AIBU to be furious that all the finger pointing in the Daniel Pelka case...

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Is being aimed towards the Head of Children Services and there is no mention of the Doctor that misdiagnosed this little boy with an eating disorder ? I mean FFS what kind of eating disorder leads a child to picking up food off a floor and scavenging in bins...

Don't disagree re more Social Workers and healthcare professionals.

However I do disagree re the Serious Case Reviews. They have changed practices for the better. CRB checks and recording came about because of Ian Huntley. CAF and Multi-Agency work was after Victoria Climbie.

Lessons are learned and things do change, but they are only as good as good as the people putting them into practice.

In my view, peope are too nice, too willing to believe and not 'make things worse'. Righteous indignation, healthy cynicism, better to get it wrong and upset someone, than ignore it and ... Well.. Another death.

"I wonder what his teachers were doing. Probably on an inset day"

Oh just fuck off.

Fault predominantly lies with the mother/boyfriend but that does not excuse inaction on the part of social services, school, neighbours, other parents at the school etc. If they were conned, then frankly they were idiots. The child resembled a concentration camp victim for Christ's sakes. His neglect and abuse should have been obvious to any reasonably intelligent person. Frankly, I think people assume someone else is dealing with it and there is too much lenience/inaction by public bodies. These cases make me really angry.

"Been obvious to any reasonably intelligent person" FFS

It WAS obvious. They reported and reported.

They could not take him home with them for tea!

If the school or others had been forceful enough, action would have been taken. I stand by my comments - too much leniency/inaction.

They reported.... Who is 'they' and
who did they report to?

HeySoulSister
if that's at jambalaya "they" would be the teachers and TA, and "reported to" would be the CPO, HT etc.

The truth is that schools, teachers, TAs and HTs can only do so much and can only push so far.

It is easy to see going by this thread (and others) who posters would like to see scapegoated for this.

The thing is, schools do report regularly and regularly get told that SS are not going to take any action as it doesn't reach the threshold for action.

I think I read though that although the teachers themselves reported to the headmaster - he would not let them write it all in the concerns book, and then did not chase it up with SS? He phoned the GP and hence the false trail of metabolice/eating disorder/worming tablets bit...

Thanks Boney, wasn't quite on the ball to answer then.

Agree though - thought for a second I'd slipped onto the Daily Mail comment section.

The people who were primarily responsible have been dealt with by the court system but the other bodies involved should be made to answer for their actions or otherwise - that isn't scapegoating. It's about public bodies being accountable.

So this is what I don't get.... Who did the head teacher report teachers concerns on to?

The schools CPO can report every day of week, forward every concern, by several members of staff, and it can be deemed as unimportant by someone who has never met the child, because it doesn't fit criteria.

So does the buck stop with Social Services then?

INSET day?

Another ODFOD from me.

Daniel didn't have much weight to spare from the CCTV pictures taken in the last week but many children are very thin.

I am not a doctor but there was some delay (36 hours?) between the poor child dying and his body taken away. There must also have been a fair amount of red tape to go through before an autopsy could be permitted. Of course he looked like a concentration camp victim by then, it could have been days!

What was shown to the jury and reported by the coroner isn't what his teachers would have seen when he was getting changed for P.E for heaven's sake.

What was reported regarding his weight etc was taken at the point of his death, not days afterwards - at the point of his death. Yes, many children are slim/slender, however Daniel was described as being more emaciated than concentration camp victims i.e. those who had not survived. So for heaven's sake, it should have been spotted - can't believe that you are making excuses!

holidaybug
"but the other bodies involved should be made to answer for their actions or otherwise - that isn't scapegoating."

Putting forward the view/opinion/misinformation that a person or persons can do more than they actually can is scapegoating.

examples from the thread/s
"the teachers should have given the child food", the parents told the school that the child had severe food problems.

"The school should have contacted the GP", They did.

"I would have taken the child home", You would have been arrested for kidnapping.

HeySoulSister
"Who did the head teacher report teachers concerns on to?"

Head teachers can report to Camhs, the police, social services, the GP/doctors.

Nobody was with the child at the point of his death!

I am not making excuses.

He was very thin, I agree, but if someone has had no calories or more importantly, fluids for 36 hours there will look emaciated. Hugh Jackman employed this technique for the prisoner scenes in Les Mis.

What should have happened was that his alleged eating disorder had been taken seriously by a medical professional and that he was weighed regularly.

My DD had pica once and took to eating bits of bath sponges. I mentioned it and her team had safeguarding in mind even though it was related to her medical condition and she was far from thin.

He was described by the judge as resembling a concentration camp victim and weighed less than a toddler - not a very thin boy who then looked emaciated as a result of the process of death.

He was not seen by a medic until he had been dead for almost two days.

His teachers did not see him in that condition.

My friend's DC are extremely bony and resemble Daniel. Difference is, they arrange and keep dietician appointments and are closely monitored.

What seems to be a recurring theme with these cases is social workers being intimidated by the families they are trying to help. I know that assaults on social workers are a problem and that it often goes unreported.

Why are lone social workers, often young women, expected to visit these families, expected to stand up to aggressive and potentially violent parents and blamed if they cannot then secure a sighting of the child? Too many of these parents know their rights and know how to work the system. Until we start properly funding child protection and ensuring social workers are free from intimidation, we are going to keep seeing these cases.

It's far easier and cheaper to scapegoat one or two individuals than to provide adequate funding to address the real issues. The whole system needs a complete overhaul, but that's not nearly such a vote catcher as, say, education reforms.

Corrine you are wrong.

Drs carrying out an autopsy would be able to calculate Daniels weight when he died. The worthy given 1.5 stone would have been very accurate.

weight given not worthy

Calculations can be done, yes. I'm just trying to say that what the coroner saw was probably not what his teachers saw.

And that they were not all getting pissed and eating pizza on an INSET day cackling at parents having to fork out for childcare or whatever people think INSET days consist of.

And that they could not in any circumstances have taken that poor child home without being arrested and their own children taken into care pending an investigation.

I'm a former teacher and I have given food and money and made calls which would have led to me being sacked if discovered. I plugged gaps for years.

People like me are leaving in droves and they are also leaving social care. This is not a good thing.

Just reading more about this. It seemed he was loved by his mother at some point? The cruelty was for 6 months I read

Her mother reported she was ' a good girl' when she left Poland... But she was a drug user