To think we need a complete re-think of child protection?

[Feelingoptimistic]

Like many others, I have been thinking a lot about the Baby P case. What I completely fail to understand is why no one did anything earlier. Have we all become too PC? Is it considered ok for children to live somewhere where there is dog poo on the floor?
This morning I just read this:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/11/child-deaths-baby-p

The thing is that in most of these cases the death of the child follows months of abuse and neglect - so there is an opportunity to spot what is happening and prevent it. I think we need a system of consistent monitoring of children and early intervention when things don't seem right.

that's all evryt well, but until money is pumped into SSD generally its the multitude of famillies with other needs dufefring- the reason we don't get help is twofold: 1. they dont class AS as a disability even though he regularly knocks me out, needs a statement and HR DLA, and 2) DS3 (SAD) is on a waiting list as the SW dept of the jobs list reads as the entire department. Without money those things cannot be resolved, and SSD is a wide dept with many remits outside of CP.

MN is a funny world with regard to SW; its not unusual to have a thread running along the lines of 'Why dont the SSD remove more children' sharing space in active comvo'swith one stating taht all SSD are child snatchers.

'remits outside of CP'

there should be a further sentence there, satting that many of the issues around recruitment, lack of resources etc are due to a lack of cash.

This is a fantastic article by Camile Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company

Makipuppy - sorry you have not had good experiences with sws. I worked with foster carers for manyyears and mostly the complaints were about the child's sw rather than the fost sw - is that your experience?

I think though that the child's sw is overworked with cp cases and that is one of the reasons they are not able to support effectively, so more funding would ease that problem.

However also know of sws who simply do not understand what foster care is really all about. There can be an expectation that f-cs should be perfect and deal with anything and everything that comes their way. Young sws without children can also be a problem for foster carers as they simply don't understand what is involved in child care.

Foster carers should be treated with respect and as part of the team caring for the child. Unfortunately there are too many sws who do not understand/are not willing to accept this.

SO not saying money solves everything - and you are right in talking about the need for more carers - national shortage. It seems MN is a good place to raise this as it could lead more into fostering.

NanaNina, they seem incredibly overzealous on the tiniest of things! If a foster carer is not problematic (and I'm sure SS don't have the luxury of picking and choosing, as I posted above) why not trust them with the child? An example of this is I tried to babysit my bro's foster charges the other day. They have been with us for 3 years now and we all know them well. I am CRB checked but my DP was not then (he is now). He was not allowed in the house while my B and SIL were absent. B and SIL have known and liked him for 3 years and we're having a baby together, so not a passing fancy!
By the way, when we did the CRB check (which involved a personal visit and took nearly 2 hours. We'd already completed the forms! It emerged that the check only covers Bedfordshire. This strikes me as a bit useless).
Another bad one was refusing to let the girls (14) go for tea at a friends house, because there would be people there who were not crb checked. They were having a lot of trouble making friends at school and it made me very that they weren't able to live a normal life.

Is this normal, or have we been unlucky?

So yes, the child's fsw not the fc sw.

I know a few FW's (actually mainly ex becuase of this) and they do find the level of input ridiculous. For example, if ds1 needs something from his DLA (anything from a new bed to a pint of special milkfor his dietary needs) I buy it; they have to fill in a request form that takes ages to process and comes back with no written on lots of things.

I also know of someone who emigrated and the day they were supposed to hand the lad back, the SW phoned to say she couldnt make it for a fortnight, dont hand child over. They were left for 2 weeks with a child nobody would take and a borrowed house because theirs had been sold.

Jaded, de-sensitised, call it what you will, is it not a fundamental flaw to walk into a house where there is an abundance of human and animal excrement and not take further action, would even basic warning bells not ring even to the untrained?? I fail to understand this, as a starting point.

Yes serajen but then you're at the level of individual SW's rather than all of them.

rarely are posts worded in that way.

sw are overwhelmed NO doubt about it.

Society has allowed a whole breed of almost ferral young people (some of which were described as thick fucking idiots on mn) like those on the programme this week called The problem with girls)

We have a huge problem because dignity and self respect have gone completely from whole streets of young people.
I read cries of "remove that child now" after that programme was aired, yet there are thousands and thousands more of young girls like that in Britain raising children.
SW, Hv's and agencies like sure start, home start etc touch and offer support to only the very tip of this huge pile.

Like another poster mentioned, you will never know what great work sw's do because of strict confidentiality rules, but believe me many do take the work home.

Understaffing and massive workloads must be a huge factor in the under performance of social services, no?

I have a neighbour who is a social worker. She describes a workload that just sounds unfathomable to me. I cannot imagine being in her shoes.

Sadly, she knows that she doesnt always do her job properly - making a 20 min visit when she should have been there for an hour, phoning instead of visiting etc - because she is completely snowed under all the time.

She had a case a couple of years ago where a vulnerable teenage boy on her list of 'clients - a boy who had just left the care system and gone into independent housing - commited suicide on a day she was supposed to visit him but didn't (she'd rearranged for the following week ebcause of her workload). She nearly had a nervous breakdown over it. She said 'I should have been there'. Well, yes, she's right. Someone should have been there. But unfortunately, there was nobody available that day...

I also think

sorry, scarp the last bit! 'I also think...'

So, who here is willing to apply to be a foster carer then?

Riven, wasn't meant to be punchy, btw, just for those who might be in a position to consider it .

Let's face it there aren't enough social workers.
I'm designated Child Protection person in my school and work a lot with social services and it's basically a no win situation, very stressful and sometimes dangerous all respect to those who do the job under difficult conditions.

By Morloth-"A good idea I heard once was to have a look at using retired military types as social workers"

LMFAO. That's a classic

can I just reiterate

homeSTart is not an agency

It is a charity, and can only do as much as they can raise funds for or find volunteers to cover. Volunteers are like gold dust.

Lumping them in with agencies who are paid by the public purse to cope such as surestart / SSd etc is unfair

Every person they help is a bonus to society made from someone's kindness, not to be taken for granted

Maki If I didn't have 2 disabled kids then absolutely I would! Dh agreed also, it was part of our long term plan but shit happens and you can't send a foster child to a family with a violent autistic child.

Mrsmattie poor aldy . I know how she felt to a small extent at HS- refusing people help becuase you could only hold people so long on the list was excrutiating, we stopped doing intial assessments over a certain waitng time becuase it was just used as an excuse by some bodies to ignore the people - 'Oh tehy're on the HS list, we can forget it'.

The increasing reliance of Government agencies on charities is abysmal. When ds3 was reffered to Psych, we got a letter saying try the NAS first- others we know were refused on the absis that 'NAS offer a telephone line'. The lady who visists from them is at the end of her tether with it. Wheny ou get your dx you get a list of people who can supposedly help- every other line is followed by 'provided by the NAS'.
Likewise the onlySALT ds3 received (and what got him using PECs that led to talking) ws provided via the charity BIBIC from their children in need programme funding.

Glad to be corrected on the teachers not getting CP training, because that's always worried me. Its just a couple of years ago when I was working in C+F, I came across several teachers who were saying they had had none. So either things have changed (I hope) or it isn't always happening the way it should...

peachy....I take your point entirely I'm sorry to have included Homestart in with "agencies". I am aware of them being a charity and was being sloppy in my posting.

no probs, it just happensa lot so I makea point of mentioning it

In would tell you a RL story of siome harm I almsot sufered as a result but the DM

I used to work in a CP team. May of the comments here I agree with totally - lack of resources, pressure to record rather than 'do', management making decisions based on budgets, not need.

Lots of cases stick in my mind. One (about 10 yrs ago now) was a family of nine children, three bed house. Police visit on a stolen goods enquiry re the step dad. Find one room in the house rammed with expensive electronic gear, three shelves of fridge with lots of food. Rest of the house a tip. Children don't even have their own beds, let alone sheets on the bed. They sleep where there is a space. Youngest one had a cot - mattress soaked with wee. Clothes were whatever they could find - no wardrobes/drawers. Dog poo in several rooms. One shelf of fridge was the kids' - had some margarine and tomato sauce on it. Older kids were expected to feed the younger ones. They ate tinned tomatoes on toast for dinner several nights a week. Stepdad and mum got chips from the chippy. Mum was pg with tenth child (trying for another boy) and spent time meeting her partner's needs, not her childrens'.

Police stepped in and got Police Protection - removed the children. Cue heated exchange with the LA who basically said conditions were crap, but not that bad. Eventually, an ICO was reluctantly obtained by the LA. The children were in foscter care for four months, while the house was sorted and the parents offered support. The children thrived in their foster placements (they went in groups of three). They were amazed and proud they each had their own set of PJ's and a toothbruah, and had clothes that fit, folded in a drawer, and weren't teased at school for smelling of wee and having no coat.

After four months (which cost the LA a lot as there were nine of them), they were returned home. Support was in place, but basically, everything slid again once they were off the CPR, and this time they were left to rot. the LA didn't want to provide too much support as it was so costly. The step dad kept his nose clean, so no police visit. Teachers reported usual problems - coming to school without sufficent clothes, very tired/hungry. Neighbours used to contact us with reports of neglect, but the view from management was 'yes we know about them, but we can't do anything about it'. (very quiet from HV btw - never knew why, although mum was very good at lying, and no time for home visits).

Those children were in effect abandoned by social services, and a number have since grown up and had children of their own already (starting at around 15 yrs of age), and so the cycle begins again. So many things were wrong for this to have happened, but it did, and cotinues to do so. I used to think - leave SW's alone, and let them get on with the job. Now I do wonder if there does need to be a major overhaul - where complacency is just not acceptable.

Sorry - rant over. This kind of thread inspires rants doesn't it?