a high profile case which essentially crystalised more wide reaching failures) and we again see a terrifying willingness on the part of the case worker to listen to the child's mother; a family doctor who faled to diagnose multiple breaks and contusions and instead thought the child a bit poorly, a lack of proper communication between the different agencies involved.

Another fairly high profile case in the last year was from my neigbouring borough.

Our own authority has also been implicated in child protection failures, though in this case the result was not death.

One of the probloems with child protection in recent years, is a shift in how we look at family abuse. It used to be that if a child was thought to be in danger, the very first act by the authorities was to remove said child and place them in either specialist foster care, or a children's home. There were a number of problems with this system.

Firstly the court hearings which deal with these cases are extremely difficult to navigate, held behind closed doors and cannot be appealed against. The word of a social worker who'd made a snap decision based on not very much held far more weight than anything else which could be brought in as evidence. This was open to abuse and in many cases children were wrongly taken from non-abusive parents.

Secondly, the emotional and educational damage done to children when they enter the care system is profound. The statistics for educational achievement and later success and happiness for children who have spent several years, in the care system are horrifying. The nature of the care system is such that many children live in constant insecurity, moving from one home to another, from one carer to another, and sometimes facing abuse from the 'carers' who've been entrusted with them.

They are far more likely to be involved in crime and far more likely for early criminal activity to be treated as such, than children still with their families. For instance: if a child has a temper tantrum and throws plates at the wall, a parent is highly unlikely to call the police, or report it to an authority. But, if a child in a children's home does this, it is an 'incident' and is recorded as such. If a youngster from the estate is involved in a minor fracas on the street it is unlikely that this will be recorded as a crime; more likely is that they will be returned to their parents with a warning. If a child from the care system is in a similar situation it is recorded. They are already in the system, and it is woefully easy for them to drift from the child protection side of the system into the youth offending side of the system.

Emotional development has also been shown to be severely damaged by long term care.

Running alongside this, are relatively recent studies done on children in the care system and their families, which show that in a majority of cases, early intervention and preventative work can keep families together and in most cases where that is done the children fare much better. This increases the social work toolbox, so to speak, with temporary removals and supervised reintegration being very common. An emphasis on 'whole family' interventions has changed the culture of social work, and in many cases been very useful. In a lot of abuse cases, the abusers are not lost causes, and can be helped to fulfil their potential as parents. Coping strategies, anger management, psychological counselling and basic parenting advice, along with assistance in managing finances and other very mundane matters which have a huge impact on a familiy's ability to cope.

The problem is the pendulum has swung way too far in that direction. The mantra of keeping families together and children out of care homes has become such a profound part of social work that children who are very much in danger end up left with parents who cannot be trusted to care for them.

The whole thing is then exacerbated by the target-driven and fragmented culture of the agencies. Case workers don't stay with a child right through (like they used to). Now it's all about the Team Around the Child: sounds great, but loses that one on one relationship which often mitigated the damage of the care system. Everyone is focused on hitting their targets (percentage of reports followed up within 48 hours, percentage of children waiting more than 6 weeks for a case worker, percentage of children taken into residential care etc). Social workers have been under increasing pressure not to remove children unless they absolutely have to. This leads to the agencies waiting too long before they do so.

In amongst all of this some individuals have fucked up. As with any other profession, there are some numpties. There are people who have had a bad week and missed something bloody obvious because they're distracted by their own issues etc etc etc. carries accross the care system, the police, the GP, the accident and emergency doctors etc.

What's needed is a better balance between the desire to keep children with their families and the need for some of them to be removed. What's also needed is a better flow of information between the different agencies, a clearer line of responsibility and a greater understanding amongst related professionals (family doctors for example). Add to that the need for social work to be given a greater level of respect within the system. Much like teachers, social workers have been subject to a kind of cultural witch hunt. many of the errors which lead to children being injured or killed are systemic errors rather than being the fault of an individual. But social workers have been made to carry the can entirely. Nor are they well-paid compared to other professions with similar requirements in terms of educational level and qualifications. They seem to be a profession under siege. Under paid, over worked, high stress levels, high dropout levels, very high levels of work related depression and related illness.