The Sara Sharif case: what is the point of taxpayers funding these failing organisations?

This is so very patronising @Abitofalark. Do you honestly think that @TiredAndStressedSW doesn't already know all of that? Sometimes there is simply too much work to do as the system is failing.

“what is the point of taxpayers funding these failing organisations?”

The problem is that taxpayers aren’t funding them enough. Years of austerity and cuts to Local Government and it’s not going to get better anytime soon

There definitely aren't enough staff to go checking up on home educated children just in case.

The reason "home educated" children is not allowed in my counrtry.

Thank god. Going to school helps socialise kids.

Thisis so true. People think that removal is easy. Reminds me of Hakim whose mother was a prostitute and crack addict. She was using his asthma inhalers for smoking. He died of an asthma attack in the garden freezing cold knocking on the garden door of the neighbour who was too scared to let him in whilst his mother had passed out. Social workers said he would die that weekend. They didn't remove him. He died. I utterly hate this system and am disgusted and traumatised by the inability to do anything. Everything is a but. Why can't de, home Ed visitors have more power. Why is home Ed allowed under these circumstances. Why is that judge Alison Raeside not accountable. Why is the system so underfunded.

Not declined referrals. Inaction after referrals accepted. And not laziness exactly, more an ingrained cultural complacency, and an indefensible focus on the parents’ perspective. You know, that misdirection that was so criticised in Lord Laming's Report? In the worst case, another county’s SS asked for my notes a few years later as they were building evidence to remove a baby at birth from the father. But sure dismiss it.

Judges ignore or follow social worker’s advice as they wish, they are not compelled to do so. They are senior, powerful and have experience and training in these matters, but clearly make insane decisions. DV is routinely minimised and dismissed in the family court system. If you don’t believe me read the Ministry of Justice 2020 harm report. The judge is not a voiceless victim in this, Sara was because of her serious error which had consequences which could easily have been predicted. She should loose her job, but first she should resign in shame. Neither has happened.

Child in need is voluntary. If you don't consent to them seeing your child then they can't see the child

What post do you think you're replying to? Because it's not mine!

Which is exactly how I manged to ignore my socail worker for a year. Because I'm very well educated and wealthy. Someone has decided I'm a nice person and people like me do / do not. . .

The law says my child in need needs to be observed every x months "but we don't do that in Surrey" ie we don't follow the law

Increasingly schools are having to call on methods to overturn socail cares refusal to look at child protection concerns.

I hope you don't work in child protection. Having Feckless useless parents is neglect

You can not blame children for being abused or look down your nose at "those type of parents" to defend turning a blind eye

Do you think social workers decline to intervene with some families because they are lazy and can't be arsed? It's because in the hierarchy of risk the families you're discussing do not represent the priority. Social services do have to decline some referrals even if professionals would like them to intervene. There aren't enough resources to work with every family who would benefit.

I work in a school and am a safeguarding lead. These cases are heartbreaking, unfortunately social services are under such pressure that we have seen some very risky situations continue and despite doing everything we could and going above and beyond our limits as a school we still haven’t had the support put in place or children protected from harm at home and the worst part is having your hands tied because we can’t do anymore. I can see how these tragedies happen.

Part of the problem is that professionals like social workers start off working with a family to support them with their parenting. It's all about building trust with the parents and having a good relationship with them. That makes it hard for them to suddenly recommend that the children are removed.

I adopted two children who were seriously neglected. They had huge files - just about everyone day another neighbour, teacher, medic, family member even contacted social services with yet another concern, and it was simply just added to the growing pile.

The birth parents were actively avoiding the social workers too. They were never at home for visits.

But the social workers kept ploughing on with a "be nice" strategy to get the birth parents on side.

I said before, it's only when there is a catastrophic incident that anything is done.

I have the minutes of the meeting where my girls were taken into care. There were 14 professionals round the table at that meeting - social workers, teachers, nursery staff, paediatrician, GP, police, health visitor....the threshold for removal is high, often involves lots of agencies, and is seen very much as a last resort

If there is no catastrophic incident, they just keep giving another chance.

Why were they "idiots" for going to the wrong house? They literally went to the address on file.

Mistakes were made but I'm not sure how this particular one could have been avoided.

@Netcurtainnelly they can't insist to go in. And the people who got the wrong address were the home education section so assume have even fewer rights than social workers

Having worked in a role where I was referring to social services, I am not surprised at all by these rare cases. I just know there are endless less extreme but still horrendous cases where concerned people will have sat in meetings pleading with social workers to visit again, investigate further, and watched them minimise and deflect. There are so many children being failed.

I know social services are overwhelmed and understaffed but the complacency I've witnessed is indefensible even by that .

I worry about this too. It is a massive responsibility and it seems like the infrastructure is not there to support social workers. They are overloaded and expected to make every call 100% correctly. If they do not, a child might die.

Who wants to work under this pressure, knowing that the system may well let them down? They are not even well paid.

It is not a job I would be willing to do, but it is job that needs doing.

We need to ensure that social workers are properly paid, have better working conditions better support and training and that we can massively improve retention to keep experienced staff and improve the service.

Sadly, we must also accept that every child cannot be saved, because there is no such thing as a perfect system.

Ok then police need to attend more routinely

Raeside did actually say how very upsetting it was. But it was her comments made about Batool which seem particularly concerning to me.

I do not think she applied sufficient attention, and unlike a rather junior social worker, she is paid at least 6 figures a year to make these very challenging decisions. Judges have the power to go through the work of social workers, Guardians and experts in detail. Yes they are entitled to rely on reports, but they can make critical conclusions. Not gushing remarks about stepmothers. This kind of granular scrutiny is not unreasonable imo. It is part of public service; the family court should get used to transparency.

Agree. Why do they accept parents answers so quickly. They should insist on going into the house when they go round.
How many times have they been turned away at the door. They have been told the child is ill or asleep.
They believe lies when people say that their kids have fallen over and that's why they are bruised.
They cancel appointments deliberately.

Baby Ps mother smeared his face with chocolate to cover bruises.

Ask the mother to wash his face.
These parents are sly and try to cover up what they have done. You need to stop accepting their lies. Do you need a degree to do that?

Some people should never be allowed to keep their kids anyway, we are too soft. Alot of it could be nipped in the bud before it happens.

If you read the story of lola james her mother was total filth herself.
Living on benefits, morbidly obese, 3 kids by 3 different dads, none of them involved, and a pigsty of a house oh a dog throw into the mix to contribute to all the chaos and the mess.

Thats before she invited a man she didnt know to move into her home and be around her children. He then went on to injure all her kids and finally killed one, while she was asleep in bed. She knew full well what he was like. Should be ashamed of herself living like that even before he moved in.

Things should be much stricter and good standards should be upheld. Thats the trouble, everything is so slack and anything goes. There is no protection for children and babies of feckless and inadequate parents/step parents. Its embarrassing.
System not fit for purpose.

It's not legally possible to confer powers of entry upon social workers and nor would it be appropriate. Police have different training and equipment and procedures than social workers do - they have risk assessments and management plans when they have to enter a property without consent that social workers would never have.

Do you think she did this deliberately, deciding oh i'll let a child go back home and see what happens?

She made an error, a very costly one but did rely on the evidence of a inexperienced SW who said that she had no concerns Sara would be harmed & went on her recommendations.
She also went on a report that ".... concluded that the children were being given stability and appropriate guidance by the father and stepmother and recommended that a child arrangements order should be made in the father’s favour"

Not a fan of scape goating people, who have no right of reply.

Perhaps would be better to ask why an inexperienced SW was given this case and why SCC issued this report?

The judge who made this order was named. She is still a judge, and her name is Alison Raeside.

Raeside is also the same judge who made a care order for the other children.

Why she did not query this discrepancy is not clear. Why a highly educated judge did not make a connection is a mystery.

What we do know is her gushing endorsement of the stepmother as authentic supervisor of contact between this monstrous man and his daughter. If she is an example of judicial decision making for the safety of children then we should be worried. Raeside was paid a fortune from our tax to make decisions, and she had the power to investigate this case fully. It’s not clear she did, and for all we know, she’s still in post making decisions for children.

^This is so true. It’s the judge who sent Sara to live with her abusive father and stepmother who should be scrutinised. The SWs wanted to remove her and weren’t able to.

I know and I think this needs to change either by changing social worker powers or asking police to attend more routinely