Take more babies away from bad parents, says Barnardo's chief

[bubblebutt]

Many more children need to be taken into care at birth to stop them being damaged beyond repair by inadequate parents, the chief executive of the children's charity Barnardo's has told the Observer

How you can you say that when they the parents don't know how they will turn out themselves till after the event

Martin Narey called for less effort to be directed at "fixing families that can't be fixed" and for social workers to be braver about removing children at risk .

what tosh some families can be fixed and yes some cant but come on that means all babies that are under the SS would be taken into care because he fears another baby P and that is so wrong on many levels. A lot of families out there are going to suffer because of this reporting.

After revelations about the neglect and dysfunctional background of two young brothers from Doncaster who viciously attacked an 11-year-old boy and his nine-year-old nephew, social workers have once again come under fire for failing to intervene at an early stage.

this is alleged neglect and abuse no one knows this except the kids and their parents SS have to do a report and have to get all their facts together BEFORE they can remove a child. This takes time not 2 minutes. Another reason mistakes are made as there isnt enough Social Workers.

The brothers, aged 11 and 10, had been known to social services and police for several years. Their mother had allegedly given them cannabis as toddlers and forced them to forage for food in bins, while their father was allegedly a violent alcoholic. Despite this, the pair had been taken into care just three weeks before the attacks. The case has led to Doncaster social services opening an inquiry, its seventh serious case review since 2004.

What do they expect the SS to do wave a magic wand and its all better it doesnt work that way.The 2 boys are damaged now and need help as much as the other boys do.

Calling for more children to be in care from the moment they are born, Narey, a former director general of the Prison Service and previously a permanent secretary at the Home Office, made clear he was not reacting to this case in particular, but to issues with Britain's child protection services that needed urgent attention to avoid failing many more troubled young people.

Yes he is and a lot of families are going to suffer because of it.

"If you can take a baby very young and get them quickly into a permanent adoptive home, then we know that is where we have success," he said. "That's a view that is seen as a heresy among social services, where the thinking is that if someone, a parent, has failed, they deserve another chance. My own view is that we just need to take more children into care if we really want to put the interests of the child first.

So some one struggling is going to leapt on and the child taken away all cos she isnt coping the way the SS want and some want you to go after there arses cleaning em when they are old enough to do themselves Oh there is SS like this out there or the one that comdemns you if you cant cook and give your kids microwave meals all the time or something out of a tin god forbid they do that,

"We can't keep trying to fix families that are completely broken. It sounds terrible, but I think we try too hard with birth parents. I have seen children sent back to homes that I certainly wouldn't have sent them back to. I have been extremely surprised at decisions taken. If we really cared about the interests of the child, we would take children away as babies and put them into permanent adoptive families, where we know they will have the best possible outcome."

If the family is beyond repair so be it but what if they have turned there life around and can get their kids back why take that chance away as some SS do just that. they seem to tar every bad parent with the same brush hence why the SS shouldnt be there after 3 years as it makes them jaded in what they see everyday.

He said he understood his views would be seen as "illiberal heresy": "I think if social workers were courageous and sought to intervene quickly, and were supported properly in that, we would see far fewer problems."

As above and also there would be a national out cry from parents that have done nowt wrong but asked for help to be told they are neglecting their child(ren) when they clearly need help to be a better parent. Not penalized this way.

While foster care was on paper a good option for older children who had to be taken into care, he said, a shortage of suitable placements meant that children were suffering from a lack of stability. "What troubles me is the number of children I meet who have had vast numbers of placements. Last week, I met a 15-year-old girl and her foster mum. It was her 46th placement. The woman said that whenever there was a row or disagreement, the girl went to pack her bags. She expected to be sent on.

there isnt enough foster parents in the world as they are told to see the foster side as a business and it so isnt its helping and nuturing and caring for a child that needs your help

"It is undoubtedly a good option when children have been taken into care to replicate the family in foster care placements, but I have spent the past four years meeting a lot of children in care and I can tell you that it is by no means anything out of the ordinary to meet a child whose foster placements run into double figures. There comes a point where we have to accept that it is not working."

As above

Philippa Stroud of the thinktank Centre for Social Justice reacted cautiously to Narey's comments. "If the model is to move children very quickly to adoption, not necessarily from birth but certainly under a year, then that is something we would support," she said. "We need far more early intervention to try to stop this disintegration of the family we are seeing, but we would like to see more working with these families. What we recommend is the model of the mother and baby going into care, filling that hole and giving the whole family a chance. "With child protection, all the legislation is actually in place: it's the implementation that is the issue."

So if this is the case why do we see baby P stories all the time. I feel that the child protection and SS should be overhauled and the government needs to bring in more and they shouldnt be allowed anymore than 3 years in that field and then moved on if they wish to return they have to wait 3 years to do so. Also the work load of a SS shouldnt be anymore than 5 families and this is for full time workers not the part time.

The numbers of children taken into care rose slightly following the death of Baby P, the 17-month-old boy later named as Peter Connelly, who died in London in 2007 of injuries inflicted by his mother and her boyfriend, despite being seen repeatedly by doctors and social workers. But Narey says it was only a temporary increase.

How many of these babies, children whom parents hadnt done anything wrong really to their children and they where taken because of the mistakes of another SS office hmmmm that worries me more.

"As soon as these cases recede from the memory, everyone will get reluctant to move these children all over again. Only 4% of children adopted from care in England are under the age of one and the figure is even smaller in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I for one hope it doesnt recede from memory as we need to be reminded of baby P and the others out there that their own parents didnt give a stuff about them. We need to address these mistakes and take stock and agree we where wrong. Not hidding behind we did nothing wrong and it wasnt our fault crap. If known abuse of any kind you amass your info and remove the kids. Not this wishy washy oh we didnt see this or that or she wouldnt let us in crap either. Also if on the "at risk registrar" they should visit more than once a week or what is the point of being on the registrar in the first place. Also no written warnings either. They should just turn up on the door. Again this would mean a full over haul of the SS departments all over the world.

"Less than 5% of the children taken into care in England last year were aged under a year old. Some 3,500 children were adopted in Britain from care, at an average age of four."

This is to do with the birth parents wanting their children back and fighting the SS over it and it takes on average a year to go to court with all the evidence they have against the other to proceed and sometimes this can be stopped if the paperwork isnt done right. Also the parents themselves could have turned their lives round and can show they have so this again hinder any proceedings. Also the SS could be dragging their heels too as one SS could be busy on other cases so it is again delayed. Not good for the child is it.

I copied and pasted this as its the article of said subject and it has angered me the silly man he is. I have added my own bits to it and wondered what you all thought.

"here itthe piece"

It appears this thread is less of a discussion, or debate or even sharing different idea's and views on the article or how Social Services operate but more of an attack on S/W.

So i guess this is my cue to leave this thread, as i am not up for being slatted or put down for a job that i work very hard in, and a job where i always work with a family with my first aim to be them staying with their parents. I also do not think i want to hear people saying such negative things about my children, as such a generlaised statemetn about S/W does include me. I feel the comments are begining to get very low and spiteful which IMO is completely unnecessary.

Anyway dont brand as all as the devil because we arent, just like i wont brand all parents as the devil, because their not.

II can only endorse what Kentmum says. Some of the comments here about Social Workers and Social Work in general are unpleasant as well as ill informed.

I am not discounting individual experience, but to generalise from this to all social workers is wrong. If there are concerns about the way that social workers raise their children, they are investigated as thoroughly as anyone else-I've seen it.

Please let's be sensible here. We could say that all MPs should have investigations into their children because a number have shown themselves to be fraudulent or ethically unsound, but this would be a bit daft.

If the people who want to understand about checks and balances and scrutiny actually read what the social workers have been posting in answer then they might find some reassurance.

however, I fear the current fashion on some of these threads for parroting 'secret family courts, adoption targets, public scrutiny etc etc' acts almost as a defence against reading widely and thinking critically. That's not to say that these issues don't need further attention or that everyone on here us doing what Ive described-I really think some people have a genuine interest and open mind. Sadly, some just relish the opportunity to abuse a Social Worker.

X posted as I take so long to comment on this phone.

So the vileness has got another really nice and thoughtful social worker to leave this thread. Good work, you can all feel proud.

I too dislike the suggestion that there is something wrong about SWs as a group. I got a bad impression of NanaNina for her attempts to suggest that social workers always know best and I have to say she did nothing to remove that impression. But that is one social worker, not the whole profession. My personal experience of social workers has always been very good: sensible level-headed people who listened to my point of view.

Well I'm not going to apologise for what I said, as I believe it to be true, otherwise I would not have written it.

Decent social workers are the one's who have left because the could not stand the way the system works any longer, they couldn't stand that the children were no longer the priority, the one's on community care openly admit that they would not rock the boat, grass on a collegue who was wrong, or whistleblow because it would be their butt in the firing line, this to me and many others shows that if your more worried about the paycheck than the children your in the wrong profession.

As for my comment on the children of sw's, yes, I stand by it, if sw's buy into half the BS they shovel at parents then practice what they preach at home those children are (according to doctrine) in real trouble.
Heaven help the child living with a parent who is never wrong and has a god complex.

You say it's not up to sw's that the courts are closed, err actually yes, your unions were lobbying both Falconer and Straw to keep the courts closed actually, because most of what you provide to the court as evidence wouldn't stand up to scrutiny in an open system.

As for checks and balances, there are none, it's a herd mentality, proper scrutiny should be from the outside with a body that is not beholding for a job, or paycheck to ss, as for that old chestnut that ss do not take children from parents the courts do, that's just tosh, the judge is there to rubber stamp the 'experts' decisions, it's extremely rare that a judge will even challenge a statement from the ss or the shrink in their employ, let alone scrutanise it. God help the ss cases if the parents were actually allowed to have experts of their own, which the court of human rights says is against the law, but hey, suspect parents do not have any rights inside the family courts do they? What the 'rpofessionals' say is right, must be, the parents are guilty even when they can prove they are innocent like the waltons.

So if I have hit a nerve with maybe someone who is a 'decent' social worker then maybe you should use it as a learning curve to know exactly how the accused parents feel when they have done nthing wrong and yet no one believes them, no one listens.

As for going through the channels to change things, I have been for the last five years, we have a partial victory in getting the press inside the courts but this is not sufficient, the courts need to be fully open to scrutiny and ss need to be fully accountable for everything they do, say and write, including perjury.

I am not a social worker, decent or otherwise. But I have met decent social workers. And afaik they are still working.

And yes, I have been an accused parent. Accused by a paediatrician as it so happens. I do not go around claiming that there are no decent paediatricians in the world: that would be plain silly. I don't know them all for a start.

Good for you, FYI I didn't claim the world some other countries have some quite good policies in CS, and sw from what I have read and the big difference between this country and other civalised societies is that we have secret courts, other are open to scrutiny.

I don't know all sw's either, but as a group we have a very good list of bad sw's, their fake names and real ones (we like to be thorough) this list is very, very, very long, I could copy and paste it, if it wasn't illegal to do so.

sonic, what is that list for?

There are a range of people good and bad in all professions. The difficulty in child protection particularly, is that the checks and balances that should operate don't.

This responsibility lies with the Court of Appeal. I think their motivation in tolerating the intolerable is to maintain public confidence in the courts.

Blueshoes,

there are many reasons to compile this sort of database, to check when a 'new' parent has a problematic sw if that sw is known to the group and for what specific reasons, to warn parents of that sw's tactics and for future reference with regards to private actions against individual sw's to show their 'history' of working practices and of course for research to show bad practices in sw to the 'powers that be'.

Johnhemming,

As far as I am aware there is no 'public confidence' in the family courts.

And the work that different groups are undertaking in bringing this to the publics attention over the past few years has finally opened the countries eyes to what goes on behind closed doors.

Not a moment too soon.

I think that open and public debate in the media is essential but I do not get the impression from this thread that this is an opinion shared by the sw's who have posted here.

In the Oldham summary the judge spoke of having the humility to recognise and to acknowledge the public debate.

I still have do not have an understanding as to just how the checks and balances apply if things go wrong, i.e. either a child is not correctly recognised as at risk or a parent is wrongly accused, and what public redress is out there and understanding the various roles of influence of sw, hcp's police in matters, and so on and so on.

How the whistleblower in Haringey did not engender confidence in checks and balances.

This same question about how checks and balances apply, has repeatedly been questioned in this thread and I am not aware of a SW that has been able to explain it.

I think responses are that it is difficult or due to confidentiality rather unhelpful.Yes I did highlight comments from Nananina but I seem to recall that some other sw's posted and agreed with some of her sentiments.

should have posted:
How the whistleblower in Haringey was treated
did not engender confidence in checks and balances.

I'm interested in whether any sw's see their roles as being powerful, due to the secrecy of the family courts?

sonic - can you explain why there are people on a list with fake and real names, why would there be fake names?

Snapple,

Sw's, cafcass and guardians are all allowed to change their names for work purposes, so it protects their identity.

but why would they when the courts are shrouded in secery anyways. that doesnt make sense at all.

the lass that changed her name well done you for overcoming the abuse and being a survivior of it and not the victim. Shame on the SW for not having faith in you and thought wrongly that you would go onto abuse all because you were. That is alarming and worrying but not rare either.

Back to the s.31 this means supervision orders within the care system or at home or with fosterer parents if available and it can mean that anyone from any background can have their child taken away from them on the say so of a SW and yes I said SW. It is them that take cases to court and its their testimony that is listened to so they have a lot to do with it. Some will lie about what is really happening and I have been there with friends. I find if the police are involved it is a better outcome as they dont have an agenda so to speak. Well the ones I have met at any rate.

There is good and bad in every proffession but SW should be held accountable also their bosses as I know some that get the poor SW to change their notes for whatever reason and wonder why they have other parents wanting their blood.

Some of these people shouldnt be Social Workers as some people shouldnt be parents.

All I know is that I would never want to be a Social worker, screw that for a job. I am assuming that all that go in orgionally wanted children to be looked after and have wonderful lives. What a hidious job that that does not happen.....I wont even go there with the critism. What a crap job. You cant win. Not meaning a win or lose thing, but to have a child not safe maybe because of funding or lack of fosterers must be hard.

Snapple, I can try and answer some of your questions. I am also grateful to Cory for her balance on this issue (which seems to have been ignored).

There's a lot to answer, as the process of getting to court can be very lengthy and only involves a tiny fraction of the people worked with. I may not have time to get very far, those pesky kids need attention!

This is an outline, it's a bit simplified or we would be here all day....

Checks and balances apply from the beginning, for example if a family member / professional / child etc alleges abuse (significant harm) or says that a child is living in abusive circumstances, then Social Services must refer this through to the Police. Then a manager from SS and a senior officer from a Police child abuse investigation team decide whether the issue is serious enough to be investigated under s.47 ('child protection'). Around this stage there may also be some enquiries made eg anonymous referrer says child was beaten by mother last night and has bruised eyes - if we check with the school and they haven't, then there's no evidence to support the allegation and we might contact the parents to let them know they have someone making malicious allegations against them.

got to go

Leaving aside the court process, I had a look at how poor practice was dealt with.

Poor social workers are not reported according to this article.

www.lgcplus.com/news/poor-social-workers-not-reported/2018654.article

"The regulator, which controls the Social Care Register detailing those social workers who are entitled to practice, said more than 600 cases in need of investigation

Despite a level of referrals that has now reached around 90 per week, the GSCC last year struck off just 35 social workers from its register, suspended eight, and admonished a further 23.

Of 636 cases currently awaiting investigation, 203 are believed to have gone unchecked until a recent review - 134 of them have still to be allocated caseworkers."

www.lgcplus.com/children-and-education/childrens-services/gscc-chief-exec-suspended-over-backlog/500 4240.article

A council worker (Team Leader of a Youth Offending Team) who bribed teenage girls under the authority?s care to attend nude and lingerie photo shoots has been struck off the General Social Care Council register but if I have read this correctly he was struck off in Aug 2009 but resigned in 2007 following police investigation.

Now a recent survey found that while 85% of social workers said they would report concerns over colleagues or work practices to employers ? the majority of whom are councils ? but barely half said those fears were ever acted upon.

Fifty-one percent of respondents who had reported a concern to management said it had been acted upon, with the remainder saying it had not.
Meanwhile just 55% of social workers said they were ?confident? that action would be taken if they spoke up.

... again I am yet to see how the checks and balances do apply?

changedforthis - what a horrid experience for you.

I am glad for you and your child that it all worked out.

Out of interest could Changedforthis have had any say over the sw appointed to her?

Wahwah and what is the process if the collaborative group you mention disagreed - i.e. if the police think that abuse may have occurred and the sw does not?

So, if one may sum up the thread so far:

the problem is not that social workers as a group are incompetent or malignant

it is not that social workers always know best but are hampered by the ill-will of the general public

but there are two big problems:

one is the inevitable one that abuse can be extremely difficult to tell from natural causes

the only solution would be to make it as easy as possible to get a second opinion in cases of doubt

which brings us to the second problem:

that there seems to be an issue with the checks and balances

(I gather that some of the social workers who have made very clear errors in the past are still working and have never expressed any doubts on their own methods, and the same applies to at least one paediatrician who was involved in one of the big scandals of the 80s and whose investigations of the supposed victims of sexual abuse could certainly have been called abusive in itself)

this is very problematic, not only because of the risk of miscarriages of justice, or of children being left in dangerous situations due to wrongful decisions, but also because a lack of confidence in social workers will mean that people hesitate to report cases of suspected abuse

Cory - yes the issue is with the checks and balances.

I am not so sure of your point that sw's are hampered by the ill will of the general public. the cases of alleged abuse have increased since publicity around cases like Baby P. Which should be a good thing - as long as the checks and balances apply - but they don't.
From reading experiences posted on this thread I would never meet a sw without an advocate being present.

Cases like baby p have also demonstrated some sw's in a negative light and obviously this leads to recruitment difficulties. There also appears to be a low barrier of entry to enter social work - and a lack of ongoing professional training, which I do not think helps the standing of the profession or the children or parents who are at the crux of child protection.

I do think it appears to be difficult to get a second opinion in cases of doubt - which can go both ways, however I am willing to to hear other opinions.

This alongside with a secret type process appears problematic as it encourages a resistant to lessons learnt and change and a lack of accountability.

There was another reason that I was being investigated and I recognise in retrospect that the work had to be done. The way social services went about it was appalling though. Not wishing to say too much but the incident that led up to me being investigated when pregnant was something extremely traumatic and frightening for me and had occurred some years previously. They showed not one ounce of compassion or understanding and even started with an unannounced vist which i later found my doctor had told them NOT to do as she was already concerned about my stress levels in the pregnancy.

The social worker did not tell me she knew about the rape until the day before the child protection meeting when she telephoned me and said I'd be given a different copy of the report than my partner as it contained informatin on me that I may not want him to know. I had to push her to get her to tell me what that information was as she seemed to think it unnecessary for me to know in advance what it said. If I hadn't done that I would have found out she knew about it and had put it in a report being read by everyone round the table. It appears she found out from my doctor (who told her without my permission) and rather than discussing with me jumped to the "obvious" conclusion that I was therefore likely to do the same to my child.

I have to say the police treated me with far far more respect than any social worker.

Sorry this turned into a bit of an epic post.

Sounds horrid - especially to cause such stress when you were pregnant right before an important meeting?

I don't suppose you had the energy to complain about the sw as you were in a vulnerable position being pregnant.

In what way did the police act differently and treat you with respect? And I understand if you don't want to answer and go back over this - sounds like a terrifying experience.