Alfie Steele

[Ffswhatsthepoint]

I checked there was no other thread before I posted this one. Alfie, 9, killed by mum and her bf. Drowned. A catalogue of abuse and many phone calls to police/ss by neighbours. The neighbours often fed him too. We HAVE to find people accountable in this case. It was reported. People knew. Nothing was done. Absolutely nothing. Its harrowing. I feel like I failed him. And I'm hundreds of miles away.

Police and sw's need more powers to be able to remove a child who is clearly being abused. The fact that the police were called numerous times by the neighbours and did nothing about it is appalling.

This with absolute bells on.

I disagree I've worked with a few and some are amazing. However all have ridiculous caseloads, massively underfunded, and very little support for families in crisis. I bet the evil fucker that killed him grew up in a violent household (not an excuse but a reason why we must support the children of abuse). I work with families who had been through domestic violence and there is fuck all for children in terms of counseling support etc. The cycle just goes on.

Jailing social workers is not the answer. It'll just lead to even less people wanting to be one.

I work alongside social workers some times and in my career I've seen their case load triple and the structure that they work within become more restrictive. As with most professions I see competent and incompetent people but, without fail, I see the workload of the best ones get piled and piled and piled upon until they no longer have the time to build relationships with the very families and children who need it. They inevitably leave the profession when they are the very people we need to stay. The fact is that a very good social worker could be dealing with 20-30 potential Alfie's in one go all in the knowledge that if the very worst happens on your watch then you'll be hung out to dry. It's not a job I would do for any amount of money.

The fact is we need greater acceptance that the two biggest markers for this type of situation are poverty and the presence of a step parent in the home and a huge drive to recruit more social workers to drastically reduce the case loads down to between 7 and 10 families max.

I was looking on my local government job website only yesterday. As I scrolled down it became apparent pretty quickly that there was a massive crisis in SW recruitment. I counted 38 jobs in my small county alone. 38 social worker jobs that needed filling!!! Just in my county! If that's a snapshot countrywide the service must be absolutely broken!

I'm not a SW by the way and wouldn't want to be for any amount of money!! I can't imagine what the staff are going through right now...how they must be getting through their caseloads with the crisis in society that we are seeing!

Group homes exist. Just like everything publicly funded they are understaffed by low paid workers. They are not nice places for children to be and I understand why a SW would choose to attempt to rehabilitate a family rather than send a child there.

I agree with a previous poster, we need more foster carers desperately.

As someone who spent time in a group home, I was better cared for, better fed and safer with my abusive parent than I was in the group home.

Yhe Problem here is that there were multiple reports.

Check out all the threads on here with "some ol' cow asked my kid not to stand at the bottom of the slide stopping other kids playing on it" and the General (not completely universal) consensus is: nobody is allowed to speak to my kid or me.

That is the overwhelming impression I get - people are afraid to do more than report. For a variety of reasons.

The answer: more investment in social services, schools, clubs etc. More support for parents. More, much more money

I must say that I think the repeated use of the word ‘bleating’ to dismiss peoples concerns is both inappropriate, given the circumstances, and actually quite misogynistic.

Lockdowns have clearly been a contributing factor but the list of ‘advice’ given above is misguided at best (although it isn’t sincere.) I don’t vote Tory, but I also know that several very high profile cases of this nature happened deep in the heart of a Labour government - Victoria Climbie, Peter Connolly, Zachary Turner, as well as the grooming gangs scandals and those who abused children in plain sight spanning decades, so straddling many different governments (Savile obviously the most infamous.) It isn’t so much about a government but more about an inherent attitude we have as a society as to what it means to be a child and what will be tolerated.

Then ‘Be important in the life of a child.’ How? Go out and find a random one? I don’t want to sound facetious, the subject is too serious for that, but I do think it’s one of those comments that is largely meaningless.

Volunteer? Some of us genuinely aren’t in a position to do this, and an unreliable / poor volunteer is no help to anybody. We should ideally be welcoming all children into our homes, but that will realistically only come about if you have children old enough to organise their own socialising. And that’s the problem - my two year old attends a private day nursery and we attend a couple of groups for toddlers, but unsurprisingly the parents of the abused and neglected don’t gravitate there. Likewise, we should care about our neighbours and people did care and have cared but it didn’t save the child.

Fostering requires a lot of things that many people do not have; a spare bedroom for a start, an ability to work very flexible or to give up work altogether, a certain gap between your youngest child and youngest foster child. And yet if you don’t do it, you can’t pass comment on cases such as this?

Human nature being what it is, awful things will sometimes happen and I certainly don’t wish to malign social workers. I do however think it is reasonable to ask why this child remained, and can do so without being accused of ‘bleating’ or being told that since I am not a social worker myself I can’t pass comment

Very few. They don't have good outcomes for children at ALL. Children's homes tend to be privately run, very expensive and for the most challenging to place children/teenagers.they are no substitute for foster carers.

Sorry to hear that, Simonjt.
lve seen your posts over the years, enough to know that you are a genuine and empathetic person- how do you think outcomes can be improved?

And that’s the problem - my two year old attends a private day nursery and we attend a couple of groups for toddlers, but unsurprisingly the parents of the abused and neglected don’t gravitate there.

Oh trust me, they do.

just so awful, the neighbours call was so harrowing

As the mother of a 9 year old boy this has upset me.
I am fairly sure his teachers were involved and had thier hands tied and are also very upset.

Social workers do not have the power to remove children, that decision is made by a judge through court.
The social workers for Peter Connelly applied more than once to have him removed but the applications were turned down. What else could they have done??

look at threads on here,
a dog in the garden, call the rpsca, save him
a child in the garden, dont get involved!

please dont blame SW, it was the mother and her bf that killed the boy

@MrsTerryPratchett absolutely right. And for anyone who missed it at the back:Don't vote Tory.

Seriously no idea why that response was deleted

The reality though is that this has nothing to do with the Tory government or lack of funding. The reality is that things have been ever thus, but because of rolling news, social media etc we are more aware of these cases rather than there being more of them.

My DP was abused to the point of having a disability as a 10 week old baby. And yet he wasn’t officially removed until he was 7, and by then his feckless parents had had three more children. They were all ultimately removed, the youngest being taken at birth and placed for adoption.

And then the mother disappeared from the district and went on to have three more children which she was able to keep, and all of whom say they had a difficult childhood.

Abuse needs to be more recognised. And more steps need to be taken to prevent it. It’s not good enough that babies be removed from parents at birth if they’ve already had a child removed. Personally I don’t give a fuck about the bodily autonomy from someone who has had a child removed. They should be sterilised. Why should children have to suffer being removed at birth or later, going into the care system,, facing a lifetime of trauma and attachment disorder just to allow an abuser bodily autonomy. Where’s the justic in that?

And if there was actual evidence of this abuse there was no excuse not to have done something. None what so ever.

I get that sometimes children will come to harm when nobody knew what was going on. But when people did know, and report, why did that continue.

We need to look at the threshold for what is considered ok to remove a child.

We also need to look at the kind of demographic of people who abuse. So e.g. if abusers commonly have drug and alcohol problems then these should be flagged during pregnancy and those children should be placed on the at risk register as soon as they’re born.

People need to be responsible for their own actions.

How is that helpful? What have you personally done to ensure this doesn't happen again? Have you written to your MP? Do you vote for a party that prioritises funding of health and social care? Do you volunteer for an organisation like Homestart? Are you aware of the myriad of issues some parents face, particularly in the current climate? Do you make out loud judgements about people who might be struggling rather than make a choice to see the wider issues and offer support where you can?

I cried when I read the BBC report on this. I couldn't bear to read any others. That poor poor little boy. What he suffered at the hands if those monsters. It breaks my heart. Those social workers have his blood on their hands. They did an appalling lack lustre job of 'looking after' that lad.

This jury members too; what they watched and heard as evidence will forever be etched in their minds. Absolutely horrific.

What can we do to get something done?

@@MySugarBabyLove - exactly.

I am a senior manager within child protection. My LA has relatively low case loads nationally but here is the reality.

i currently oversee 9 teams and 1 set of students. That’s 879 child I personally make decisions for, over half of these are in court or PLO.

unless you work in this field you have NO IDEA what the reality is like. None what’s so ever. I work from around 5am - 10pm, if I’m covering emergency duty that means being on call 24 hours.

do you think you could do better? By all means, anyone who could manage better, retrain and become a social worker or back the fuck off and educate yourself on the the law, the responsibilities and powers of socials workers and what their lived experience is being in a profession that everyone seems to hate

I’m wary of being deleted again but I really don’t think it’s fair at all to be point scoring on a thread like this.

It is so wrong to suggest that if you personally are unable to do anything (beyond general decent behaviour such as reporting abuse) that you have contributed in some way to tragedies like this. How is it again a man murders a child and women are the ones berated for ‘not doing enough.’