Imagine if all the people with solutions on this thread put their hands up to become Social Workers!? No child would ever die at the hands of parents and carers, those supposed to protect and care for them ever again.... Sadly I think not.
Come to work with me for a day, in an assessment team, managing a team of 5 SWs with 160 children open, 20/30 new referrals to be triaged every week (on a good week), where you have to decide which referrals you allocate for asessential (most of which require parental consent), and which have no further action.
Once you've decided threshold you have to find a social worker with space for new allocations. I stare at my spreadsheet looking at it from all possible angles wondering which social worker has the capacity to take another family, which might cry feeling further overwhelmed if allocated another.
Try going into work everyday, dreading what might await you, an awful, heart sinking referral or another resignation letter, sick note or colleague crying and in despair. Whilst at the same time trying to motivate, nurture a team of some of the best, most caring, well intentioned experienced SWs to keep doing what their doing because 'it will get better', 'referral rates can't go on like this forever', all whilst knowing there is no end, no more staff left to replace workers that left, no funding to replace resources long gone and no saviours for children's social care.
The only time people hear about children's social workers is when children die, tragically. No one marches for Social Workers, there is no clap for social workers, thank yous, barely any public acknowledgement.... until people want a SW named and shamed. Child Protection is in a dark corner of public services. People don't want social workers in their families generally, we dont want public recignition etc, just for the public to have some insight into the realities. Sadly a lot of the comments on this thread are not that.
I am proud that where I work visits have continued as normal, SWs have been in and out of schools and houses as usual since March 2020. Unlike some other professions who retreated entirely to virtual visits. Me and my team have strived to keep children safe in the most challenging of circumstances. My heart goes out to the SWs who went to that house, I cannot imagine how they must have replayed it over in their heads, every little part.
I have spent the last two days thinking about how we can talk about these headlines with my team next week as 100% there is always learning to come from such awful, tragic cases, I will await the review for full details but please remember social workers are people too.