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.

Good.

Social work does now have a regulatory body but I've no idea whether they have ever struck anyone off or what the powers are.

And from those pathetic excuses she should be struck off !

social work does have a regulatory body, the General Social Care Council, and yes, one can be struck off.

Haven't had a chance to read whole thread, but I understand what it means, and I really don't see the problem. Everyone at the conference will understand and it seems a very valid area for discussion at the moment. Why are you so worried??? Bizarre

Well we'll see eh? Let's wait for the independent investigation before we claim our 'pound of flesh' from the professionals involved.

Just skimming the papers today I see the main SW involved in baby Ps case had 18 high priority cases, when she should have been only dealing with 12. I am sure it will become clear that this is an unfeasible workload for one person to deal with effectively.

I say main SW but it appears that this is a loose term to use in this case and infact he was seen my quite a few. It will be very difficult to point the finger of blame at one individual.

I am merely restating that it will indeed be hard to point the finger of blame at one individual(s) and that it would appear to be inherent systematic problems for all of the reasons I have highlighted.

If this proves to be the outcome of the investigation there will be no need to 'strike' anyone off any 'register'.

I personally am choosing to look at the overall picture and the issues involved in social work as I do not have indepth knowledge of the case because I was not actively involved in it.

Oh and I think morningpaper and wonderstuff are correct re the language at the conference. Would I understand the language used in an Osteopathy conference? no not without my Osteopath explaining it to me!

Dittany. I have enjoyed reading this thread, thank you for your comments. I believe I am reasonably well informed about the baby A/P case. You have said that the mother killed one of her other children - I was not aware of this. Could you tell me how you know that?

You said "The story that came from the police in this case is that they had tried twice to get this little boy taken into care and were stonewalled, his child-minder was given the same treatment, the police by the sounds of it had to force social services to hand over this woman's new baby when she had it in prison, because they wanted her to be able to bond with it. This was when she was on remand for her part in killing another one of her children." ??

Ah - so Baby P is 4th out of 5 children? That's what I didn't know, I thought he was last of 4. Thank you.

Good Lord, this is one example from a conference. I am sure Social Workers and their managers attend plenty of meetings whereby 'corporate speak' is not used. If occasionally it is used then so what-it really proves nothing.

Most of the Social Workers who came on this thread had no problems understanding it. I don't see anything 'devious'in the use of corporate speak occasionally, this is the nature of the workplace for most professionals these days and most people are literate in it.

I strongly agree with the OP.

Those who argue that people outside the profession should not be able to understand the language, and try to compare it with specialities in medicine or natural science are missing the point - in science every effort is made to make the language as plain and clear as possible without sacrificing precision. Latin names are used for plants, Jellypop, not to obfuscate but to explicitly specify the plant in question. Diagnostic manuals are forced to use medical terminology for the same reason - avoiding confusion. In general scientists try very hard in their writing to make complex concepts as easy to understand as possible.

When social scientists use obscure terminology it seems to be with the opposite goal - they are working to make themselves sound clever by making simple concepts seem complex. The topic of Sharon Shoesmith's talk is a great example of that.

My interest in the Baby P case was prompted by Shoesmith's original statements. She genuinely seemed to believe that since the social services involved had followed "best practice", the tragedy was unavoidable. Even though it was long obvious to anyone with any common sense that the baby's mother was unfit to care for him and needed to be removed.

Shoesmith, as head of children's services, had become disengaged from the actual purpose of her role. Doublespeak facilitates that and so should be discouraged!

I am almost amused by the idea that looking after children needs a specialist terminology that is incomprehensible to normal, educated people. Almost.

I dont think anyone is arguing that outsiders should not understand what is being said.

Simply that this is the language used in some conferences attended by 'professionals' from any area of work you wish to name.

I honestly dont think we can deduce anything more from it other than it could be annoying if you are not familiar with certain terminology - but you can always ask!

I intended to write:"She genuinely seemed to believe that since the social services involved had followed "best practice", the tragedy was unavoidable. Even though it was long obvious to anyone with any common sense that the baby's mother was unfit to care for him and so he needed to be removed."

Still can't see any good reason for using jargon in child protection work. And there are plainly disadvantages, as highlighted by these cases. MSbP gibberish has been allowed to go unquestioned, while children were left with abusers despite overwhelming evidence.

Ah well Upwind you know Social Work is far more complex than some people like to give it credit!

Izyboy - of course it is but there is no need to use specialised language for childcare issues. The necessary words are all in common use because most of us have dealings with children.

Other specialisms sometimes need to use precise technical terms to refer to so something that lay people would have no reason to encounter. That is why they use them - not to obfuscate or distance themselves from the subject matter.

Upwind in fairness this is a profession and Social Workers have to undergo academic training to qualify.

As a result it is expected that they will be able to use terminology and language that is not in everyday parlance. It is the nature of any professional workplace that's all.

unless we are personally attending a conference, why do we need to see the title in plain english? I have nothing to do with this field but I understood it (apart from silos but I googled it)

I think this case has thrown up problems in the social work field and hopefully things will change. This child was killed by his parents, no one else.

I would like to see a change in OUR behaviour and this new thing of no one is touching me or my child way of life. I keep reading 'why not wipe choc of his face', I'm guessing the same reason teachers can't cuddle our children after falling over. We can't have it all ways. The same with the doctor, if she insisted on checking him over and he was just a normal boy, there would be an outcry. The 60 visits weren't by one person, they were by many people, not everyone saw all the evidence

I would like to hear how many children social services have saved, it would be nice to have some comparison for one horrific, badly managed case and how many cases where the outcome was favourable