Steven is seven years old. He has been excluded permanently from his school for violent behaviour. The reports about him are full of descriptions of how badly behaved he is. Eventually, the local authority, having been unable to find a school that would accept him, sent Steven to Kids Company for education. We were the first people to visit his home. Steven’s bed was a urine stained mattress on the floor; there was no food in the house, which explained why he always looked gaunt, and regularly stole food. His clothes were unwashed, giving other children an excuse to call him ‘Stinky’.
When we investigated further, we found another toddler in this house who exhibited savage behaviours. Further persistence brought us to the reason why both these children were so disturbed: the mother’s partner had changed his name. He is a known paedophile, and it is likely that he is sexually abusing these children. Kids Company is pushing for the social work department to carry out formal investigations.
This seven-year-old’s contact with professional agencies - his school, health visitor, GP, clinical psychologist - is illustrative of the challenges we face in our attitude to children who exhibit disturbances. If Steven had been crying, or cutting himself, people would have wondered why he was so upset, and maybe they would have felt more compassionate towards him. But chronically maltreated children learn very early on to deny themselves tender feelings - because there is nothing more humiliating that expressing pain and not being soothed for it or protected. So Steven’s second skin, the layer that keeps him safe, is his violence. By manifesting the hate he feels, he tries to communicate the intensity of the violations he is enduring, but he also gets to keep grown-ups at a distance in an attempt to self-preserve. How is Steven supposed to see the world around him as compassionate and filled with goodwill, when his mother, and the person who is supposed to be like a father to him, are the very people who violate you?
When a seven-year-old is perceived as a predator - someone who needs to be banned and excluded from places - adults tend to put a block on their own curiosity. They stop asking: what happened to this child to make him so violent? Was permanent school exclusion the best decision for him? And why didn't anyone do a home visit? Just walking into a child’s room will give you a sense of whether they are being cherished or neglected. It’s in the detail: the cleanliness of the bedsheets, the order in the wardrobe, the stench in the carpet.
There are over a million children just surviving their childhood. The Centre for Social Justice calls them the 'lone children'. They are not in local authority care, nor are they on a child protection register. Therefore, it’s assumed that they are living with a functioning parent(s). The NSPCC has to speculate, because neither local authorities nor central government want to capture the real numbers of children who are being maltreated. The state claims it has no money to meet their needs. As a result, 920,000 to 3.5 million children are thought to be living with alcoholic parents. 50,000 to 2 million children struggle with their parents’ mental health difficulties. Just under 1.8 million children survive domestic violence, and 1 in 20 children are being sexually abused. The figures for child mental health difficulties have not been updated for 10 years, but the numbers of parking meters have. Ofsted declares 1 in 7 social work departments as not fit for purpose; if 1 in 7 trains crashed, you’d suspect there was a problem with the train company, wouldn't you? And yet we don’t have the conversation about systemic failures which leave our vulnerable children without appropriate help; instead, we put the blame on the child, the parent or the individual social worker. In demonising them instead of the system, we reassure ourselves that the failing was an exception.
The current system has not changed since the Victorian times. More children are being maltreated than people dying of cancer. It’s just that kids don’t vote, so the political system doesn't prioritise them. In denying devastated kids the care they deserve, we make ourselves a sick society. And, eventually, well cared-for children will also pay the price, because there won’t be safety in their schools, on the bus, or in the streets, as children who have been perversely treated take revenge.
So, that’s why we've started our ‘See the Child, Change the System’ campaign. We want to gather the best minds, across a range of disciplines, to collectively come up with a new design for social services and child mental health. Maybe it should be called the Department of Child and Family Resilience, where social care and psychiatric workers collaborate to strengthen vulnerable families and nurture their abilities? And maybe, if we were more resourceful, the money that is being spent could reach more kids.
If your child was being harmed, you would want someone to protest and protect. It’s just that for a lot of children, there isn't a grown up in their lives who notices their pain. On their behalf, we want you to help us change the system so that it can give them the care children deserve. Please watch this and sign our petition for change, it’s less than two minutes of your time, but it could help you change a child’s life.