The Sara Sharif case: what is the point of taxpayers funding these failing organisations?

[softstone]

This appalling case has highlighted catastrophic failures of many organisations. If I failed in my job to this extent I would be sacked and possibly jailed. Yet the upshot of this report seems to be oh dear yes it’s a terrible shame, never mind.

Why is my tax funding these useless departments? This is not part of the social contract. We’re supposed to live in a civilised society. It’s awful.

I find it utterly bizarre you’ve decided the problem is your tax paying for a failed social services case.

tax, really?

I keep wondering that.

AR was clearly a troubled individual but we can’t lock people away indefinitely for being weird, or holding views the majority find distasteful and harmful.

I think if any agency is to blame, it’s the children’s courts that gave her violent and abusive father custody.

You can absolutely say that they are incompetent, the heads of this specific councils Social Services department ARE incompetent. Not just the social workers who are doing the visiting or the home schooling team but all of them. You can’t truly fix an issue unless you admit to what the issue is. It isn’t a simple mistake, it is incompetence from the top down so treat it as such.

I think it comes back to the premise of the thread.

do people really believe that social services stop every child being killed by their abusers? Do they think that’s what should happen in reality?

social services are an agency amongst others who protect children.

the police protect the public. Do we expect the police to prevent every crime? Clearly not. What’s the difference?

this black and white A CHILD MUST NEVER DIE isn’t great for the nuanced conversation about making sure social services do the very best job they can. Which they’re not. Do we want them to do the best job or to aim for no dead children ever?

because unrealistic expectations are destined to fail. And in the meantime they’re not doing the best they can, they’re wasting time on an impossible dream.

I don’t care you find my comment ‘offensive’, we are well within our rights to criticise how public servants operate (I’m one myself).

The folks who didn’t follow through with their visit two days before her death weren’t even social workers. Why didn’t they take the extra time to visit when it was their mistake (rather than a family not being at home, for example)? That’ll be for them to explain.

WRT local authorities, like you, I’ve witnessed how social workers operate. I simply take a different view to you. Some of them are fantastic and caring, but stretched. Some of them are unsatisfactory. Others are actively bad at their jobs and family don't seem to like children very much from how they interact with families.

There needs to be some responsibility taken by safeguarding and other professionals. Negligence is negligence.

There have been multiple failures in Sara’s case and it’s not just social workers who have to answer for themselves.

I agree 100% about checking on home schooled children. IMO it’s far too easy for parents to opt out of mainstream education. Quite apart from neglect and/or abuse, someone should surely check that all such parents are competent to teach their children.

I've worked in the system since 2003. I assure you things are really very different. The main issues we have are under funding, staff shortages and inexperienced workforce. That's a systemic issue that could be addressed by central government providing funding for training and running costs of departments but nobody wants to.

They're short staffed because the caseload grows and people don't want to pay. Those who vote for cuts to public services, this is the result.

I think the issue is that we aren't funding them enough. And yes the blame is with the parents.

The father was awarded custody despite the authorities, social services and teachers knowing that she was in danger . There had been many reports of abuse within the family. The case was shown on a documentary and it was absolutely heartbreaking what that little girl went through.
Heads need to roll but I wont hold my breath 😡

Fear of bring seen as racist is also seen as a major factor in the rape gangs. I still worry about an incident 15 years ago when my DD was in Y5. I was a parent helper when her class went swimming. One day the teacher asked me to supervise the girls' changing room. In a school with lots of Pakistani Muslim boys and a few Pakistani Muslim girls, one girl wore a hijab. When she got dressed and undressed, she stood out because, unlike the other girls, she was very aware of her body, stretching and turning in a way that looked sexualised. I wondered what might be happening at home but said nothing at school because I didn't want to be seen as racist and my evidence was slight. Now, I would say something because the one little thing we do might be the thing that saves a child.

I’ve just heard some talking head saying there should be monitoring for HS kids WHERE THERE ARE SAFEGUARDING CONCERNS. I was yelling at the radio. Surely if there is any group of kids mandatorily monitored as a routine it’s those that are HS. 99% of those kids will be probably fine, but if I was an HS parent I’d be happy with this level of scrutiny.

It’s the neighbours hearing her scream, and doing nothing.

I could never stand by.

It's good to hear from the inside that things have improved. I worry every time there is a crisis like this one because it will deter people from joining your profession. The funding issue comes back down to willingness or otherwise to pay tax. Even in times of plenty, child protection wouldn't be top of the list.

I’m in this system also and have been for many years and have come across very few social workers who don’t care or are totally useless. What doesn’t help is we are in a society 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation of people who cannot parent to a good enough standard. Due to this and the amount of placements required, children are spread over the country as there aren’t enough placements in the area. These have to be visited regularly, which may mean a social worker is out of the office for 2 days due to the distance travelled. Then we have the lack of funding for prevention services so no work is done at a lower level. Caseloads are high and reliance on agency staff is also high, these can and do leave at the drop of a hat.
That’s before we even begin to consider the current climate of certain cultures being untouchable. Lets not forget, it was the evil father and step mother who killed the child, not the social workers

If there are safeguarding concerns, why aren't the children being monitored anyway?

things like this will continue to happen while ever we believe politicians that tell us we can get decent services (health care, education, SEND provision ect) on the cheap. So nobody has to.pay more in tax to fund state provision that they say they care about. All that's needed is more "efficiency" in these services.

if people really care, they need to accept that to get decent provision for vulnerable people, we have to pay for it. Which means we pay more tax.

so it's a choice. Accept the status quo, or pay people for doing the jobs we care about and employ them in enough numbers that ensure they are not overwhelmed.

The parents are to blame, first and last. But there could’ve been so much more done to stop terrible people like Sara’s father & stepmother from having custody of her in the first place.

Ultimately, it all comes down to funding. All our public services are under-funded, short of staff (especially experienced ones) and working with old technology that isn’t fit for purpose and isn’t joined up across all the services. I know it’s easy to criticise social workers, the police etc, but I don’t think we can till we’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

There are always new social workers coming through university but not enough of them and if I'm honest, not enough high quality. Social work education should be fully funded and highly competitive, just like nursing should. It baffles me that governments withdraw funding for these essential training courses.

A friend's daughter, excellent social worker material I would have thought, went into social work. After a few years, she retrained as a teacher, disillusioned by funding issues and high case load. I imagine the churn rate is quite high in social work, as it is in teaching.

Has anyone explained why the father was given full custody despite having been physically abusive to both his ex wife and Sara?

I assume the mother was unfit in some way, but what if she wasn’t?

why is a child ever given to a parent who has been known to physically abuse them?

It's not only about the costs, it's also that it's incredibly damaging to the child to be removed from their family, and the care system is inadequate and has poor outcomes.

I’m not blaming individual employees. I’m sure the jobs are demanding and underfunded. I am blaming the ‘system’. If one department fails it should be impossible for the next and the next and the next to fail also.

Of course the parents are responsible. But there will always be evil people living in this world and it is our job, collectively as a nation, to protect children from them. It seems like a massive system failure to me - that’s what I’m angry about.

[[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v14z7r1yro?app-referrer=deep-link www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v14z7r1yro?app-referrer=deep-link and https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2020/december/a-woman-has-been-sentenced-after-7-year-old-emily-jones-was-killed-in-bolton/ www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2020/december/a-woman-has-been-sentenced-after-7-year-old-emily-jones-was-killed-in-bolton/]]]]

(very distressing stories, involve the deaths of very young girls)

are interesting as a comparison.

No blame is ascribed to other services in either as far as I can see, and both are far less widely reported than Sara Sharif and the Southport murders, although I realise the latter one coincides with the start of lockdown which partly account for that.