To think gullibility is a bad qualification for child protection

[friday16]

Or, to be charitable, thinking the best of people.

In the aftermath of the Peter Connolly case, we were repeatedly told how the mother was a clever, plausible, manipulative woman who was able to twist professionals around her finger. Then we saw video footage of her, and saw a dishevelled, incoherent mess with a long history of mental health issues: the precise opposite of the elegant, cool deceiver. This was not American Psycho.

Now in the Daniel Pelka case, we are asked to believe that no-one could have seen through the mother's story that "Daniel's dramatic weight loss was due to a rare genetic disorder". Not a teacher, not a social worker, not (ffs) a consultant paediatrician. We then hear a recording of the 999 call, and (again) it's an incoherent woman who can barely speak English. How was she able to spin a subtle and coherent web of lies which fooled all the terribly clever professionals, when she couldn't string a sentence together?

I'd have never believed myself until I experienced it, if i had read my post 3 years ago, id have thought 'obsessive nutjob'! I actually wish that were true, easier to have a random complainer than the situation I've just described.

I am currently debating whether to go Mp or lawyer route first. Its already been escalated to head of ss and hasnt been resolved. That person just hung a hunior out to dry, when its clear that the issues are endemic not individual. Makes me cross on so many levels.

Am fact finding to work out which will have more of an effect on the system as well as help the specific issues for me. I can fight (sometimes), and I get very worried about other people who can't.

I get extremely worried about abused children, needing a functional service to step in. It actually doesn't bear thinking about. I hope child protection is better but I have no reason to think so. Sorry, I'll shut up now.

Double, sadly your experience sounds entirely consistent with a number of serious case reviews and comments from judges in cases that are the other way round - where SS has wrongly removed children. Recent case in, IIRC, Surrey, where the judge condemned SS for exactly the failures you describe, which ended up in SS/medical witnesses in court telling stories that were contradicted by the original reports/statements.

My sister is a nurse working with people with learning disabilities and has plenty of stories of both SS and health professionals working on gossip, prejudice and allegations rather than bothering to check the facts, or listen when someone points out the facts. I've heard similar from an extremely eminent doctor, a national leader, who was shouted down and even threatened when he tried to point out to child protection people that they were making up stories about a family (he was their doctor).

Incompetence and what is little better than a rumour mill has caused children to be left with abusive parents and also innocent families to be horribly traumatised by wrongful removals. Either way, these are tragedies.

whistleblowing

www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/whistleblowing-ofsted-about-safeguarding-local-authority-childrens-services

You can report any practice you find that's unsafe. This will apply to those incorrectly accused of child neglect etc as well as protecting abused children.

Share if you can.

I know this isn't the point of the thread but I feel I need to point out that I wasn't accused of anything. My case has nothing to do with child protection.

I'm being vague on purpose as I'm taking the matter further and don't want to cause problems by putting things on a public forum.

It may not read like that to others, but i can't leave the possibility open that the last poster is understood as implying i was accused of neglect. Just clarifying!

The most common theme that comes out of all of the most recent high profile scr is poor communication between services, be that health, social care, police or education.

Without communicating any concerns no one agency gets the wider context of any problems - what could be explained away as a very plausible reason/explanation for one service takes on a whole new meaning if its mirrored and echoed across several services.

My worry is that as services become more fragmented (as we are seeing in health and social provision in view of commissioning of services out to different providers) this becomes more of a challenge than it is now, and communication remains a problem.

Electronic records help but they are not the definitive answer as there is not one record for all services and ultimately records are only as good as the people entering the information. Good record keeping is essential but you still have to act on that information and not just record.

One of the 6 c's in patient care that is widely talked about is Courage. This to me is so important in safeguarding. Having courage to not necessarily accept others opinions and to continue to challenge decisions across the board if you are not happy with the outcome. To not just assume that someone else is taking it as seriously as you.

I mentioned accusations mainly because of what Edam was saying. Many parents of children with SEN are accused of some form of neglect at some stage in their lives, usually down to misinformation and bad communication. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's a sign that the system is working (although it doesn't appear that way to the accused).

Whistleblowing about a system where there is poor record keeping and lack of accountability will help to protect both children and wrongly accused adults.

Double, sorry, I didn't mean to imply your case was anything to do with child protection, merely that your experiences in a different area of SS have echoes with poor practice by SWs in child protection.

After reading about the Hamzah Khan case I'm starting to think that it's not just children that slip through the net, it's adults. If parenting and home support services were adequate these children wouldn't have died as their mothers would have been under closer scrutiny. Both were victims of DV and although that does not legally excuse them it does explain their failure to prevent the violence. Daniel was healthy until his mother met this abusive man.