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

Well we can blame social workers, judges, society, but it was the father that killed her. I've spent my whole life abhorring the death penalty, but sometimes you just need people out of the gene pool.

Either way, they must have had contact with someone who did know the correct address. Unless these people all work in complete isolation to one another.

They were not social workers

You do know it wasn’t two social workers who went to the wrong address don’t you? It was people from education, not social workers.

Social workers need the critical thinking, understanding of legislation and reasoning that comes with degree level education. Common sense will only get you so far in a court making a legal case for removing a child. Common sense will only go so far in determining whether someone needs to be detained for their own safety.

It’s really not a straightforward job.

If the IT system says its address A, working 1/2hr later isn't going to magic up the correct address.

So are you saying that no one in that office had visited the home before? Or was aware of the correct address? Because if they had, what was stopping those two social workers ringing the office and getting the right address? It’s not rocket science really is it?

And sorry for the multiple posts but I am absolutely haunted by this case and that poor sweet girl. It goes to prove that some people (those monsters who killed her) genuinely are pure evil.

If the IT system says its address A, working 1/2hr later isn't going to magic up the correct address.

She and others who have died in terrible circumstances, have been failed because no one cares about Social Work until they do, this tragedy will quickly be forgotten, we'll all go back to slagging off Reeves et for trying to increase spending for public services and then jump on the next SW who, with an overwhelming workload, makes a mistake.

Its an easy target for Govts to make cuts.

We need to get out of the mindset that says we want great public services but lower taxes, the two are incompatible.

Also the pp calling for the judge to be jailed, did you sit in on the court hearing? do you think if he was jailed, would any judge ever go to the family courts again.

What is terrifying is that as far as I’m aware, this incompetent individual has been allowed to carry on in their job with no consequences, free to condemn more children to their deaths. It’s a fucking disgrace.

Yup. The family courts in this country are a scandal.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/10/explosive-court-transcript-journalists-family-cases-judge-parents-secrecy

Why hasn’t the judge been sacked and jailed? How the fuck is he/she allowed to get away with this?

No, a child died horrifically because someone couldn’t be bothered. If you get the wrong address, you go to the correct property. If that means working half an hour later than so be it.

This. Fucking bastards. That poor, poor girl, failed by every single one of them. It makes me so angry. I can barely read about this case as it’s utterly heartbreaking.

As well as that, if it was replaced by some kind of on the job training it would be more expensive and cumbersome (needing a whole system to support it) than working with universities to get social workers qualified externally.

We need a degree because it's a specialist profession. Social work training includes a requirement for 200 days of on the job training and they also have an assessed and supported year of employment after qualifying that they have to pass. We are expected to write high quality assessments and court statements and to understand complex research and theories. It's not a 'get in there and hope for the best' job.

To be fair, guardians are also social workers usually with frontline experience before they move into cafcass. Guardians' views are absolutely privileged by the courts which can be a total farce - I've known social workers who couldn't hack it in frontline move to cafcass because it's easier. They also have zero oversight of their recommendations to court. Local authority social workers have their care plans a) approved by senior managers before it's written b) checked by their manager and c) checked and approved by a lawyer but guardians write their reports and file them. They have far too much power.
Actually having written that I vaguely remember that after the Sara Sharif tragedy there was going to be a review of cafcass? I need to google that

You can say a lot of things about social workers as a workforce but that they are lazy and don't care are about the furthest from the truth.
I am really good at my job. I'm a team manager and have some extremely valuable skills. I could transfer my expertise to the private sector and be earning twice what I earn as a social work manager if I chose to, but I don't. I have a social worker in my team who left a corporate job earning double what she earns now to do train as a social worker because she's passionate about improving children's lives and improving the system. Believe me - it's not a job you can fail upwards into. Failing social workers exist of course but they tend to weed themselves out after a while, it's not a career for the weak.

"No, a child died horrifically because someone couldn’t be bothered. If you get the wrong address, you go to the correct property. If that means working half an hour later than so be it."

This wasn't the social care team and as posters have already said they would have had no right of entry and no right to insist on seeing the child.

I do sometimes wonder if one of the problems with social workers is that they need a degree (why?) when experience and common sense would be more useful. That poor little girl.

Being a social worker must be the most under valued healthcare job out there.

Screw up, make a poor judgement call ie believe a parent.. or follow the instructions of a court or go to the wrong address because the system is so slow and old, that the update done wasn't applied to their own database..... and the whole world will come down on you like a ton of bricks, even demanding jail time.

All the good work you've done in the past, will count for nothing, you'll be hung out to dry and the Govt ministers who cut child services to the bone, will retire and get an honour.

Not the same but I work as a Nurse. A few weeks ago I had 56 patients and 3 Nurses to look after them. When something goes wrong and one of those patients comes to harm as the Nurses looking after them tend to other patients who is at fault? Would it be the NHS Trust who put the Nurses in that position in the first place or the Nurses themselves for not working harder? How do you think those Nurses on duty that day felt?

From NSPCC

Findings from the data

• In the last five years there was an average of 56 child deaths by assault or undetermined intent a year in the UK.
• Children under the age of one are the most likely age group to be killed by another person, followed by 16- to 24-year-olds.
• Child homicides are most commonly caused by the child’s parent or step-parent.

This

Social workers aren’t civil servants, they’re employed by the local authority. And there’s nothing to suggest social workers here were lazy, inexperienced maybe but that’s what happens when you expect people to carry excessive levels of risk - the good, experienced social workers leave.

SWs don’t remove babies….they don’t return babies…..they don’t have that power…..they wanted to remove Sara…..their report to the court indicated this…..but the courts sided with the view of the Guardian….so Sara remained with her father

They are not precious. There is nothing precious about lazy civil servants who do not care about their job they're being paid to do.