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.

But surely, given Lammy and Starmer have been personally held accountable for prison accidental releases, then the people going to jail should be the politicians in office at the time?

There was a review of home education in 2009. Changes were recommended. I don’t think one has been implemented. There are a lot of loud voices in home education that appear to push back against any criticism. A lot of them tend to be loud white middle class voices, and so get listened to.

It shouldn't be a choice between one and the other. Increased investment in children's social care wouldn't and shouldn't mean more children being removed, it should mean more children being safe at home. We need resources (including people) to properly support families to make changes before children have to be removed. We also need more foster carers so that when children do have to be removed they can be placed in high quality family homes near their families with proper matching in place. We need more, and we aren't going to get it.

Yeah, but if they are not doing their very important jobs properly they should not be anywhere near vulnerable people.

I keep reading of examples where parents will say child is poorly or out so can't be seen and they are there injured in the house. I remember the head of the Victoria Climbie inquiry got really emotional thinking about her lying cold and alone in a bathtub while the social worker got turned away downstairs. That should trigger an automatic house check if there are concerns over a child's welfare.

Who do we let. Near vulnerable people then? No one?

Whilst not impossible that would necessitate the police, potential forced entry and arrest is pretty risky for all sorts of reasons- not least the level to which the parents who don’t have a hard dead child upstairs could make future cooperation difficult.

I think it’s one of those professions, like most really, where people who don’t do it think they have all the answers with no experience.

What if that staff member has a 1yr old who needs collecting from nursery at 6pm like I do? Or if the nursery calls at 3pm saying the baby has a temp over 39 and needs collecting now, like mine did a few days ago?

People seem to forget these people are real people with real lives. It's not always possible to just stay on at work unpaid for periods of time, particularly when you have caring responsibilities. And the social work workforce is mostly women and we know women disproportionately shoulder caring responsibilities.

And ironically at my nursery if the parents were 30 minutes late their policy said they would call police/ social services anyway 😭

It was not their fault her father beat her to death.

they were working in the home education department.

Sara was on social services radar before she was even born.

She was in foster care before she even started school.

Another child (implied to be a sister) was removed from the family permanently.

The failing in this case that should be focussed on is that Sara shouldn't have been in her fathers care long long before she was at school, let alone removed from school.

Her father's "right" to her was put before her well being on multiple occasions years before she was removed from the school roll.

"Fixing" the mistakes made after she was off rolled is not remotely fixing the problem. The problem is that abusive parents like her father are given far far far too much consideration in these cases and children suffer, and die, because of it.

Of course they won’t be the last. Parents and their associates always have and always will kill their children. Why would you expect that to change?

social services can’t prevent every death

I want individual accountability. If you’re going to decide to put a child in the care of abusers then you need to be accountable when it goes wrong.

You're mixing up should and is.

It's definitely correct that we would need to prioritise early intervention if we wanted better outcomes. There's lower hanging fruit here. I say lower hanging in the full knowledge that there's clearly not public will to fund it, but we know what it would do if we did.

But it is not possible to have systems without human error. And we have to decide what level of compulsory state involvement in families we want- as @Vikaolson said a few posts ago, lots of us aren't up for it when it's applied to us. Which sometimes it would be if we wanted more extensive ability to intervene.

so the judge who awarded him custody goes to prison? Or his solicitor who fought for it and provided the evidence?

why is child abuse different to any other decision made by judges? Should they go to prison if they sentence someone to a suspended sentence who goes on to commit further crimes? What’s the difference?

Interesting how you've swerved all the points explaining that this means nobody will do the job. How will child protection function when theres a mass exodus?

Social workers can't insist on entering a home. Only police can do that with a warrant.

That poster was referring to the parents not the professionals

Thats fair enough but where would you stop?

I would say the buck stops at the people making the funding decisions and ultimately the voters who keeping putting these people into power.

If govt/council policy is to avoid foster care as much as possible, to cut spending and to support the family with the child in situ, whose fault is that?

There is individual accountability. If a person commits gross misconduct they will be sacked. If they are criminally negligent they will be prosecuted. You assume that individuals have more power and more responsibility than they do. Decisions over care plans for children are made by senior managers following discussion and consultation with lawyers. Social workers are also human - they will always be fallible and make mistakes. They are also more likely to make mistakes when overloaded and overworked. Stress and burnout are real and impact on people's resilience and judgement. Would you consider training to be a social worker? I doubt it.

Then the senior managers and lawyers need to be accountable. It is all far too watered down. To a point where there is no real accountability. How often do you actually hear of anyone being sacked in these cases? Very rarely. If anything the people at the very top are rewarded and those at the bottom remain nameless and unaccountable. As the first post says, it always seems like just another ‘oh dear, never mind, that was sad wasn’t it’ until the next time. Would I consider training to be a social worker? Probably not if I knew I was going to be held accountable.

Yes. The fault is with the court system and the law that applies. The presumption that both parents have contact. That is lunacy, and I understand that this government intends to abolish it. It has been the product of men’s rights activists and has meant the destruction of protection as the purpose of court orders.

We have given up on certain risk factors being seen for what they are. There are a lot of abusers in the family court and they are using this law to obtain access to children who they feel entitled to “discipline”.

They are actually sadists who enjoy hurting children. They also enjoy fooling and lying about it. The family court needs reform. All of these children were subjected to neglect and “discipline”. It’s not all about social workers. It’s the structure of the legal system itself

Right, so you do understand that what you're suggesting would stop people from being social workers? Now expand that a bit further- it would also stop people from working in senior social work management or law in this area. These are all roles that struggle to recruit already.

So you're basically advocating for not having a functioning child protection system.

If people aren't getting sacked or prosecuted then the investigation has demonstrated that they are not negligent or criminally culpable.
How are you calling for social workers to be sacked and prosecuted to improve the service whilst also saying that you would be put off the job if you were going to run the risk of being sacked or prosecuted? What the hell logic is that?

This is the problem with the OP. It’s demanding no child protection at all, instead of wanting (or showing any signs of being willing) to get serious answers on what went wrong, why, and how to stop it.

I’d like to see critics work as social workers. They would likely have some proper constructive ideas on what to change then!