No wonder child protection in Haringay is such a mess when this kind of gobbledigook passes for English

[mabanana]

From the Guardian:
A conference in January will focus on improving child protection.
Sharon Shoesmith will be a key speaker. Her topic: 'Breaking Down Silos: Inspiring Ownership and Sharing Responsibility For Measuring Impacts and Outcomes Across Partnerships.'

Now, wtf is that supposed to mean? It actually makes me quite angry that this kind of doublespeak is being used. It cannot help people think clearly about what must be done. It is the kind of language that makes it OK to sack and legally silence whistleblowers who want to say, in plain English, something is wrong here and we are failing children.

I think education and children and families social work are linked. Schools and nurseries are an integral part of the multi agency conferences that take place for children on the Child Protection register/ Looked After children.
They often refer children to social services and are involved in assessment, planning and monitoring of children deemed at risk. They also often have a pretty good overview of child development and any issues that might arise there.

That said I agree there are clear differences in roles, responsibilities and culture between education and social services. Don't really know if its directly relevant to this situation or whether the outcome would have been different if Shoesmith had a social work background.

I work in an integrated mental health team alongside psychiatrists, nurses and psychologists. They are all employed by the NHS and I am employed by a council. My line manager is nurse trained.
It makes sense to me as we all have different skills, area's of expertise etc. It also greatly assists communication between differing professionals and sharing responsibility. Its easier to share information/concerns etc with a colleague in the same office.
To me having NHS staff such as doctors and social services staff in integrated childrens teams would be a positive thing. Its done in children and adolescent mental health teams and works pretty well.
The point is that we do have to work together so why not make it easier.

jellypop, I agree that different skill sets have to work together. In my area of work, I need legal, IT, business development, risk management skills. But the head of my department and my line manager is from a legal background, as I am. Because to manage my specialised area, it is a precondition that you understand the nuts and bolts of how lawyers work. Having a related skill set does not mean I can manage IT at a senior level tomorrow.

You said: "[Schools] often refer children to social services and are involved in assessment, planning and monitoring of children deemed at risk. They also often have a pretty good overview of child development and any issues that might arise there."

Yes, but do schools go into homes of deprived families to interview the parents and carers and try to spot the liars and manipulators and notice the unaccounted for males and pets that might be living there. Do schools interview neighbours and other people in the same home, decide when to make unannounced visits, etc. My dd's headteacher can do and has done all that??

Let's be commonsense about this. Teacher = social worker? I finding it a bit of a stretch. Sorry.

If I was managed by someone who did not understand how I do my day-to-day job or was interested in how I could do it more effectively, I would become demoralised and disengaged. I think that is what happened between the ground (social workers) and the management - Haringey whistle blower being the case on point

When I worked for a government department I was managed by people with no idea of the day to day running of the business at the coal face.

Toys, how was it like working in that environment? Do you think it was important for management to have 'coalface' experience?

I work with the early years dept at our LA.

They love having meetings (getting out of the office) when a ten minute phone call or email would suffice.

A couple of them are good but the rest are overpaid timeservers.

I agree with blueshoes, that while there must be links between teachers and social workers, they have very different roles. There shouldn't be a diffusion of responsibility.

What is needed to help children like baby P is direct, practical action like randum file inspections with unannounced visits by those inspectors to the children, police protection if social workers feel threatened during home visits and greater medical involvement, for example periodic x-rays of all very young children on the at risk register (very sadly, babies are sometimes found to have months old broken ribs after they have died). I also believe that this would have a deterrent affect on potential abusers because they wouldn't be able to cover up fractures in the same way as soft tissue injuries.

Inspectors to the children, definitely.

Not inspectors to offices to talk to SS about children.

I've got no time for Sharon Shoesmith but what a joke that she was supposed to be head of both social services and education. Why not chuck in health as well. Ridiculous, and exactly why a public inquiry is needed.

management didn't have a farking clue about how to make life bearable for staff working on the frontline.

Grim

I feel for the staff there

Think you misunderstood me Blueshoes. I'm not saying teacher=social worker at all. Of course they have different roles within child protection and social workers take the lead in co ordinating investigations.
I'm just saying I can see there are links between them.

The reality is that managers (especially at a senior level) are less involved with practice issues but more in policy development, finance/budgets and 'strategic planning'. I know this is wrong and its a major frustration for frontline workers who know senior managers are far removed from reality.
Social work is effectively done by frontline workers who are lucky if they have decent supervision.
Thats why I feel happier working in a multi disciplinary team where there is communication and shared responsibility. However my role within the team is much more legally defined than my nurse colleagues and theirs more medically-it doesn't mean we can't work towards the same aims.

Jellypop, so you do see that senior managers are far removed from the reality faced by frontline social workers. You do see that management are not generally providing frontline social workers with decent supervision.

And is this ok by your book? That a Sharon-educationalist-Shoesmith should be in charge of 'policy development, finance/budgets and strategic planning' of social services in the borough when she never stepped foot in the home of an at risk child? Would you want a Sharon Shoesmith to decide where money is going to be ploughed into social services in Haringey in the next 3 years if she does not understand the challenges faced by socialworkers at the coalface today?

I see your point about working together. I live the happyclappy 'breaking down silos' management speak in my line of work. But working together is not the same as having accountability and management responsibility for a specialised area of child protection which comes with its own skill set and procedures.

Dittany, I couldn't teach maths to save my life and think you are missing my point.

I do know that children have been horribly abused and killed who were known to social services with senior management who were also social work trained.

Guess what I'm trying to say is that there may not be a causal link between Shoesmiths professional background and her ability (or lack of) to manage Childrens services.

Jellyppop, I see what you are saying.

But in any organisation, the culture is set from the top. If the director of social services does not get it, then it filters down to senior management not to rigorously pursue any failures in protection. A chief executive of a FTSE 100 company has to at least Believe in the company's business. I don't know Sharon Shoesmith from adam but what I would say is that her failure to acknowledge that mistakes were made in a case as horrendous as Baby P's showed a chilling disjoint between what the public perceived social services role to be and her own warped perception of her department.

Of course its not ok Blueshoes. I am afterall a frontline social worker who gets frequently frustrated at the 'top down' approach. There is a huge chasm between people such as Shoesmith and someone who would provide frontline workers with supervision. There is a huge layer of middle management who have much more involvement in practice issues.
I think probably a post such as Shoesmiths was created to streamline services and create a clearer chain of responsibility than previously. I'm not saying that it is right or that I agree with it. Personally I think those in Shoesmiths position have to be involved at the coal face and maybe because of what happened to her they will.

Oh dear Dittany. Is that what its about for you? I've agreed with some of what you said but some of it is frankly misinformed, simplistic bollocks. Again you choose to hear what fits in with your view and disregard the rest.

Perhaps it would be useful for Dittany to read Lamings report and recommendations before she slags him off. It is a disturbing read, but also gives very good reasons as to why having totally disjointed services (aka silos) for children directly contributed to the terrible death of Victoria Climbe. Also the pressures and cultures of the various services. The point was to make sure that all services and individuals in contact with children took personal responsibility for child protection, and didn't just think "that's for the SS child protection team", refer at best and then forget about it. Also about information being pooled, so that a picture of the totality of the situation was built up, and deceitful carers more easily exposed. The formation of Children's Trusts also comes from the findings of the Bristol Inquiry that children's services can be sidelined by adult services. My experience (I am NHS) is that many frontline workers welcomed the opportunity to work more closely together and share skills and resources, and that parents also had hopes it would make their loves easier in accessing the services their children require. But it is still early days, inquiries take a long time, recomendations often then get pondered by government for a long time, and then only partially implemented, and then of course those charged with implementation have to plan and execute changes, which again takes time. The trouble is that in the meantime other things change, and political priotities rarely mean that funding comes with the new systems.

My expectation is that the inquiry that will inevitably be held will show the same general problems that most inquiries have shown before. Parents manipulating the systems, staff overworked, possibly poorly trained, almost certainly poorly supervised, communicaton mechanisms failing, and a whole series of small events that should have been managed differently. The history of investigations into accidents and failures (not just in social care but in many industries) are that change takes a long time, that bad things happen repeatedly, and that political reaction often makes things worse. It is a depressing field.

The other thing that is worth bearing in mind is that the emphasis is now on keeping families together. Partly because research shows that outcomes are better for children, but also because there are big shortages of foster parents, so there are not always places of safety available. Finally it is a sad fact that many children live in homes which most of us would consider totally unsuitable, some of the stories I have heard from some of my health colleagues (mostly HVs and District nurses) are very shocking. However the assuption cannot be immediately made of significant intended neglect, with consequent removal of children without trying to help the parent to address their problems. Some of those parents care for their children deeply and with support can bring them up well, and unless there is immediate and obvious risk, the courts will not support removal.

Jellypop, I hope you get the hands-on management and support you deserve. I was not clear whether you were a frontline social worker but if you are, I can understand the difficult circumstances under which you work. When something goes as badly wrong as in Baby P's case, I am sure you can see a number of reasons how he could have slipped through the net. If it happened in my organisation, some person somewhere loses money. If it happens in social services, a child gets tortured to death.

I will expect social services to also be clamouring for answers in Baby P's case. Are they? Do they want to know the facts? Has the profession lost all hope and is professional courtesy more important? I am asking you for your view generally, not based on any of your previous posts. Do social workers welcome the review of child services to be conducted next year?