How do we protect these children? There must be more we all can do!

[AnotherThingToDo]

I’m haunted by these poor children who have to endure this torture. How many more are there who aren’t in the news because they haven’t died?

Experts, people in child-protection roles, people with experience: how can people who feel angry and devastated by this channel this emotion into actually making a difference?

We hear time and time again how resources are limited. Is there more that society can do?

There are so many other channels now - education and public information doesn’t need to be leaflets, there are targeted ads, social media, influencers, all sorts.
Think of the way that people were targeted in the referendum - they reached all kinds of groups in different ways. But when they have the enquiry into Arthur’s death they absolutely need to look at how such extreme discipline techniques became so normalised and how a culture which tolerates this can exist alongside the world most of us here know and see.

Do people really think that access to parenting classes/sure start would have helped in this case? From what I can see that woman was a sadist and enjoyed abusing the child. They had close family members they could have given him to, who wanted to take him. But they kept him and killed him.

@Mufasa1118, I am so sorry to hear about what you went though. I am sure you are not weird. I hope your suffering eases.

Do people really think that access to parenting classes/sure start would have helped in this case?

In this case, no but they might well help others so they are still worthwhile.

One of the reasons behind discontinuing sure start services was that it was the 'wrong' kind of parents mostly utilising the service. I don't think that's wrong though. I think what that shows is that more confident parents were using the service, and making it more normal and acceptable which holds the door open for less confident parents. 10 years is not a long enough time to really see the lasting change. When the NHS started it's programs for all children it was the more confident middle class parents who uptook services first, as they had the less to lose and fear from doing so, now these programs are our societal norm (well they are being dismantled again more recently of course). You can't change society by only targeting change at the most vulnerable groups who are the least responsive, you make it accessible for everyone. You make using services and groups and other kinds of support so normalised that even the social outliers might get reached. I will always be a massive advocate for Universal services of all kinds. Ones which anyone and everyone can access. I know there is no political will for it now, but the big societal changes we saw in child welfare came out of socialist policies and ones such as the NHS (universal healthcare), school provisions and adult education (universal education), social housing (universal housing) and social care investment and reforms (universal social care provision). I can't see a better way to protect the most marginalised groups.

These programs might not have reached Tustin or Hughes themselves, but over time might have changed the societal norms around them to the degree that their neighbours would have made many reports, and so would the hairdresser and her boyfriend, and that swearing and yelling at kids wouldn't be seen as 'normal' by them or by social services.

A few things:

1. I understand the underfunding point. If underfunding is contributing to a lack of information sharing that absolutely needs to be resolved ASAP. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that somehow Arthur's case wasn't quite obvious that he was being abused, and not only in hindsight, IF all the information was actually available to the person who made the assessment - when all of dad's relatives have tried to report him / partner for abuse at some stage, plus teacher, plus doctor. And he lived with an adult who has had children removed. And had a bruise photographed by a grandparent that a child said was caused by stepmother and that clearly wasn't a bannister injury (no one gets bruising that severe for knocking into something and that area is rarely fallen on - I do not understand how you could possibly come to that conclusion). How would this not meet a threshold for more than a cursory welfare check and "he seems happy today"? Why would you not ask the child away from the parents (like the grandparents had)? He didn't even have a bedroom FFS. Obviously with underfunding mistakes will be made, but this was clearly a very grave mistake. And this does deserve pointing out. Either, the person who made the check did not have the information available to them (in which case, why? Frankly, there is little point without it). Or that person is not capable of doing the assessment (whether due to workload or other factors). We will have to await the review to understand the full "why", but i don't think it is possible to just blame underfunding. (And eg underfunding was not the reason why the police threatened Arthur's uncle for breaching lockdown if he did a welfare check on him, that is just a lack of common sense and human empathy. Jobsworthiness at its absolute finest, as welfare visits etc have always been allowed legally within the letter of the rules).

1. The hairdresser issue is shocking. The standard of parenting that was allowable to them was absolutely appalling. But I don't actually think they even thought it was permissible parenting. I think that they knew something was wrong and sort of wanted to do something for Arthur (as they offered him water, for example), but probably also felt the stigma of "grassing people up to the authorities" and so let it lie. In France (which is not utopia), there is a duty to act to preserve life - you cannot let someone drown in a puddle if you could reasonably intervene without a threat to you. Maybe, if there was a threat of prosecution for inaction, this would tip the balance for such people - People who do know what the right answer is, but actually need a reason to force their hand to "snitch" to the authorities rather than looking the other way. Or maybe we need to celebrate people who "save life" by making well founded referrals. I think it has to be unacceptable not to refer.

1. Examining a bruise to one child might indicate abuse or it might not. No one should be taken into care for one bruise. But see 1 above. This was not just a bruise. It was only just a bruise if you wanted to see just a bruise.

And yes I think that good parenting initiatives are helpful. As PP said, it wouldn't stop pure evil, but it might help others to recognise it.

’Do people really think that access to parenting classes/sure start would have helped in this case’

It wouldn’t have had any direct impact on this case but it would have meant that the social workers who were given this child’s case would have had a much lighter workload and been able to spend more time investigating the reported abuse and rearranging access. It might also have had an impact on the ‘hairdresser’ mentioned on here who saw the way the child was treated and viewed it as normal.

There has been a huge increase in reports of suspected child neglect/abuse to social services in recent years. Since 2010 the budgets for these services have been cut again and again. How can that not impact the time and attention paid to each report?

This isn’t a case of social workers slacking off. They are carrying a huge caseload and they’re dealing with child neglect, abuse and cruelty every day, trying to steer ongoing cases through the system and taking on new ones. They know how high the stakes are and that if they misread a situation or miss a visit it could cost a child’s life. There’s a reason that you’ve seen posts on here from those who have left the job. I’m sure that there are cases of bad management, as in all areas of work, but the vast majority of child social workers are there slogging away trying to do a difficult job in increasingly untenable circumstances.

@motherofthelittlescreamingone yes in this case their was incompetence (and that's putting it kindly). But I do feel social services would be more likely to attract and retain competent staff if questions of underfunding were addressed. Competent people want to do a good job and it's not possible to do that if your caseload is sky high.

... there was incompetence..

Theres nothing we can do right now instantly. It's more common than we think it is, and often by people we think aren't capable of it. Since hearing of all the lockdown abuse in both kids and vulnerable adults on the news I've felt really driven to train to become a social worker. The social care sector is obviously under a lot of strain...needs all the help it can get to prevent cases like this.

@Porcupineintherough

I absolutely agree. And social work should be properly paid and case loads reduced. Plus, If we didn't have a shortfall of social workers, a history of bad decisions made could result in someone being retrained/disciplined/encouraged to leave. If a profession isn't attractive, it becomes the case that you cannot retain good quality people and you have to accept some people who do not meet the quality required. That is just a fact.

Maybe social workers could become more vocal.
By this I mean making us all more aware of the caseloads and how they cannot provide a good service.
For years we have heard about how they are burning out and leaving the profession.
If people were more aware and there was public support maybe for a maximum amount of families a social worker could support and it was written into legislation then they would cope better.
Once a child is in care there are so many meetings about them, things that need to be done within a certain time, paper work, visits, checks with school, medical exams. I imagine this is because social services are legally their corporate parents and they can’t afford for anything to go wrong.
Whereas before they enter he care system they can easily be missed.
If there were more rules in the system that people at the top could be held accountable for if things went wrong the social workers on the front line could do their job better

This is about cuts to services, youth services, Sure Start, social care , but to really address this it is about raising levels of personal responsibility - a huge change of ethos for our country.
Raise expectation, educate and stop blaming others. Let's stop accepting the low life that some people have.

We are all responsible for our own actions

Even the 'Wembley' football incident, is blamed on the authorities, the police, the FA - NO - blame lies with all of those who though it acceptable to break into a venue without tickets - so illegally. So much drug abuse reported as part of this near catastrophe too.

This country is a mess. It requires a whole change of moral compass. ( not a chance with the Tories as an example)

@Cassimin

Maybe social workers could become more vocal. By this I mean making us all more aware of the caseloads and how they cannot provide a good service. For years we have heard about how they are burning out and leaving the profession. If people were more aware and there was public support maybe for a maximum amount of families a social worker could support and it was written into legislation then they would cope better. Once a child is in care there are so many meetings about them, things that need to be done within a certain time, paper work, visits, checks with school, medical exams. I imagine this is because social services are legally their corporate parents and they can’t afford for anything to go wrong. Whereas before they enter he care system they can easily be missed. If there were more rules in the system that people at the top could be held accountable for if things went wrong the social workers on the front line could do their job better

Hmm tricky one. All that will happen with maximum case loads is that the threshold will get higher, new social workers arent going to appear out of thin air. People talk the talk but evidently aren't that arsed about change, its been widely told that the NHS, social workers and emergency services are cut to the bone; but as with all public services many assume they will make it work because they have to. Also you only need to see threads on here from different professions saying how busy they are, usually they're told so are other people and largely dismissed. Similar to those posting on social media about how they would have given him a home- plenty of abused children either in the care system or stuck in dangerous homes because there's no room for them, let's hope many chatting about it sign up to foster or adopt.

The threshold in our local authority must be horrifically high. Some of the cases we have reported in school would chill you to the bone, including ligature marks around a child’s neck (just one incident in a long line of incidences for this particular child). After a chat with manipulative parents nothing is done, beyond scheduling occasional meetings about the children concerned.

I know for a fact that in several cases neighbours have also complained, so not like the evidence is just coming from one place. The evidence is there, but sometimes it is easier and cheaper to believe a 1.5 year old sibling can cause such horrific marks, or that the child is always making up tall tales.

Cattipuss
I have! Been a foster carer for 10 years.
My current foster son has been with me for most of this time.
In the 10 years he has been with us he has had 23 changes of social worker so I have had lots of experience of social workers coming through my door.
Some have been good, some absolutely hopeless.
LA often employ agency workers with the knowledge that they aren’t going to stay long. How is a child supposed to develop a relationship.
We had one that was exceptionally bad, when I mentioned them to another carer she said she had him years ago and in over 20 years of fostering he was the worst she’d ever had.
I had another who did a home visit, 2 weeks later didn’t turn up at school for a meeting. I couldn’t get hold of him so rang the office only to be told he’d left!

Some excellent points by

@RadishRose
@MrsTerryPratchett
@BertieBotts
@Porcupineintherough
@NellieBertram

I am not sure why several posters can't understand that early intervention does prevent so many families reaching crisis point, so therefore the really extreme situations - like the one that has triggered this thread - are not lost by social workers and ALL the other services that could have supported, intervened and potentially rescued Arthur amid the absolute forest of other work they are being expected to cope with.

Immediate intervention at the start of lockdown could have prevented this tragedy - it's not as though a foster place needed to be found, other family members were available.

I think reports should always be investigated and the person accused of abuse shouldn’t just be believed straightaway if they deny the concerns. I foster and I once reported a concern I had of physical abuse being carried out by a birth parent against the child during unsupervised contact. I wrote down what the child and their sibling told me, I contacted the social worker and then I never heard anything else. The SW never asked to speak to to either child and when I did ask about it several days later it was dismissed with ‘oh, I asked the parent and they said that never happened.’ So the parent was automatically believed. Another time someone I know who knew the birth parent involved reported to me that they’d seen domestic violence in the town centre between the parent and their partner, in front of a younger child and actually to a certain extent involving the child. Again I reported and was told, ‘we spoke to the parent and they denied that ever happened.’ Yet there was no reason the person who told me would have lied about it and every reason for the parent to lie (some birth children still in their care) but they were automatically believed.

AmyandPhilipfan
That is terrible,I think this is a lot of the problem.
At training we are constantly being told how important it is to share information, a lot of the time either this isn’t done or when it is nobody really acts on it.
I’ve been working with various members of the nhs with my son yet simple information like height, weight a blood pressure do not get shared.

Just stop recruiting all those terribly well meaning, liberal, mealy mouthed individuals who want to be social workers. They are totally ineffective and frankly useless.

It's pathetic and terrifying how very easily they can be hoodwinked and tricked by these bastard, abusive parents. If I was looking at a severely malnourished child, heavily bruised and fear in their eyes then I wouldn't give a shit whatever it's parents were telling me.

We need hard nosed social workers, who don't tip toe and who aren't easily intimidated.

If you're working in Child Protection then 100% of the focus should be on the child. Zero sympathy or empathy for the abusive parents.

@MrsTerryPratchett just wanted to come in support of what you said about circuit breakers.

My mum was the circuit breaker (my gm was an abusive alcoholic, would be slurring words drunk by 3pm and would hit dm and her little sisters, demanded she hand over her wages from part time job in a shop when she lived with her etc amongst many other things).

She has been a truly wonderful mother to me and she has done it by basically deciding to the opposite to everything my gm did. I had a very happy childhood and we have a very good relationship now still.

If she had carried on the pattern of abuse I would most likely be dead and I wish that was an exaggeration but it's not.

I am so indescribably grateful to her for that.

Because now not only did I have a great childhood, but I am basically doing the opposite to my mum and copying everything she did that made me feel safe and loved, and my own ds is a lovely, happy and healthy boy.

Two generations saved by the determination and strength of one (at the time) girl.

@peaceanddove

Just stop recruiting all those terribly well meaning, liberal, mealy mouthed individuals who want to be social workers. They are totally ineffective and frankly useless.

It's pathetic and terrifying how very easily they can be hoodwinked and tricked by these bastard, abusive parents. If I was looking at a severely malnourished child, heavily bruised and fear in their eyes then I wouldn't give a shit whatever it's parents were telling me.

We need hard nosed social workers, who don't tip toe and who aren't easily intimidated.

If you're working in Child Protection then 100% of the focus should be on the child. Zero sympathy or empathy for the abusive parents.

You still have to work within guidelines and the law though, and that's often where the red tape becomes hugely problematic.

@Cattipuss

Don't vote for the tories who have been eroding public services for many years?

Yup first thing they did in 2010 was make part of the Children Act 2004 defunct by removing database of children to coordinate services. Under guise of invading family values and privacy. It was a recommendation out of the enquiry following Victoria Climbié’s abuse and murder. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContactPoint

And they closed down the Social Exclusion Unit straight away too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Exclusion_Task_Force

And the “one in, two out” rule for regulations.