Should we accept greater state monitoring of families in order to safeguard children?

That is what I’m asking. Are SS reluctant to remove children because they think on average kids have better outcomes in their own families even when violence is happening than they do in care? Or is there another reason eg lack of care places?

well one practical reason why not is childrens services/health vistors simply do not have the manpower. You were need probably four times the size of the workforce as you have now.

The other thing is i'm pretty sure it would be in direct contravention of Article 8 of the ECHR

@WitcheryDivine

What is it about the care system which includes fostering, that could be worse?

We already have a health visitor system though, it could just be made mandatory and health visitors given rights of entry and rights to examine children. Wouldn't even need to be health visitors, it could be nursery nurses doing spot checks on homes.

I very much doubt Health Visitors would want the additional duties and powers needed to undertake mandatory visits. You do realise that social workers don’t have powers of entry or the legal right to see any child, even one there are concerns about.

The steady erosion of social work as a profession has a lot to answer for - huge recruitment issues particularly in child protection, ever reducing resources, an assumption that anyone could do the job better and a legislative framework that ties workers hands while also holding them accountable for the safety of children being raised in complex family circumstances.

Equip social workers properly and children will be safer, home schooled or not.

I can’t access the full stats right now but IIRC it’s not that most children killed are killed before they’re one (eg if it were 10 children, 6 or more of those would be under one). It’s that under one is the most likely age to be killed (eg it might be 2 under one’s and only 1 in every other age group right up to one hundred years old). It’s absolutely horrendous that under ones are the most targeted group but sadly the stats don’t indicate that you could hugely cut these numbers just by monitoring babies alone.

Does anyone know what the resistance is to removing children in cases of established violence like Sara’s? Is it for fear that the alternative like care or fostering is even worse?!

Having a lower bar for removing children when there is evidence of physical abuse wpuld be the most useful first step. I do not have any comprehension of why abusive humans are allowed to keep vulnerable children.

If you really want to help under-5s, then best of helping their mums by reinstating and better advertising of children's centre support would be great. I saw tired mums handing over a baby for a break at ours, plus they minded the kids during various feeding or other parenting classes, signposting the church playgroups and giving a name of who would let them in free etc.

I don't think it would be a good use of limited resources...I think more resources for targeted interventions would be better.

Having said that, Sure Start was great. It would be great if that could be expanded again.

Interesting topic. I tend to see state intervention in people's lives as something to be vigilant about and, frankly, quite problematic. Often state intervention functions as an excuse for people so they don't have to care for their neighbours.
What I think is that people should be aware of the signs of abuse and have 0 tolerance for it. Of course the state has to be there, I'm not at all in favour of the small state. What I worry about is that, with good intentions, we enable a faceless and bureaucratic institution to have control over people's lives, with victims falling through the cracks because individual people choose to "externalise" their caring.
Oh gosh, I don't know if I'm expressing myself clearly 🙏

The problem is that the state services are really overstretched and so the monitoring can be really toxic. If we had enough people to actually be kind and listen to children that would be great, but we don't. I'm fortunate that I have an EOTAS package for my DS so I do have monitoring from kind sensible people. But before I got that the contacts were awful and judgemental and traumatic for my DS.

That poor little boy who was locked outside in the cold and punished with cold water, I feel awful I've forgotten his name, but there were MULTIPLE police calls concerning his behaviour.
Safeguarding is everyone's duty, but when major Safeguarding concerns are raised we need to be following up on them!

As for nursery nurses doing "spot checks"- they're even more over worked and underpaid than the Health Visitors! And our government has gone and increased the legal ratios of how many children can be looked after by one person, like that won't lead to catastrophe.

They clearly don’t understand the process of making laws.

No it can’t.

I think social services have an incredibly high bar to remove children. Lots of despite it being known a parent being violent/ abusive / alchoholic / taking drugs that a child should stay in the family home.

The idea that Sara who should have been well on the radar already could be taken out of school in response to reported concerns without red flags waving is ridiculous. I’m not saying all children who are HE need monitoring but perhaps a review on a case by case basis would be sensible.

I think possibly an annual wellness check over with would be sensible for all children.

Equally there are many children attending school whose abuse is also off radar

Case near me where a baby died within the last few weeks with no previous involvement

It's unusual that children not known to the local authority die. But not unheard of.
The second most vulnerable group are teenagers so what is your plan for them?

Yes, this, in abundance.

I can't remember any similar case where the family were not already known to social services.

I think social services need better resourcing and support to act decisively and with authority when there are concerns.

Even social workers dont have right of entry, the only people who do are police and they cant force entry unless they have just reason to believe a crime is being committed in the property itself.

I agree , children should be treated as citizens in their own right.

I agree OP and with other posters. There need to be changes around home education etc but the structures around babies and toddlers are lacking. I found HV provision lacking a lot - didn’t hear from mine after the first few weeks. More check ins at a younger age is important - it’s also when children are most vulnerable and parents can feel a lot of strain through lack of sleep etc. There also needs to be a much stronger system once concerns are raised.

All of the children in the horrible recent cases were monitored.

It didn’t seem to be working.

People who take their children out of the school system should be prepared to endure more oversight.

More support in the first year would be good. My eldest is 17 yrs and there was far more interaction with health visitors back then than my sister has now with her babies.

I went back to work before my children’s 1st birthdays. Would I be exempt because mine are seen daily in nursery or would I be forced to take time off of work every week?

I think OP if you’re keen on additional health visitor checks then by all means campaign for it.