Guest post: Camila Batmanghelidjh - 'Our child protection system is failing'

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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.

I think what the poster above is describing is the difference between child in need assessments and child protection.

Putting more money into social workers who just visit, monitor and write reports won't help anyone.

The money is needed is domestic abuse refuges, money for single parents (especially at the pint if leaving), counselling/ cbt/psychotherapy for everyone who presents at their gp with mental health problems, respite for all parents in need, universal childcare, equal pay, end to discrimination in employment, better support systems for new mums, educational opportunities for young mums, residential rehab for mums, an end to overcrowding, social housing for everyone who wants it, relationship education for teenagers, better contraception education,free map, abortion on demand, a therapeutic approach to substance abuse, ban alcohol advertising, minimum pricing, more public Heath campaigns, right to flexible working, higher minimum wage, going back to teaching parenting in schools- all very achievable.

from what i've been told where/when they have tried to give funding for supporting families and families in need that money has just been swallowed into the child protection services because they're so overrun and when faced with spending money on a bit of childcare for a good but depressed and struggling mum who needs a bit of time or on an at risk child they have had to make the decision of emergency priority.

i don't know if that's national or a local issue but i remember that it was tried and the money just did not reach the people who it was intended for because greater needs swallowed it.

"I think what the poster above is describing is the difference between child in need assessments and child protection."

Thank you, weatharall thats what it was.

The problem where my friend worked was that families that should have been referred to the child in need team ended up with child protection, simply because that was the team that happened to have a bit of spare capacity.

Some families that might have been helped were simply watched while the problems escallated and then the children removed. All very arbitary.

Ms Batmanghelidjh told the MPs: "I actually think the [black] mothers are hugely responsible because they have created a culture where they can get rid of the adolescent boy

They can get rid of the male partner, they can survive on their own

What surprises me is that a person as intelligent as Ms Batmanghelidjh, is not aware of the historical founding of that 'culture'.

That began in slavery and the culture that developed from it, where afro caribbean women had to 'survive on their own' because families would be split [the men removed by slave owners].

Surely she is aware of this? in saying what she said, she served to promote racist/negative stereotypes, something that her charity were chastised for in an advertising campaign they ran back in 2009.

All that this woman has done and continues to do for children and you are all over some article from 2006 where she is briefly quoted along with others

Well, she said those words, they are a representation of what she thinks and must in some way influence how she interacts with women in the black community that she works in.

Rather than blaming those women and in doing so alienating sections of a community, it may be more helpful/productive for her to try to understand the background?

I agree that services for children are not adequate for all who need them, more funding and joined up services are needed.

I will sign the petition.

I think she does understand the back ground. The fact that slavery and its aftermath was responsible for massive harm to the structure of black families, does not mean we are banned from having a conversation now about what is happening and about how we undo that harm.

No one is absolved from responsibility for looking at their own behaviour, even if there are powerful historical and cultural reasons why we have ended up where we are. We all have a role to play.

The reasons gangs are so powerful and problematic in the big cities is that they offer vulnerable and unloved children a sense of family that they are not getting from anyone else. Why is this happening?

Given that she does a lot of direct work with children from the black community, she is entitled to express a view about what she sees and experiences and it would be good if there could be some conversation about it, other than just lots of huffing and puffing about racism and unacceptable views. There are rather more obvious targets for that sort of anger, I would have thought.

i think people are 'discussing'. you seem to be implying that anything other than agreeing with her and not finding her comments problematic is 'huffing and puffing about racism'.

blaming single mothers for the ills of society is hardly something new and radical that she is bravely stating. just the same old, same old of misogyny.

The fact that slavery and its aftermath was responsible for massive harm to the structure of black families, does not mean we are banned from having a conversation now about what is happening and about how we undo that harm

I agree, but to blame single black mothers who are the product of that ideology, for the consequences of it is a step beyond and not at all helpful.

I think she does understand the back ground

Then she should acknowledge it vocally/in print before she goes ahead with statements such as the one quoted from the 2006 article.

YY TheHoneyBadger

and it's been proven over and over and over if you want to help children, help women. making women's lives more difficult by propagating misogyny and stigma is counter productive at the least.

and to be one of the very, very few female minority faces in the white male establishment spotlight and use it to slag off your sisters is just.... insert your own word/facial expression/feeling.

Specialcircumstances, how dreadful that the academy chain is shutting down a lifeline for vulnerable traumatised children. That's wicked.

Honeybadger yes yes yes to your idea of educating children about

-what is mental health?
-dealing with anxiety and stress
-self esteem and self care
-relationships and boundaries
-wellbeing
and everything around that that you describe.

I was shocked by CB-J's comments to the select committee but given she's done far more for troubled children than I ever have, and has oodles more experience, I'm not hugely in a position to criticise.

where are the vast majority of young people based? in school. where is camhs or social services based? err somewhere over there somewhere ivory towered behind referral procedures and waiting lists. it makes.no.sense.

edam i just think it's comparable to providing vaccines. we have mental health epidemics and clear, common problems occurring with regard to coping with modern life - so focus on equipping people with the skills and knowledge that may help them avoid or better cope with mental health problems.

seems utterly ridiculous that still, even today, there are people who don't know what is happening and think they're having a heart attack when they have a panic attack for the first time.

TheHoneyBadger: YY to your 5-point kids' course!! Please can't you write it and publish it! I'm sure we'll all buy it as an e-book for our DC but I would love to see it in all schools. I home ed and don't live in the UK - but in a much poorer country with so many children in such difficult circumstances, often being brought up by older siblings or grandparents. It would be such a gift to have your course in all schools everywhere.

there is zero interest wordsmith. they rave about the numbers of hours lost to work and industry through mental illness etc but never seem to want to do anything to address it. cbt always seems to be to be more of a preventative than a cure ideally and knowing how to live a healthy life and what sort of balances and ways of tackling stress etc can help prevent becoming ill and understanding the patterns between what we think and do and health and wellbeing seems like pretty vital stuff to me.

i also think it is the place where disclosures would happen safely or each child would know who they could go and see who wouldn't judge or dismiss them if they had a problem they needed to discuss.

i'd never thought of writing it. it's worth pondering but i think really it needs delivering and needs to be done in groups because of the impact on how people treat each other and see each other ideally.

It is an issue of resources, and of people not wanting to know. When you have children in your class who are obviously high on something at 9am and 10 years old; when they don't want to go home and panic before the holidays; when they hover at the end of lunchtime to eat any scraps left; when they tell you their bed broke and they are sleeping on the floor; when their behaviour is violent and disturbed and their sibling is withdrawn and overly compliant... You can report it all but no one really seems to care. So you do your best to bring them extra food, to let them do jobs so they feel important and valued, to ask how they are and show that you think their feelings matter. But then they go to Secondary school and get lost in the mass of children, lose their dreams, get excluded. Then they steal for food, and drugs to make themselves feel good, so society condemns them too.

Bronya yours is exactly the fatalistic attitude that has to stop.

We have a civic duty to force those responsible, to care. It's not good enough to assume that because SS, the parents don't care then that's OK.

So what do you do when you have reported and reported and they do nothing? Other than do what you can yourself, which is mostly food, and emotional support. As a teacher all I could do was tell my head. She would tell SS who did nothing. So she arranged for free snack for some children, I ran nurture groups, the cook kept the leftovers for them. I would mend clothes in my lunch hour, give them a hair brush to keep in school when other children teased them about their hair. I bought P.E. kit for them to use, and washed it. I glued their soles back on their shoes and we found spare uniform in lost property (that had been there years) when theirs was outgrown or too threadbare to mend.

bronya yep - and secondary school felt like a holding cell for those kids to me - until prison picks them up in adulthood.

i don't think it's an attitude bronya is displaying - she's merely reporting the reality of how it is and how can you can go to the child protection officer over and over and just be told, yes we know, yes ss is aware, yes that is the situation at home. it's soul destroying.

Bronya doesn't have a fatalistic attitude, that is a really unfair comment.

She is doing what she can in the face of apparent indifference from the child protection professionals. Maybe they are massively overworked or maybe they are just burnt out and can't/don't care any more.

I don't know. What I do know is that there is a massive crisis going on and nobody seems to care, this thread attracts only a few posters and some of them think it more important to deconstruct a some comments made in 2006 - I have no idea what else she said, what other nuance she offered to the debate because it may not have been reported.

I think a refusal to debate honestly the damage done to our children and society by the growing numbers of single mothers who live in poverty is part of the problem. It is not misogyny to recognise that trying to raise children in poverty, with lack of support from other adults is a problem.

90% of single mothers live in poverty. I am not one of them. But I have a glimpse into how difficult my life would be if I didn't have money to throw at various problems.

So I hope you will understand and excuse my frustration when the debate yet again seems in danger of veering off into deconstructing what someone else reported that someone else said without looking at what that person is DOING and trying to encourage others to do.

spero your points would hold so much more validity if you didn't keep having to have the single mother digs. child abuse is not limited to single parents and poverty and child abuse are two very, very different things. conflating single mothers, poverty and child abuse together is offensive and just not accurate. it doesn't surprise me you can see no problem with someone making racist, stereotype building comments about black mothers when you're quite happy to do the same for single mothers.

poverty is a problem for single parents (and many other families too) but that is something separate to child abuse ffs.

money or the presence of a partner would not make an abusive person non abusive. poverty and singleness would not make a loving parent into an abusive parent.

sure campaign and care about the financial barriers single parents face and sure campaign about child abuse and institutional failure to safeguard children but don't conflate the two.

oh and just because you can't imagine coping without money to throw at things doesn't mean that millions of women across this country are doing a great job of looking after their children and being loving parents without wads of cash.

Bronya perhaps it was your head that had the fatalistic attitude then, not you. It probably was an issue of poverty but it might have been a result of alcohol or drug abuse. Did anyone find out?

There are many other routes to getting things done, one of which is formal complaints to the Directors, the local government ombudsman, the police. The point is it's just not OK for us as a society to accept this second rate performance of local social services. We have regulators and legal systems to address SS failures.

The only people who are able to force changes are those within the system, it certainly isn't the children themselves and if we can't trust our social services we as responsible adults need to address that.

I think a refusal to debate honestly the damage done to our children and society by the growing numbers of single mothers who live in poverty is part of the problem. It is not misogyny to recognise that trying to raise children in poverty, with lack of support from other adults is a problem

Damage done by those single mothers?

Why do people and society blame the parent that is doing the parenting?

How about debate the damage done by the fathers that walk away [and those that are complicit in them doing so], without placing blame at the door of the mothers who stuck around?

It is misogynistic to blame the fuck ups of men on women.

90% of single mothers live in poverty. I am not one of them. But I have a glimpse into how difficult my life would be if I didn't have money to throw at various problems

I think your 90% figure is incorrect. Im sure I remember seeing 43% on the Gingerbread website.

I am a single parent and while that and financial issues do make some things much harder, it doesn't mean that I am a bad parent, or that my children are automatically delinquent.

So I hope you will understand and excuse my frustration when the debate yet again seems in danger of veering off into deconstructing what someone else reported that someone else said without looking at what that person is DOING and trying to encourage others to do

The responses to what she said in 2006 are relevant though.

Whatever good she is doing, if that statement and her attitude that inspired it are hindering progress, then it is something that needs challenging.

When working with children, parental engagement makes a difference to outcomes, alienation also makes a difference, just not a positive one.

Please note that I said I would sign the petition.