FFS how many more kids need to be murdered!

[Readytoplay]

I have just watched the documentary Taken Failed Killed on BBC iPlayer. Leiland-James is now the third child to have died due to social services incompetence within the last 24 months, following Arthur and Star. How many more kids are going to have to be murdered before something is done about this unbelievably, unacceptable system which is meant to support and care for those vulnerable!

So angry!! 😡😡😡

The convicted woman admitted to having anger management and alcohol issues.

This was foreseeable.

I dont blame the social workers, most are very good (some are shockingly bad) but they have to be ridiculously choosy about what cases are accepted as they simply dont have the manpower to take on every cause for concern.

Both mine and my husbands jobs mean we have to work closely with social services and its infuriating when we can see a bad situation developing that needs intervention and social services wont accept the referral until something more serious happens. We want to STOP something more serious happening.

Our LA has multiple social worker, and social worker manager vacancies and we're a fairly large town/city.

She didn’t admit them to a social worker. She admitted those things to a therapist. Should the therapist have shared that information? I don’t know, did the therapist even know she was trying to adopt?

Your username does you credit you absolute melt.

@LastThursdayInJuly but you don’t know that it was only about risk of future harm; she could say what she wanted and childrens services can’t break court confidentiality to contradict her. It’s horrific that she was beaten to the extent that she had a miscarriage but it’s also horrific that her older children were living in a home where that happened. there is a much bigger story to this.

I want to make it clear I’m not blaming the workers but the system that allowed this to happen, which will happen again if not properly restructured to ensure that it can’t!

The thing is no system will be able to account for people who lie, who have people who will lie for them. All the restructuring in the world won’t change the fact that social work is a massive under valued, under resourced service.

When I adopted my two we had weekly visits by both the child’s social worker and our assessing social worker, moving to weekly visits by one or other, moving to fortnightly visits for the first 3 months of placement, they spoke to the kids, observed them with me, spoke to me and offered much needed support. If there had been anything wrong in placement they would have seen it and been able to intervene quickly.

I’m a registered social worker and trauma specialist - I knew what I was getting into and they knew that but they also recognised the challenges of early placement with traumatised kids. That took resources, plain and simple.

This couple had statutory level visits. Not remotely enough to form an opinion of the placement, but lack of resources meant they couldn’t visit more frequently. An social worker unknown to the couple and the child undertook one of those visits, again due to lack of resources. They didn’t have the knowledge of the parents or the child to realise the urgency of the concerns they saw - and no one knew about the many underlying issues with the female adopter because other services didn’t share the information.

We can restructure all we like but when social workers carry cases of 30+ kids all of whom are at risk of significant harm, they are limited in what they can do.

This will happen again and again, because you can’t stop people who are utterly determined to do harm to children. You certainly can’t do it with shoe string budgets and overwhelmed staff.

@Chdjdn the charity supporting her have supported her version of events, but in a way you’re right: I can’t possibly know.

What does worry me, if I may be honest, is that there is no acknowledgement that a mistake could be even possible. We have to admit that a mistake was made placing him with the Castles: we have a grave to prove that But the same system that sent him to those people is nonetheless considered infallible when it comes to taking him away in the first place - despite his death, despite Poppi before him.

It’s the same old lines

No child taken without good reason
High threshold
Damned if they do …

If we can’t even accept errors of judgement are possible, where does that leave birth parents?

@Darnley completely agree, never heard so much bullshit in my life! People honestly believe that they get paid bonuses for that!

Local case "child a" accused stepdad of molestation

His biological child (younger boy under five) was almost removed as they thought dad was back in the marital home the child who was abused? Left in the family home

Where is the sense in that? Leave the one at risk take the other one?

She didn’t admit them to a social worker. She admitted those things to a therapist. Should the therapist have shared that information? I don’t know, did the therapist even know she was trying to adopt?

The therapist should have passed those concerns on regardless of whether she knew they were trying to adopt, they already had a child who should have been a safeguarding consideration. Safeguarding training in therapist training is absolutely woeful, it doesn’t surprise me that the therapist didn’t raise concerns.

Second all of this.

About 2 DCs are killed per week in the U.K. and it's been that way for years. Just because the media has brought some to your attention doesn't mean it's getting worse. Though with human rights laws as they are it wouldn't be surprising if it was.

Logan was also killed due to Social services failures. Like the NHS the system has collapsed and failed they are no longer fit for purpose and are more danger than good now.

Because you have refused to listen to careful, reasoned arguments and are intent on spewing your 'all social workers are evil and if you disagree you think they are perfect who can do no wrong'.

You are intent on believing the mother did absolutely nothing wrong and didn't do anything to put her children at risk and they removal was a result of her lack of safeguarding her children from abuse.

You are spinning replies left, right and centre to suit you're own rhetoric to the point you are making up replies that no one has said.

I'm glad you've hid it as you aren't educated on the matter. At all.

DH is a police officer. Went to collect 2 children aged 2 & 4 being neglected (mother was struggling).
They were dirty, wearing just underwear, very hungry and thin and had been eating out of the bins for months. A neighbour had been trying to help the mother but had her own children to look after.
DH & colleague took them to emergency foster carer who said “oh I was expecting them weeks ago.”
Social workers response was “Oh yes those 2. I thought they’d be ok for a few more weeks.” She knew the mother needed help and couldn’t look after herself and her children

It will never stop because the social problems will never end.

So many parents have their children taken away quickly and no apology when they prove that social services have lied and yet the ones who are being abused are left to die.

I hear this a lot yet I don’t know anyone who’s ever had their children unfairly or quickly removed nor do I know anyone who knows anyone.

If your kids were taken off you I can guarantee it was for their own good.

In fact it’s completely the opposite.
Often SS do not remove children quick enough whether that’s because they have so many steps to go through or because they’re trying to avoid the claims that they take kids too quickly.

I know a child who needs to be removed from her home.
I know SS want removing children to be the absolute last resort (and I agree) but sometimes it’s frustrating that theirs children at risk and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The worst part is that there’s hundreds more than these three 💔.

This is awful, I think that social worker needs a job that doesn’t involve looking after the welfare of children.

No @Supersee , because I genuinely don’t think you understand how disturbing it is to see people flocking to defend the indefensible to the death. Literally.

Society and humans are the problem. It's our society's system and family structures that are failing. Like @Chdjdn said, children die weekly at the hands of parents. That is a constant, always has been it seems.
Some deaths are considered newsworthy, many more are not. It's all fucked up

I don’t think it’s fair to blame “the system” or social services for the murder of any child. It’s like blaming the police everytime a man or woman is killed on the streets. The murderer who kills the child is to blame. This idea that “the system” is supposed to keep everyone safe is extremely naive.

Every day social services and the police save lives, these don’t get into the news. It’s only the few that they couldn’t save that do.