Maypole
You don't sound very hopeful that there is anything that can be done, and tbh, I think that is likely typical for those working in this area. btw, pulling you up on spelling and grammar may be a bit harsh, but I have to admit that I didn't understand some of your points because of this. I don't know if you are posting on your phone, maybe that it why some words are being changed.
Niceguy
Well spotted. I doubt many councils will even attempt this, if they are having to come up with some of the funding. From where?
Don't tell them, but here is the article from the Times this morning. It is rather depressing.
You can?t save troubled families on the cheap
Camila Batmanghelidjh
We know where the problems are. But Whitehall needs to do the psychological maths
I can?t believe it: a Prime Minister who is prepared to tackle the hidden problem of troubled families, in whose unhappy bosom there are catastrophic levels of child abuse and neglect. But I?m sorry that it took the summer riots to wake the nation up to the price we must pay when some 1.5 million children are being maltreated in Britain every year.
Governments have brushed all this under the carpet for decades ? the kids don?t vote and the dysfunctional families can be kept in the ghettos. But the ugliness of our emotional ghettos spilt on to the well-swept streets in August, demonstrating the type of violence that years of negation, humiliation and abuse can brew.
Politics has lagged behind neuroscience for some time. Brain scans confirm that no one escapes from the effects of child abuse ? we can see how it physically changes the brain, scarring the limbic system, the part primarily responsible for emotional functioning. Profound neglect creates black holes in the frontal lobe, which helps to explain why some people struggle to behave well. And these damaged children grow up not only hurting themselves but in time their offspring too.
Governments like to keep things tidy, so yesterday the coalition identified 120,000 troubled families in whose lives it would like to intervene with targeted support. It has put the entirely competent Louise Casey in charge of its Troubled Families Team. Ms Casey doesn?t beat about the bush; she likes results, and she?ll be determined, but I?m not sure even she realises the toxic combination of disturbed families and disturbing local authorities that she faces.
We know who these families are already. Dawn and her children fit the bill for intervention. By the age of 11, she had an alcohol problem. She ended up sleeping on the street, where she met her partner, Trevor, who had a crack habit and had similarly emerged from a childhood of abuse. Their nine-year-old daughter has frequently cleaned up her parents? vomit, while doing her best to take care of her younger siblings. Social services would not intervene, as neither parent was seen to be ?abusing? their children.
Under-resourced social work departments are making such unethical choices all the time, leaving children hungry, neglected or sleeping on the floor. A house littered with dog and human faeces is now not classified as child abuse, nor do social services take responsibility for a 13-year-old boy being run by drug dealers and witnessing the torture of other young people: that?s classed as a police matter.
It?s a sign of the disturbed behaviour of social services that only abuse of the severest kind is now categorised as such. There is a silent and collusive climate where, in the pursuit of league table success, many local authorities sanitise their statistics, giving central government the good news and hiding the bad. This is not the action of evil professionals; it?s the corrosive effect of the defeatist attitude that ?there aren?t enough resources, so we can?t do it?.
Dawn and Trevor?s 18-year-old son is now in prison for manslaughter and the nine-year-old girl is attempting to manage the burden by regularly cutting herself. The difficulties of dealing with such families can be paralysing, generating hopelessness in those working to help them. Who will help those workers?
It would be wrong solely to blame social workers for these ills. They reflect a system corrupted by poor leadership and which puts process before action. On top of that, care is divided between so many scattered agencies that families are passed around without anyone specifically having responsibility for their problems.
The question is, will Ms Casey be allowed to be honest and brave? The first unspoken truth is that helping troubled families cannot be done on the cheap. The Government is making £448 million available, but local authorities are expected to put in 60 per cent of the total cost. How do you do that when you don?t have the money? Voluntary agencies are supposed to step in as partners, but how will they do that when local authorities are cutting their funding?
Let?s get real ? the cost of intervention per family is budgeted at about £3,750. That wouldn?t leave much after paying for the dog food of the pitbull that?s going to be waiting to bite the flesh off the new keyworker.
The cost to the Exchequer of cleaning up the social failure of these families is £9 billion a year ? all those 999 calls when children are screaming as their father smashes a bottle over their mother?s head and looks menancingly towards them. Someone in Whitehall hasn?t done the psychological maths very well. Sorting out these families properly costs an enormous amount of money.
So will Louise Casey have the power to change that? Will the troubleshooter solve it or be shot?
Camila Batmanghelidjh is founder of the charity Kids Company (kidsco.org.uk)