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 haven't managed to shake off just how offensive i find spero's comments.

i'm baffled by how anyone could not see just how counterproductive scapegoating already stigmatised groups of women is when it comes to child protection and how utterly dangerous it is when we need people to know that child abuse can be occurring in any home, whatever class, marital constitution, race, religion, etc. child abuse is knows no boundaries and lovely middle class, beautifully decorated houses with stepford like appearances to the world can contain violence, sexual abuse and all manner of secrets.

stereotyping and conflating class/economics/singleness with abuse is so fucking dangerous.

Spero said "...the growing number of children born to single mothers living in poverty"

I don't think she meant single mothers per se, just the fact that a lot of them end up in poverty.

Poverty often leads to the neglect described by Bronya - it really isn't forgivable to have this going on in the UK in 2014. As long as nobody is speaking up for children and protecting them from this poverty we area all as neglectful as each other imo, we are no better than that mother who can't or won't clothe her children properly.

The fact that you find my statements of FACT offensive, indicates all that is wrong with the level of debate about these truly crucial matters.

90% of single mothers live in poverty. This is a sad fact.

Raising children in poverty often has negative implications for the development of these children, in every sphere of their development - social, educational, economical.

Another sad fact.

Why would I, a single mother, take misogynistic pot shots at other single mothers?

The point is that raising children without support and without money is hard. We need as a society, collectively, to be asking questions about what the fuck is going on in a developed society where so many children are neglected and abused.

But no, some people would rather dance about saying how 'offended' this makes them feel.

Well bully for you. I am 'offended' by how many children are abused and dying in this country and one of the few people actually getting off her backside and doing anything about it, is pilloried.

Re statistics, I was debating this on another thread and found the 90% statistic there! I will have to google again to find my source.

If I am wrong about that, I am sorry.

But it doesn't detract from my simple point - too many children live in appalling circumstances. There is clearly a link between this and family breakdown.

The causes of family breakdown are many and varied. If anyone thinks I am blaming 'feckless single mothers' solely for this, your reading comprehension levels are shockingly bad and sorry, I can't help you with that.

That wasn't what Spero said unrealhousewife.

the damage done to our children and society by the growing numbers of single mothers who live in poverty

The above could be open to interpretation, but in the context of the discussion about CB blaming single black mothers for being single mothers and why it is fine for that to be said, I think it is clear what she meant in the quote above.

As long as nobody is speaking up for children and protecting them from this poverty we area all as neglectful as each other imo, we are no better than that mother who can't or won't clothe her children properly

'won't' clothe children properly is rather different to 'can't' don't you think?

'no better than that mother who can't clothe her children'

I agree with you that 'we' everyone must speak up for those without a voice. But I feel it is important to make the distinction between those that are neglectful wilfully and those who do so unwillingly out of dire circumstance.

Once again, back to what I said about parental engagement and positive outcomes, judging/blaming mothers only serves to disengage and alienate.

Some while back, I have twice been in the position of my child not having adequate school uniform and one time shoes. At one school in an affluent area, with staff with little understanding of what it is like to really struggle living on benefits, I reported my child as absent due to illness for one day until I could get the money to pay for new school shoes. I knew I would be judged and certainly not helped.

In their present school [in a more economically diverse area] my son outgrew his school trousers and I was struggling, because they had a better understanding and had communicated that, I knew that I could speak to the school home support person and be helped without judgement. I was able to do so and everything carried on as normal without interruption.

As someone else said upthread, if you want to help children, help mothers.

You can interpret my words for me all you like, I know who I am and what I mean. I do not stigmatise individuals or express prejudice towards any group.

I want to have proper debate, based on facts.

To that end, you were right about the gingerbread statistics www.gingerbread.org.uk/content/365/Statistics

I don't know where I got my 90% figure from.

But it doesn't really matter as it seems that there is so much eagerness to characterise me as some Daily Mail reader.

I am frustrated because I work in child protection, I see this pretty close up and something needs to change drastically and soon.

So I am just grateful to anyone who signed the petition and I don't want to derail the thread any longer.

I hate to say it but there is a culture in the teaching profession of blaming parents, throwing their hands up and saying 'well that's just the way it is'.

That has to stop. These services are supposed to work together now, lets see them hold each other to account proactively in order to prevent problems rather than do the usual finger-pointing after a tragedy. Presently they are all avoiding responsibility because it saves their departments money. 'Not my department' saves them money.

Baby Ps police file was sitting on an unmanned desk for weeks which is why his parents were never charged earlier. The NHS saw him several times and failed to diagnose his broken spine. Who got the blame? Good old social services with a witch-hunt style pyre burning of their director. Very little has changed. Child protection is a collective responsibility and should not be allowed to be influenced by financial and power structures.

What I'm saying is that schools are probably in the best position to speak out on those failing services and we know they care but they are going to have to get out of their comfort zone in order to do so.

What are you doing Spero, I'm interested.

The point is that raising children without support and without money is hard. We need as a society, collectively, to be asking questions about what the fuck is going on in a developed society where so many children are neglected and abused

Woah!

Two issues there.

Yes raising children without support/money is hard.

Children being neglected and abused does not necessarily go hand in hand with being a single parent who is struggling financially.

Such a lazy and dangerous assumption and yes, it is offensive and unhelpful.

Obviously neglect/abuse goes on in all family backgrounds, but there is always a massive focus on single parent families.

Poor outcomes and poverty are linked, but abuse? abuse is not necessarily so. That can be a stand alone issue regardless of socioeconomic factors.

If you really want to talk about this issue, choose your words/terminology carefully. You can make smug references to comprehension levels if you prefer, but if you wish to reach everyone, don't start off by alienating whole groups of people.

spero are you talking about child abuse or are you talking about single mothers and poverty? because you're lumping them together in a way that seems to say being poor or the child of a single mother IS synonymous with being abused.

it is not a statement of fact that children are damaged by living with a lone parent or that 90% of lone parents are in poverty or that poverty is synonymous with child abuse. so no, i'm not offended by your statement of fact (or FACT as you prefer) because i see no facts in what you are saying. just aspersions.

here's the common condition of child abuse - the child is in close vicinity to a child abuser.

not their economic state or whether their parents are married but their sheer and utter misfortune to live with a child abuser and to be failed by child protection services.

let's not muddy this eh?

if you want a link between poverty and child abuse go for a realistic one that takes into account the actual causes and reproduction of child abuse re:

an adult who was themselves abused as a child and failed by child protection services is likely to have greater difficulties achieving financial stability and to have greater chances of going onto be an ineffective or abusive parent themselves.

the child in this case is not abused because the adult is poor or single but the adult is poor because of their abuse at the hands of their family of origin and through the care system that dumped them on the street at 18.

I am sorry if I am appearing smug or alienating people, I don't want to do that.

But I am increasingly fed up of being jumped on and being told I am saying things I am not saying, particularly if it derails such am important debate.

Of course being poor does not automatically or necessarily mean you are a bad parent. But I would estimate 95% of my clients ARE poor. I cannot ignore the fact that their economic and aspiration all poverty makes them more likely to be struggling with child rearing and more likely to be attracting the attention of the state which would apparently have neither the time or the resources to offer any proper support.

Unrealhousewife, I am trying to raise awareness in what ever way I can and do the best job I can for my clients who almost always have no where to turn. I am one of the administrators of this site. We are trying to help and demystify the process for vulnerable parents and promote debate about what we need to do to make things better.

Www.childprotectionresource.org.uk

you haven't addressed what i've said at all have you.

a correlation is not a cause and you are doing chicken and egg mislogic here.

people's issues that make them prone to neglecting/abusing their children may be the same issues that make them prone to povery rather than the poverty being the causal factor.

also people with money are better able to hide their problems/go under the radar than those who are poor and of course in front line services you are more likely to see those who are disadvantaged on multiple fronts including economically as their problems are so profound they will prevent them from working or restrict them to low paid work.

and it really isn't derailing to point out misconceptions and stereotypes around child abuse. it can be life saving.

the kind of falsehoods being propagated within your posts can lead to assumptions that everything must be fine because mummy and daddy are together and the child is always clean and has nice shoes whilst a child is being hideously abused at home.

on the other hand they also mean that parents who are struggling financially to provide for their children's needs don't come forward for help because of these kind of attitudes and the fear they'll be seen as shit parents and judged rather than seen as purely having an economic problem they need assistance with.

Totally support this brilliant initiative. As a children's rights lawyer for many years, I saw many young people let down by the system. I agree with so many others, the social care system for children needs proper investment. Many children growing up in dysfunctional families become dysfunctional parents themselves. It's about educating to break the cycle. Also the answer is not always whipping children out of families and in to care as for many, experiences in the care system can be equally damaging. Will the Government ever properly fund children's services? Well it totally needs to but it probably won't. It's just not a vote winner is it.