To wonder why so many child deaths seem to be linked to Haringey social care?

[bathsh3ba]

Latest case of Lily Mai St George shaken to death at 10 weeks old the day before she was due to be taken into care. Concerns raised by midwives/hospitals and seemingly over ruled by social care. Mother charged with infanticide as she was felt to not be mentally fully capable. All so sad.

But it seems to so often be Haringey in the news. Is it actually worse there or is it just that we notice the name because of the notoriety of the cases?

It's a very deprived borough. I would imagine it's partly down to the workload placed upon the Social Workers.

Very deprived area with above average social issues - I'm guessing they're not allocated as much funding as they need to address it

It's a societal issue that we see exemplified in very specific places

Parts of Haringey are extremely deprived (average figures probably misrepresent this as it also has some very well off areas).

Haringey has been financially mismanaged for years, lost millions in the Icelandic banks crash, generally hasn't got enough to cover what it needs to spend and wastes what it has.

It's a very deprived and densely populated Borough.

Also the press know a Haringey child death will grab attention because of the Peter Connolley association so they are more likely to report it.

@RodiganReed You forget Victoria Climbie several years before him.

High poverty will play a part. Probably got very high staff vacancies.

I wish people would support investment in prevention rather than pretending to give a shit once it is too late

That poor baby😞

That was 22.yrs ago.

Social care relies on money coming in (tax base) and money going out (need). Kensington has lots of money and very low needs = lots of lovely care. Haringey has bugger all money and lots of need = shitty care.

I think there are areas like Haringey up and down the country but they don't get the media attention. Seriously deprived areas where cuts to funding of vital services have had devastating consequences for the most vulnerable in society.

Social workers rushed off their feet with ridiculously high caseloads to the point where they can't realistically do their job properly. They make mistakes that wouldn't have happened if they had more staff. They get vilified in the press and blamed by the public. "Why didn't they do something?" It's usually too few staff, too much red tape. When I hear about those awful cases on the news, I of course think of the poor child but I also spare a thought for the often overworked social worker who will be blaming themselves and have to live with that for the rest of their life. The response from the higher ups is always "lessons have been learned". They haven't, nothing really seems to change.

@JasmineVioletRose but still as horrific as the day she died. Poor little girl.

Such a horrific case, the injuries that baby suffered 😢

🧡

I think a lot of cases do not reach the news, because I’ve seen many cases in local papers that do not hit nationals. But, as other posters have said, poverty and the unique challenges faced by the Borough, probably.

according to this Guardian article about 58 children a year due when known to social services.

I expect areas with high profile cases make social workers and managers wary of going into work at that council so workload is even higher.

I had a job interview for a school in that borough once. I didn't get the job but they were shit hot on safeguarding- I was literally grilled about it. Whoever got that job would've had to have known their stuff inside and out.

My guess is that the area is a perfect storm of financial mismanagement and societal deprivation. The first massively contributing the the latter. Also compared to where I work now, it'll have a huge population.

In the time I've been working in education the number of cases a social worker has on their workload has increased massively. They no longer have the time to build trust and relationships with the people they're working with which is vital if you're going to be spotting signs of abuse.

With the extra media attention on Harringey I'd expect they're also struggling to get social workers to work there. It's widely acknowledged that if, as a social worker, something happens on your watch, your career is over. What is less widely acknowledged is to avoid this happening the workload is piled on the really good social workers making them more likely to miss something.

Frequently if there's a media pile-on on an individual who failed to pick up on something, it's a fair bet that actually they've been an excellent SW who was given more and more work until it became too much. The upshot is they leave and you're left with the mediocre ones who should've been given the extra work in the first place.

While all the above is true, the situation is more convoluted.

Haringey continues to have issues in most departments placing politics before people, including vulnerable children.

When they are found wanting by courts and ombudsman, they tend to defend the bad practice they're criticized for, which makes it hard to see how 'lessons will be learnt.'

There are so many departments known to manipulate, gatekeep, and treat the working as cash cows, and when they get caught out they rarely acknowledge and say sorry.

Markfield are the organization helping parents with SEN and
disabled children recorded a 0% satisfaction rate with Haringey provision.

Add to it all any social worker looking to work there not only has to deal with the internal politics, but also it seems a surprisingly high number of social workers seem to find themselves facing child protection proceedings on their own children.

On top of that they have the critical eyes of all on them.
Doesn't tend to attract anyone who can get a job anywhere else.

Why does deprivation get the blame?
Are there no schools? No GPs? (No more or less than any other part of the Uk?)
Are benefits less here than anywhere else in the country?

What does deprivation actually mean?

This bit of a report is so dismally typical of what doesn't even make it out of the local papers:

‘Failure to respond to referrals and information, including the report of 60+ injuries, suggesting was at risk of physical and emotional harm. Failures to follow safeguarding procedures in relation to investigation compromising criminal investigation and resulting in being placed with Mrs who was known to have physically abused a child previously and who was a potential suspect in relation to the injuries to .'

This is also no surprise:

The judge said the local authority “failed, in the initial stages, fully to appreciate the significance of the risk” posed by the sex offender..... "failed in any way adequately to assess the information that was at their disposal, or easily attainable, in order to conduct a professional risk assessment”.

Relating to a sex offender who'd abused his 10 yr old daughter, released from prison and moving in with a mother with two boys, one disabled. Social services then refused to speak to the father who was desperately trying to protect his disabled son, after he sent an angry email on discovering social services knew and had chosen not to inform him.

Yes the tone was almost certainly insulting, but the offense he caused was considered a bigger issue than the children's welfare and was used to remove the most protective factor that child had from intervening.
The worst thing is it no longer shocks.

High deprivation and poverty, dense population, mismanagement and underfunding of overloaded local services.

Oh FGS. I'm so tired of these posts from people pretending not to understand what we have known for decades. Lots of problems + underfunded services = seriously harmed children.

Doesn't tend to attract anyone who can get a job anywhere else. This is a big problem I think.

Why does deprivation get the blame?
Are there no schools? No GPs? (No more or less than any other part of the Uk?)

Deprivation is known to be a causal factor in neglect, it places extreme pressure on parents who literally don’t know how they’re going to keep a roof over their heads, living conditions are often poor adding to stress, and people living in poverty have far fewer social resources than more affluent families.

If you have a school in a fairly affluent area with 300 kids 50 of whom have additional support needs, issues of poverty, looked after kids and neglected kids its relatively easy to spread those kids across teachers who can keep an eye out. It’s also easier to spot kids who are struggling because the vast majority are doing ok and changes in behaviour or presentation are more obvious. There are more resources to go round, social workers have lower case loads and more time, thresholds for intervention are lower because the resources are there.

If you have a school in a deprived area with 300 kids, 150 of whom have additional support needs, looked after experience etc it becomes much harder. Each teacher may have several children calling on their attention, kids not know to services fly under the radar, changes in presentation are less noticeable because instead of being 5 kids in a class needing support there are 15 per class some of whom have very complex needs. Social work case loads are higher, thresholds for intervention become higher because there’s only so much space in the services available so only the most at need/risk get a service

Its not rocket science, less money in the community leads to more complex issues, fewer resources both social and financial and more entrench issues. And overloaded services, burnt out workers and higher staff turnover. People get the services they vote for - if you want kids to stop dying, vote for social change.

Who would want to be a child protection social worker on £35k? What do bankers get paid again?

From The Times: Theresa Ferguson, who was two years into being a qualified social worker at Haringey, was allocated Lily-Mai’s case, despite having 36 open assessments and 41 allocated cases.

I’d imagine social workers, with very high case loads become very stressed and seek to work elsewhere, becoming a vicious cycle.

Sounds like they did start to act, but sadly too late.