Will lessons really be learnt after this tragic child abuse case?

[Tolkienista]

The horrific case of baby Preston Davey sickeningly abused by his adoptive parents (a teacher and his partner) concluded in a guilty verdict in court yesterday.
The details are too traumatic to contemplate the awful end of this child's life.
Once again the age old phrase "lessons will be learnt" has been quoted and I have to say, will they?

I know life is extremely complicated & I'm in no doubt that the killer of Preston was manipulative, cold hearted and extremely secretive in covering up his abuse of this defenceless little child.
I guess that because abuse generally takes place behind closed doors, child abuse will sadly always be a part of our society.

Utterly utterly tragic.

Again your police friend literally has the power to remove the child - more power than any social workers.

@RoseField1the assessment process can’t have been that rigorous though. The foster mother said that they knew very little about caring for the little boy at all and seemed totally clueless and she had to teach them everything. Not being funny but surely there should be some check that people have done a bit of research and read up on how to care for the age of child they are getting? Yes, obviously we are all a bit clueless as new parents, but that shouldn’t be the benchmark for getting an adopted child, who has been through a lot and needs consistent reliable care?

The process of matching and transitions is about learning to care for the child you will be parenting. The adopters spend time with the child and their foster carers and the foster carer teaches them the child’s routine and daily care. It’s part of the process. It’s literally part of the foster carers role to show them how to do it, because each child is different and as an adopter you try to keep things consistent for the child immediately following placement.

It’s terrible. What does the threshold need to cover? And then the police probably think well what’s the point in this. We call them and they do nothing.
And why are they doing nothing?!

Where would they take the kids though? Social services are saying it’s ok. They’d probably just take them back home.

Nobody knows about caring for a baby until they have one. It’s the same for adopters. Why should we be expected to be instant experts? It is literally the job of the paid foster carers to help children transition to their forever families. That includes teaching about routines, their likes and dislikes and sharing information about mundane things like washing powders so that adopters can minimise any unsettling for the children by keeping things as consistent as possible.

I agree with this. I'm a social worker, I've worked in a child protection team and a perspective adopters team which was assessing and training adopters. Child protection absolutely does need more staff and mistakes are made due to poor staffing levels and a huge amount of inexperienced staff managing complex cases.
Adoption teams generally have experienced staff and a stable workforce. Case loads are reasonable and can be managed because it's not all urgent crisis situations like child protection is. The assessments are very thorough and of really high quality. They're signed off by managers, then quality assured and approved/rejected by a panel of independent people (usually made up of ex social workers and adopters) and include multiple references.
We will see when the serious case review is completed, but I wouldn't be surprised if they struggle to find any faults or lessons from the approval of them as adopters. I think this has just been a case of an evil but very intelligent and manipulative couple ticking all the right boxes to get a child.

The sex of the parent/parents is irrelevant, a loving stable home for a child in care is what's needed .
Why would a gay couple not be good enough to provide that ?
I think you are totally wrong.
I'm not sure what to think about surrogacy for any sex.

This case is deeply distressing for so many and I know many of us will never forget that beautiful little face.
I don't mean to sound trite but I've adopted a dog from a local charity and honestly think the procedures, both formal and informal were more rigorous.I'm not developing this parallel too far as it feels inappropriate but I was struck by how every interaction was motivated by pure love for the dog.My skin colour, profession or background meant nothing to these people, all they cared about was the outcome for the dog and if he had suffered the slightest injury i'd have had a lot of explaining to do.
If I had been given the chance of adopting a beautiful little boy I'd have been more than happy to have had unannounced visits in order to safeguard him.These things really aren't complex.

Seriously. You think the process for rehoming a dog is more rigorous than the adoption process? There’s actually no help for some people.

Are you thinking someone asks for a child and gets one delivered. There’s a number of meetings before you’re even accepted for assessment, the assessment is about 6 months (at very best, most are much longer) worth of meetings with social workers, there’s a report written at the end of that (mine was 70 pages long), the report is reviewed by a more senior social worker, an adoption penal (mine had 14 people on the panel), who decide whether you can ever adopt a child, and that decision is reviewed by a senior manager in social worker.

After that they find a child for you to be matched with. That involves meeting yet another social worker, the child’s foster carers, the agency paediatrician, any other professionals involved in the child’s life and another report which outlines why you’re being matched with this particular child. That report is then read by another panel who decide whether you’re the right match for this particular child. The senior social worker manager then signs off that decision.

You then start a planning process for introductions, which is when you get to know the child and the foster carers teach you what this particular child needs in terms of care. Once the child moves in, there are regular visits from social worker, and yes they may be unannounced.

After all that, if everything is going ok, you can apply for the adoption order.

So these men managed to manipulate a pretty long, involved process, with many eyes on them, for quite some time. Abusers playing the long game, as they do.

Yes, statistically, ALL men are a far greater risk to children than women. So two men seeking to adopt an unrelated child SHOULD require far greater scrutiny. The situation is statistically far more risky than a heterosexual couple adopting. It's not because they are gay. It's because they are two men.

We should not be afraid to say this.

I agree that single men and male couples should not be able to adopt children under a certain age.

That is true and I agree with everything you say.

However, apparently this little boy had multipe A and E visits in the months before his death with several injuries.

Shouldn't that have raised a red flag?

Men are responsible for 93% of violent crime in this country.
It's statistically very very relevant.

I agree with you, but I'm sure someone will be along shortly to accuse you of being homophobic.

I have issues with male nursery workers as well - I am not sure if I would keep my children in a nursery that hired a man.

My two DC had multiple A&E visits in the months post placement. A combination of very traumatised children whose nervous system was on over drive (so lots of hyper activity), them being in an unfamiliar place so not aware of surroundings, me not being used to supervising two very active children and simple accidents happening coupled with me being hyper anxious and cautious about their health care.

Health staff check whether the injury could be explained by parents (and the child if able to explain), whether the explanation could result in the type of injury described, the interaction between parent and child, there’s a report to social work because the child is still legally in care, and social work explore that with the parent.

All of that seems to have happened in this case. Medics seemed happy with the parents explanation and the injuries seemed consistent with what they were told had happened. All a social worker can do at that point is support the parent and continue to observe both parent and child. If there’s not an assessment of non-accidental injury and you have a very new parent yes you’d be concerned that the parent was coping, so you’d be keeping an good eye out while also recognising the challenges of early placement which are very different to having a newborn.

It’s very easy after the fact to put pieces together and point to the “obvious” much harder to do that in real time amidst the complexity of adoption.

Background checks are all very well, but people are like icebergs, the vast amount of information about the 'real' person is buried in their searches, on their devices, and in their messaging apps.

If AI is supposed to revolutionise the world, I don't see why it can't start with the ability to thoroughly inspect the data of prospective adopters. And if someone has wiped vast swathes of searches, red flag.

I had actually thought this. In theory I suppose AI could be used to detect illegal porn websites.

@JLou08it looks as if the foster mother reported concerns. And there were a couple of A&E visits, one of which the nurse said that the explanation didn’t match the injury (but was overruled by the doctor). The texts to the fathers from the sw were embarrassing. It looks as if no one was really monitoring things overall properly.

@ThePieceHall

Yeah, but at least check that these people have read some books and given it proper thought. This foster mother will have seen adoptive parents and new parents before and she seemed to think it was quite striking. Surely it’s a red flag that these guys seemed to know nothing at all about caring for a young child and needed intensive instruction from the foster mother, but then basically shut her out and refused to meet her from then on?

There is no doubt in my mind that if these men had been properly data searched it would have revealed their paedophilia.

It's normal not to know many things with your first child, but even with my first child I knew basic things, like changing a nappy, how to hold the baby and preparing bottles, safe sleep.

I educated myself and had experience from looking after my nephew.

I think 0 % knowledge is concerning, as it raises concerns. When you're about to become a parent you want to do everything right and you're so excited, so you do your research and prepare.

It’s now a general requirement for most agencies that prospective adopters gain voluntary experience of working with children, so in nurseries, or at Cub or Brownie units. Again, I’m not defending the pair, but I will point out that the relationship between adopters and foster carers can become tricky. It’s simply human dynamics. Some foster carers struggle to let go and some adopters want to claim their children and leave their pasts behind. Introductions, which take place for an extended period in the fostering home, are a time of heightened emotions for everyone. Also, there are usually planned meet-ups between foster carers and the adoptive family once a child has moved to their putative forever home. These are scheduled by the relevant social workers and agreed with the independent reviewing officer who has oversight of the placement.

@ThePieceHallyes, i don’t disagree with all that. I kind of wonder whether Varley got a bit of a pass for being a secondary school teacher in a safeguarding role. But I don’t think that really qualifies you to be amazing at looking after a small baby - it’s kind of a different skill set, isn’t it? Most teachers are brilliant child orientated people, of course, but a very young child with attachment issues needs quite specific care. Clearly, given what Varley said to a colleague, he was woefully unprepared for the reality - of course, lack of preparedness would not lead most people toward depraved behaviour of his kind.

Sadly it was. Trust me the police were not happy

If that's the case that is even worse. Surely they should have been on a parenting course before being allowed to adopt a baby.