AIBU to think Police should investigate Child Abuse rather than Social Worker.

[Lockdownbear]

Far to many child abuse cases seem to slip through the net. Child abuse and neglect are both criminal offences, why are they checked out by SW rather than police ?
Surely the police are the experts in criminal enquiries, let them check cases out then the SW get involved later if necessary.

Unless there was no funding available to actually train these sw I fail to see in this specific instance what more funding will do?
I don't deny at all that over all we need to invest more but in this instance what has funding got to do with it?

As Andrew marr saying right now there was a lack of "professional curiosity, investigation".
The sad thing is, is that resources were there but used and wasted in an ineffective way.

I don't personally believe that it will ever be fully possible to prevent every single person who is motivated to harm children. People are horrified when children are killed in these circumstances but in truth, the abuse and neglect of children is so widespread, the real shock is that it doesn't happen more often.

Often, social workers are successful, thankfully.

Personally when someone says like the grandma that they have evidence of physical harm like the bruise picture there needs to be a special mechanism that comes into play.

Whoever, maybe police and sw or another special team should look at and discuses the basis of the trigger, in this case the photo.

That photo shows an horrific bruise.
There is no way a small child with a boxing glove could have inflicted that. That photo was strong evidence and it needed to be properly investigated but it seemd to have got lost in the system.
They didn't see it the photo, the police wouldn't look at it... Its importance was totally lost but its evidence!!

Someone should have looked at it... Wow they said a child caused that? Let's get back in and ask tough questions. No one in their right mind would accept that bruise came from a small child's boxing glove.

If they had properly analysed that photo and used that as the basis of their investigation rather than "listening" to the hollow words of the perps I believe there would have been a totally different outcome.

Pleasant yes, and they can't say we saved x amount of dc.

The frustration in this case was it was reported, it was flagged up, there was evidence... There were reosuces for visits... It was all just totally ineffectual.

Lack of curiosity comes from being hugely overworked and trying to protect up to 50/60 families from harming their children. It all boils down to funds. More supporting agencies are needed. More social workers holding a lower caseload, more police to cover their work. And finally more foster placements, you can't remove a child if you've nowhere to put them. Literally there are no placements.

I've had kids sitting in offices for hours while we've tried to find a home for them. Sibling groups separated and all within hours of being removed by police from their parents. What do you do with that 6 year old boy whose scared because he still loves his parents and has nowhere to sleep. All his belongings are left behind etc. Its a horrendous situation and the most difficult job I've ever done.

In Arthur’s case two women social workers visited who reported no bruising or on my very slight was seen on Arthur. Despite the GM taking a photo of his terribly bruised shoulder the day before.
It just doesn’t add up.

The frustration in this case was it was reported, it was flagged up, there was evidence... There were reosuces for visits... It was all just totally ineffectual.

I understand that. What we don't know is what issues were flagged with other children? Were they in an even worse state? What have those social workers seen that made this case less a priority than other cases?

@NellieBertram

Maybe what social worker unions need to do is agree a safe caseload (I don’t know - 10/15 families per worker?) and just refuse to take on more than that. So if Birmingham Social Services have 30 social workers, they accept 300 families at a time and turn down any more referrals regardless. I’m the short term more children will be abused and die but in the long term it might produce the change people want.

That doesn't work! What happens to the children who need to be allocated when the social workers are refusing to take any more??

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

We need to reduce the load on social workers by ensuring low level stuff never progresses to need serious intervention - Sure Start funding, good, cheap early years funding, better funding for schools. More scaffolding to help families away from chaotic lives.

Yes!! Absolutely this. There are so many issues relating to poverty, stress, poor housing, poor mental health that need intervention at an early stage before it reaches anywhere near child protection but the resources aren't there.

I’m the short term more children will be abused and die but in the long term it might produce the change people want.

I've just seen the end of your post that I didn't read properly. Well that will never happen. What a stupid thing to say.

@NellieBertram

Maybe what social worker unions need to do is agree a safe caseload (I don’t know - 10/15 families per worker?) and just refuse to take on more than that. So if Birmingham Social Services have 30 social workers, they accept 300 families at a time and turn down any more referrals regardless. I’m the short term more children will be abused and die but in the long term it might produce the change people want.

Sorry but what planet are you on?

This is what happens now.

Police don’t have more capacity nor the right training. Social workers are trained just have too many cases, a bit like the current predicament of midwives. We just need more trained social workers. Kids have been failed miserably in the pandemic and that will come out in the Arthur inquiry. Teachers tend to know which children are at risk. I think it needs to be mandatory for such children to attend school in any lockdowns. We all know that was a major failure in the first and second lockdown- many of those who needed to be in were not.

@NynaeveSedai

I’m the short term more children will be abused and die but in the long term it might produce the change people want.

I've just seen the end of your post that I didn't read properly. Well that will never happen. What a stupid thing to say.

The system isn't working currently though.

The public wants social workers to have sufficient time to work safely with every family they have "on their radar".
That's only going to happen if there are more social workers or fewer families.

At the moment children die who have a social worker so it is the social worker's fault.
If SWs had fewer children and could provide a better service, fewer children with a social worker would die.
The ones murdered by their parents would be children who couldn't access social service. Maybe people would start demanding more social workers, better resources, better pay? Maybe they'd start voting accordingly.

Obviously it's not actually going to happen. What will happen is the government will continue running public services into the ground and will find some individual social worker or manager they can pin the blame on.

@arcticfoxed - no that is not what happens now. Social workers (and health visitors) just have hugely unmanageable and unsafe caseloads.

Being a social worker is, frankly, not a job many people aspire to.

It’s poorly paid, hours are long, incidence of being abused is high and you get blamed for things not in your control.

Many high achieving and effective people are not attracted to it so the good ones do it because it’s a vocation and end up jaded and burned out and the poor ones are not effective.

Consequently training is poor, management’s is patchy and interim staff make continuity nearly impossible.

There is no easy solution. If there were it would’ve been implemented.

Children don’t die like Arthur (and Daniel, Peter, Victoria among all the others) because no one cares, they die because evil people are determined.

Posts like this reminds me of people dieting ...

If you make the police focus on this, what areas are you willing to see them ease back on ?

Or do you believe there is an infinite reserve of policing reserves to go around ?

Remember how over worked the police already are. They hardly have time to go around speaking to people about non-crimes.

@HPmagic

I'm from NI, Social Workers here work very closely with the Police. Any referral of a concern of abuse is jointly investigated by the PSNI and Social Services on the same day. This could be physical, sexual, neglect, unexplained bruising, severe emotional. It works well and response is always immediate, children are spoken to in school within the hour usually and safeguarding completed. I'm not sure what the process in England is.

Similar in Scotland

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

We need to reduce the load on social workers by ensuring low level stuff never progresses to need serious intervention - Sure Start funding, good, cheap early years funding, better funding for schools. More scaffolding to help families away from chaotic lives.

Agree with this

Support services have been withdrawn / reduced left right and centre, and it's left children hugely vulnerable

Support services have been withdrawn / reduced left right and centre, and it's left children hugely vulnerable

But at least the survivors are tough ? Seems like it's just Tory social engineering. England - the new Sparta ?

Well they manage this in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Would help if SS didn't pass on jobs to the police on a Friday afternoon that haven't been completed in favour of their ESSO.

That's like saying an architect needs to do a dentists job, why do the police need to do SS jobs?

We are saying that child abuse is a crime and should be investigated either jointly by the police and SS or solely by the police. Apparently NI and Scotland have this system.

@Malibuismysecrethome

We are saying that child abuse is a crime and should be investigated either jointly by the police and SS or solely by the police. Apparently NI and Scotland have this system.

That is what already happens in England too

I know someone who’s children were on child protection plans. She constantly drinks, takes drugs, is very volatile and violent when drunk. All of her children have different dads (7 kids 7 dads and only 2 dads involved). She has been arrested for dv on one man and the others have ran away because of her behaviour.

I spoke to her social worker as part of their enquiries because I know her well (her dd is friends with mine) and I told the social worker all of my concerns. She screams and shouts at her kids and her dad has often told me she doesn’t want to go home because mummy shouts at her and hits her. The social worker said well I can only go on what I witness and she deals with the childrens behaviour appropriately whilst I’m there. I said of course she does! Who’s going to abuse their kids in front of a social worker?!

She ticked the boxes of a well kept house, food and well dressed kids. Except the kids are living in torture of a drunk mum who has a different man constantly and also shows no interest in her kids what so ever but still social services took the kids off the protection plan and said they weren’t concerned