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

Yes exactly. When you look at who really had the power to stop this known abuser hurting little Sara that family Court Judge is right at the top of the pile. They are unaccountable, it’s so unbelievably dangerous and messed up. I have had to watch my child be impacted by forced contact and the minimisation of countless issues whilst my own hands were basically tied behind my back, they made me send him and essentially collude in hurting him. He is now very traumatised as am I and those many judges we saw continue their lives completely oblivious to the damage they have caused. When we consider how many children are killed by abusive parents, we rarely stop to think about the number who are ”only” seriously damaged. It’s an emergency and the latest change in the law around presumption of contact is likely to take decades to really filter down and even then, I don’t believe things will really change. Judges are not child welfare experts, they are not DV experts, they shouldn’t be making these decisions, but if they are to do so, at the very least, they should be accountable

Your dedication is extraordinary but it is also punishing on you and your children. I know you can't bear to turn away from what you see but really you need to look after yourself too. You can't fix the world and do it all on your own even if you work yourself into the ground. It's a trap.
Perhaps you can think about ways to reduce the burden of such long hours and being up half the night to finish reports. In the end, you may have to prioritise, however hard it is. At least start small by deciding to finish one evening at 5, then build on that, aiming to do it more often until you get up to, say every other day.

They will be saving thousands of children every year you just don’t hear about it because the horrific things that could have happened didn’t happen!

Yes. The fault is with the court system and the law that applies. The presumption that both parents have contact. That is lunacy, and I understand that this government intends to abolish it. It has been the product of men’s rights activists and has meant the destruction of protection as the purpose of court orders

Exactly.

This was a child who had social workers who acted properly. This was a child who was removed to safety, more than once I believe.

Yet the court system returned her.

Whilst the privacy of her older sibling needs to be respected I do hope the inquiry feels able to properly pursue the fact that if that child was removed because her treatment was much worse due to her being a girl, and her safety was at risk, then what protections were put in place for Sara as she grew?

There needs do be radical reform in the family court. The starting point simply must be "Is your child safe with you?" - only after that should the questions be relevant. The first and foremost issue must be children's safety. Too often the family courts are focussed on parents rights, rather than responsibilities.

The judge should be debarred.

It was the courts that returned her to her father.

So the social worker writes a report with a clear recommendation that the child be removed. The family engage a lawyer who, acting on their clients instruction, argues the home is safe. The judge makes a decision to go with the lawyer and returns the child to their abusive home environment. Who are you holding accountable there?

This is the problem with the OP. It’s demanding no child protection at all, instead of wanting (or showing any signs of being willing) to get serious answers on what went wrong, why, and how to stop it.

I’d like to see critics work as social workers. They would likely have some proper constructive ideas on what to change then!

If people aren't getting sacked or prosecuted then the investigation has demonstrated that they are not negligent or criminally culpable.
How are you calling for social workers to be sacked and prosecuted to improve the service whilst also saying that you would be put off the job if you were going to run the risk of being sacked or prosecuted? What the hell logic is that?

Right, so you do understand that what you're suggesting would stop people from being social workers? Now expand that a bit further- it would also stop people from working in senior social work management or law in this area. These are all roles that struggle to recruit already.

So you're basically advocating for not having a functioning child protection system.

Yes. The fault is with the court system and the law that applies. The presumption that both parents have contact. That is lunacy, and I understand that this government intends to abolish it. It has been the product of men’s rights activists and has meant the destruction of protection as the purpose of court orders.

We have given up on certain risk factors being seen for what they are. There are a lot of abusers in the family court and they are using this law to obtain access to children who they feel entitled to “discipline”.

They are actually sadists who enjoy hurting children. They also enjoy fooling and lying about it. The family court needs reform. All of these children were subjected to neglect and “discipline”. It’s not all about social workers. It’s the structure of the legal system itself

Then the senior managers and lawyers need to be accountable. It is all far too watered down. To a point where there is no real accountability. How often do you actually hear of anyone being sacked in these cases? Very rarely. If anything the people at the very top are rewarded and those at the bottom remain nameless and unaccountable. As the first post says, it always seems like just another ‘oh dear, never mind, that was sad wasn’t it’ until the next time. Would I consider training to be a social worker? Probably not if I knew I was going to be held accountable.

There is individual accountability. If a person commits gross misconduct they will be sacked. If they are criminally negligent they will be prosecuted. You assume that individuals have more power and more responsibility than they do. Decisions over care plans for children are made by senior managers following discussion and consultation with lawyers. Social workers are also human - they will always be fallible and make mistakes. They are also more likely to make mistakes when overloaded and overworked. Stress and burnout are real and impact on people's resilience and judgement. Would you consider training to be a social worker? I doubt it.

Thats fair enough but where would you stop?

I would say the buck stops at the people making the funding decisions and ultimately the voters who keeping putting these people into power.

If govt/council policy is to avoid foster care as much as possible, to cut spending and to support the family with the child in situ, whose fault is that?

That poster was referring to the parents not the professionals

Social workers can't insist on entering a home. Only police can do that with a warrant.

Interesting how you've swerved all the points explaining that this means nobody will do the job. How will child protection function when theres a mass exodus?

so the judge who awarded him custody goes to prison? Or his solicitor who fought for it and provided the evidence?

why is child abuse different to any other decision made by judges? Should they go to prison if they sentence someone to a suspended sentence who goes on to commit further crimes? What’s the difference?

You're mixing up should and is.

It's definitely correct that we would need to prioritise early intervention if we wanted better outcomes. There's lower hanging fruit here. I say lower hanging in the full knowledge that there's clearly not public will to fund it, but we know what it would do if we did.

But it is not possible to have systems without human error. And we have to decide what level of compulsory state involvement in families we want- as @Vikaolson said a few posts ago, lots of us aren't up for it when it's applied to us. Which sometimes it would be if we wanted more extensive ability to intervene.

I want individual accountability. If you’re going to decide to put a child in the care of abusers then you need to be accountable when it goes wrong.

Of course they won’t be the last. Parents and their associates always have and always will kill their children. Why would you expect that to change?

social services can’t prevent every death

Sara was on social services radar before she was even born.

She was in foster care before she even started school.

Another child (implied to be a sister) was removed from the family permanently.

The failing in this case that should be focussed on is that Sara shouldn't have been in her fathers care long long before she was at school, let alone removed from school.

Her father's "right" to her was put before her well being on multiple occasions years before she was removed from the school roll.

"Fixing" the mistakes made after she was off rolled is not remotely fixing the problem. The problem is that abusive parents like her father are given far far far too much consideration in these cases and children suffer, and die, because of it.

It was not their fault her father beat her to death.

they were working in the home education department.

And ironically at my nursery if the parents were 30 minutes late their policy said they would call police/ social services anyway 😭

What if that staff member has a 1yr old who needs collecting from nursery at 6pm like I do? Or if the nursery calls at 3pm saying the baby has a temp over 39 and needs collecting now, like mine did a few days ago?

People seem to forget these people are real people with real lives. It's not always possible to just stay on at work unpaid for periods of time, particularly when you have caring responsibilities. And the social work workforce is mostly women and we know women disproportionately shoulder caring responsibilities.