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?

@SafeguardingSocialWorker 👏👏👏👏

I’d be interested in the answer to that question too.

Not lock children indoors for months in end with their abusers and isolate them from their wider family.

@Prescottdanni123 has it never occurred to you that might be because it can be really difficult to differentiate bw the two? Abusers don't come with labels. They can be very plausible. Equally lots of people live lives of gentle chaos but love and do their best for their kids.

We had a little blond boy of this age placed with us for adoption. Sadly the placement broke down, and fortunately he didn't come from such a horrific background. This tragic case is very upsetting x

@TinaYouFatLard yeah because before lockdown things like this didnt happen.

The level of calculated cruelty in this case is horrific. Unfortunately, it’s not a one off. There are some truly vile people out there. That’s why we need a well funded social services with social workers who have the time to give each report the attention it deserves.

When they’re so underfunded and understaffed they are going to miss things because they only have so many hours in a day. If you only have enough time to thoroughly investigate one case out of every two and situation X seems ok and whereas situation Y obviously needs intervention what are you going to do? It’s not like they’re filing their nails. They’re spending the time dealing with other serious cases of child abuse.

@FreeBritnee they didn't do their job though. They were informed many times, saw the bruises for themselves and did absolutely nothing to protect that poor boy.

Vote for a government that promises to fund children’s services, healthcare, housing, police and outreach services properly.

SafeguardingSocialWorker
I could be wrong but it wasn’t just one person who reported the abuse.
Arthur came from a background of murder and dv.
Surely this is completely different from a disgruntled neighbour.
I Don’t for one minute think that the Sw involved doesn’t regret not doing things differently but ultimately they failed in their duty of care to this child.
Not admitting the failings of Sw will not help us stop this happening again.
There will always be tragic incidents like this but if Sw and police have already been involved they have to take some responsibility.

You are stood on the doorstep

This bit seems like part of the problem to me. Social workers shouldn't be kept on the doorstep and fobbed off. There needs to be a way for them to be able to push those enquiries further, with appropriate help and resourcing. I can see, though, that in a society where wearing a mask is apparently a big imposition on people's personal freedom, that's going to be hard.

Report report report. I always say the same on threads like these, & I’ll never stop saying it. It is EVERYONE’S responsibility to report a child that’s in distress. Don’t just sit on it & wonder.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

You are stood on the doorstep

This bit seems like part of the problem to me. Social workers shouldn't be kept on the doorstep and fobbed off. There needs to be a way for them to be able to push those enquiries further, with appropriate help and resourcing. I can see, though, that in a society where wearing a mask is apparently a big imposition on people's personal freedom, that's going to be hard.

Exactly.

If people want ‘tough savvy’ social workers able to use brute force to walk into people’s houses, what actual legal powers and protection would they need to be given?

What are the rules when police need access to people’s houses? Warrants to enter? Ability to arrest if they are threatened?

There were a number of experts talking about this on radio 4 today and the one thing that stuck out for me is that the number of reports to social services has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Its not possible to be sure if the number of problems has changed or people just report more but surely the way to fix this is solving the issues before social services get involved. I've heard talk before of how, if you knew the child next door was cold or hungry you would just give them an outgrown jacket and feed them but nowadays that wouldn't be seen as acceptable.

@Prescottdanni123

Social services needs to be held to account a bit more. People reported what happened to that poor little boy, social workers saw the bruises and still did nothing. It is infuriating to think that they sometimes come across genuine abuse cases like this and do naff all, and then you hear stories about innocent families whose children were taken for no reason by a social worker on a twisted power trip.

Yes we get a LOT of training around risk of future emotional harm and FII- children are removed merely on suspicion of these types of abuse Yet we have cases where it seems to be staring us in the face and we don’t see it as we have almost been conditioned to think It will be hidden and not blatant

I've heard talk before of how, if you knew the child next door was cold or hungry you would just give them an outgrown jacket and feed them but nowadays that wouldn't be seen as acceptable.

This is the kind of thing that you'd be told on here was you patronising the parents and sticking your nose in.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

I've heard talk before of how, if you knew the child next door was cold or hungry you would just give them an outgrown jacket and feed them but nowadays that wouldn't be seen as acceptable.

This is the kind of thing that you'd be told on here was you patronising the parents and sticking your nose in.

There was a thread on here the other day where a little girl was saying her knickers were hurting her as they were too small on a play date at the posters house. The poster knew her mum was really struggling financially and wanted to ask whether people thought she should give her some of her daughters knickers and clothes saying they’d outgrown them. I was shocked at how many people said she shouldn’t do / say anything and should just pretend she hadn’t noticed an issue. In the end the op did give a parcel of clothes etc to the mum for the little girl and the mum was very grateful. Sometimes we all need someone to get involved.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

I've heard talk before of how, if you knew the child next door was cold or hungry you would just give them an outgrown jacket and feed them but nowadays that wouldn't be seen as acceptable.

This is the kind of thing that you'd be told on here was you patronising the parents and sticking your nose in.

I can assure you people do. There are wonderful people who try to do their best to mitigate the harm. Often that's instead of reporting and should be as well as reporting but it does happen.

There are children I know, who wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for the kindness and care of other people. Neighbours and friends.

I don't pretend to have followed this case until the sentencing, but this timeline is interesting:

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/03/arthur-labinjo-hughes-timeline-of-events-that-ended-in-his-murder

From this I've inferred that the SW had to give notice of coming round. I'm not implying the SW was right or wrong, only what she said she saw.

Social workers don’t kill and abuse children but sadly some parents do. SW are already under a huge amount of pressure, don’t have a crystal ball and sometimes make mistakes just like every other professional. Making them criminally liable just means there will be no one left to do the job or they will become so risk averse that every child referred to them would be in court for removal. Is that what we want - rather than trying to improve conditions so that children can live safely at home?

Personally I think far, far more needs to be done before social services are even involved. All parents should have access to Early Help type services, parenting courses, well resourced health visitors etc with no shame attached. At the moment we are sent home with a tiny bundle and not much idea of what to do. Support should be available at every stage until your child is 18. People are afraid to say they can’t cope in case their children are removed. Most of us do our best based on what we saw when we grew up. Some of us had good parents, supportive networks and family around us but too many of us have experienced poor parenting and live in fractured communities and then struggle to know how to be a great parent ourselves. Let’s invest in teaching ALL parents/prospective parents how to do a fantastic job. Let’s strengthen communities. Let’s teach children what they should experience at home - what isn’t right. That’s where the investment is needed and then maybe things won’t get bad enough to need SS intervention quite so often.

So tragic, and an appalling failure of both society and the authorities., We need to ensure that any concerns are followed up, social services in my view has lost its way - too much money spent trying to force a politically correct agenda. The pandemic and the focus on the elderly has lead to an even greater redirection of resources away from children which in my view is appalling.

@SafeguardingSocialWorker

Surely in all of your 30 caseloads you talk to school and the gp as a minimum?

You ask school if the kids comes in regularly on time, clean and happy? You ask the gp if there have been hospital admissions? Please God tell me that you dont just turn up, stand on the doorstep and make a lone judgement call?

Surely it does not work like that?

@RadishRose but its child centric. Or its should be. It shouldn't be about how underfunded SC is or how many caseloads each SW has. The SW is there purely for that child. That child is a end service user. The SW exists purely to safeguard the child.

Now imagine going to Santander and the bank worker saying to you. I'm sorry we have no cash in because we are understaffed so come back tomorrow as we are fire fighting. Would you be happy with that as a rnd user? Now imagine you 6 years old and your being tortured. Would knowing there is no cash to hire more staff matter to you?

In childrens services nothing should be central except that child. Nothing. The child come first. It's not about providing a job to pay the Bill's. It is about the child.

The moment we forget that, it's gone horribly wrong.

The moment you go into work thinking straight off I have to many cases, we need more staff, we have ne resources how do you see the child? You dont. You dont see the individual kids. You see a mass drain on your limited resources. That is what these kids become seen as. A liability to budget constraints

I work in a school. We have had a few cases of Covid. Our social workers have stopped coming in because of it, instead doing check ins with their assigned children via video! Primary school vulnerable, abused and neglected children, being assessed for further signs of abuse and neglect over bloody video. Also had vulnerable children known to SS disappear off the radar because parents phone in and state “Covid”. “Covid symptoms”, “waiting for tests results” etc. Happens over and over with the same children, we have no idea what they are doing and no SS to check in because they are crying Covid. I’m sick of it. I cry at night thinking about what some kids are going through.

@IncessantNameChanger Right, so when a social worker has excessive cases to manage and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to give each one the attention in deserves, they should do what? Just don't think about it as you say? How ridiculous.