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"

changedforthis, it is deceitful for the social worker to use the fact of your past rape against you and then attempt to conceal the fact that she knew and putting it in the report, thus denying you a chance to reply to that, not that you should ever need to in the first place!

Wonder what other social workers think of such actions and whether checks and balances would have ensured that did not happen.

It's a common trend amoungst sw's, they will dig up something from your past (or make something up) and then present it to throw you off track, emotionally unbalance you, because you have not had a chance to prepare for it you may 'react' which in turn makes you look emotional/ angry/ irrational/ aggressive etc, which in turn 'proves' their point about you, then again if you don't react they claim you are emotionally detatched and couldn't possibly give your child what it needs. The preverbial 'win/win' situation for them.

Never speak to the ss without an advocate. Never invite them into your home without a court order and always record the conversation without them knowing (not illegal if your recording for your own personal record of what was said at a highly emotional time, or just because you have a bad memory).

I am catching up on this thread after a week away with a friend who has adopted a child and we discussed this thread at some length during the evenings. I have namechanged to protect her and her child's privacy

Her perspective is that SWs will often do everything they can to keep a child with their birth mother - her child's mother had support visiting 3 times a day to help feed, clothe and care for the child but ultimately that wasn't enough and the child was taken into care.

My friend's experience was that there are a dearth of SWs who deal with making those tough decisions about taking children into care and, because working in that field is horrible, it's largely left to very inexperienced and younger SWs. Children are still snatched in the night, for reasons neither of us are clear about - it seems designed to cause maximum distress to both parent and child.

Reading this debate through now from start to finish there are some very entrenched and dogmatic positions being taken from both sides of the argument and it strikes me that the truth is probably somewhere in between. Not all SWs are bad and quoting horror stories is not terribly helpful when looking at wider issues around child neglect I think. I took exception to one particular post though (and apologies, I can't remember who posted it) which said something along the lines that the need for a child's privacy is a red herring when discussing the issues around privacy in family courts. I fundamentally disagree with that. There is a need for much greater checks and balances but privacy is critical - both for parents and children - in care cases which come to court to enable them to move forward should they manage to get their lives back on track. Even if that doesn't happen, they don't deserve to have their failings or issues served up for public scrutiny. There are ways to make the process more accountable without us all being able to read the details with our coffee.

I think whoever posted the 'red herring' post ( don't think it was me) was probably referring to the fact that sw's, ss and solicitor's say that the courts need to be keep 'secret' ie behind closed doors because of anonimity for the child and parent, that is BS, rape cases and child offender cases prove that the courts can be open to scrutiny and reporting without being kept 'secret'.

That is the only way there can be true accountability within the family courts.

Agree sonic. Scrutiny does not mean identifying the families in court cases. Anonymised judgments work fine. It is only the merits of the judgment that need to be examined, for which the identity of the parties are irrelevant.

prawnpig, I think using language like 'reading details with morning coffee' is unwarranted and emotive. It does not even reflect reality. There are lots of child murder cases within a domestic context even post-Baby P which are not even reported. I think the problem is not so much curtain twitching as people who do not know or care that some children are being neglected or removed in under appalling circumstances. That currently gets buried under all the secrecy which acts as a cloak for poor practice.

Some of these 'horror stories' are real life experiences that deserve public airing. Parents should not be gagged if they experience what they feel is an injustice. Imagine your child being snatched at night under questionable motives, and not being able to tell anyone about it.

How is that right? Who is that protecting?

The police were better in that they treated me as a human being with feelings. They explained there were certain processes we had to go through but they did everything they could to minimise the distrss those processes caused me. I also felt that they were doing the job because they had to but they found it distasteful to upset me and make me go over what had happened. They weren't in your face friendly but they were professional and honest with me.

The social workers on the other hand seeemed to take delight in winding me up, twisting my words, going against doctors advice and generally not communicating.

The first time they came they barged past me into my home making all sorts of allegations and threats eg - the first thing they said after introducing themselves was that they were going to take my baby at birth.

I was admitted to hospital twice (once by ambulance directly from their offices at 8 months pregnant) as a result of the distrss they caused me. Incidentally the ambulance staff told me ti wasn't the first time they had picked up pregnant women from there in a similary distressed state. I think there are good SWs out there - I just didn't meet any of them!

Sorry you did ask Snapple. Its making me upset just writing this

Can I ask also changedforthis321 have you let go of what happened to you or do you carry about the anger of it all. Have you recieved any counselling for what has happened in the past and for what the SW did to you.

I feel that some counselling might help to get past what the SW did and some peace for the abuse in the past.

As for barging in that is a criminal offence and they can be arrested for it. They have no rights to enter your home at all. Not unless they have the police with them and a court order to remove any children you may have.

I was threatened the other day there by SW and I laughed in her face and told her to get off my land as I would not let her in the house.

My crime you ask homeschooling is all and I have had them for awhile now and I know the law is on my side, but do they see it like that do they hell.

They think of me as some hippy racidal as if. I continue to fight them and so far have won. Will they go away nope I dont think so all because of someone in a council office that took a dislike to me for daring to be different and calling them on it. Oh well another 4 years or more then.

Well that some of my background there then.

some of you sound very bitter and im guessing this is from a personal bad experience

and guess what not all of us have had a bad experience with social workers some of us are thankful and grateful to the dedication and commitment they have shown us through their help and support to enable us to be better parents to our children

i think they should receive recognition for all the hard work they do, and not be critiscised for doing a job a lot of people couldnt even begin to do

hatred and anger are issues that some of you need to deal with and clearly are not insead your on a one way vendetta to do what exactly ? blacken social workers names all because you have issues. perhaps you would like to share your expereinces and explain exactly why social services were involved with you and you family and let us all be the judge and jury of whether they acted wrongly or not, that way youve opened up your case to public scrutiny and it doesnt get any more public than the internet

dont include me and many others like me who are gratefull for the fanatstic support and belief that had in us that we could do it.

Some of us would love to open our cases to public scrutiny, some of us even asked the permission of the court for an open venue and was challenged by the ss and denied the right to be on trial in public where the public could have seen exactly how the ss lie, blackmail and BS the court.

When they change the law- and they will, there will be a flood of cases in the newspapers and across the internet where the decent people of this country will see exactly what the ss has been up to behind closed doors.

im a decent person in this country and i know that social services, behind closed doors if thats how you prefer it said, gave me fantastic help and support, and i would not like my case to have been publically scrutinsed by the public so please dont speak as though your speaking on behalf of the nation because your not, your speaking because of your personal issue and experience with them and for every one you may say has had a negative experience there are others who have had very postive experinces but just that we choose not to air our dirty laundry in public

so why not ask mumsnetters to give their views on your personal case and see what response you get, it may be that the response you get is the same as the social workers view, then what would that say about mumsnetters? that they dont know what they are talking about either?

Because I have a court order that prohibits me from making my case public, it has a penal notice attatched as I had spoken to a certain journalist who shall not be named, not about my own case but a general quote about the state of the ss and the family courts in this country.

Attatched to that order is one prohibiting me from making or distributing, or allowing anyone to make or distribute on my behalf facts about my case in general or spacific.

Attatched to that is an order prohibiting me from circulating material about issues concerning my case or others through such media as you tube.

All under threat of the penal notice which can allow them to give me two years in prison for breech of the orders, although the sentence would be given (at my request) in open court, the facts would still be kept secret.

Gagging orders on mothers, in a country that used to value freedom of speech and has a human rights act.

So before you get on your high horse and condem those of us who have had bad experiences and those of us who work wih people who have had bad experiences you should remember that you might be the one in the minority.

in your opinion im in the minority

and i like the way you say i shouldnt condem people like you or others who have had bad experiences when you have done exactly that by condeming all social workers as being liars and being secretive etc

its not one rule for one and one rule for others

perhaps you need to re read over your comments whereby you have been very accusory towards social workers

Well I could show you thousand of cases and thousands of named sw's if the law allowed where they have lied to the court with tapped or documented evidence, can you do the same for your arguement?

I do not need to re-read my posts I know what I have said and I stand by it, all the decent sw's from CP have left, the one's that remain value the paycheck over children's rights.

again in your opinion, you dont seem to have anything to be able to back up your statements

as for having thousands of social workers who you say have lied how do you know? you only taking on board what people are saying who have been through the system and not got the response they wanted to get

and thats you evidence? that wouldnt stand up in court ....hearsay

My goodness how you sound like a sw.

Yes, I have heard (tapped) or seen (paper)the back up evidence and I can assure you it would stand up in court and has done when the judge has allowed the evidence to be heard, so sorry, no hearsay, but fact.

The reason you can say 'you don't have anything to back up your statements'is because of the gagging laws in this county, sw's wouldn't be so smug if we allowed open justice here like most other civalised countries, the only way they can get away with their tactics is because it's behind closed doors, which is why SS argue for secret courts.

Put any of this evidence in front of a jury and they will find in favour of the parents and the sw would be up on perjury charges.

as would alot of parents i can imagine

as for sounding like a social worker im unsure what one of them sounds like other than a male or female voice depending on their sex .....just like you

are you a solicitor or barrister?

and i dont think socal workers are smug at all i think they do a hard job which sometimes has fantastic improvements in family lives and sometimes it may mean the child is removed which isnt good from the parents point of view which is understandable but may be good from the child point of view

you cant simply label all social workers as not being good at what they do because im speaking from experience as well and i think they are very hardworking and committed to giving children the best outcomes in life

It is great Preeny, that you have had a positive experience -and that should be the case - however if you did not have a positive experience, and a gagging order was place upon you then it must be incredibly disabling.

Even changedforthis concedes that there are good sw's out there but in her experience she did not meet any.

Poor social workers who are reported are not dealt with quickly, it appears there are many inexperienced sw's and there is a crisis in recruiting sw's.

The downside of this - is that while there are bound to be fantastic hard working and ethical sw's - it really does not help you if you happen to be one of the cases where you are not assigned someone who is professional.

Checks and balances have not been applied with consistency.

I think anonymised judgments are extremely important. Take a look at the oldham case.

Public scrutiny is essential otherwise I fear that the unchecked power of some sw's will continue to wreak havoc.

preeny, shouldn't you be saving for energy for asking why you had a good experience and why sonic did not. And how sonic can get your experience. You said for every one bad experience, there are good experiences. That may very well be true. But why should there be even One Bad Experience and why aren't we all doing something about sonic's and others' bad experience?

It seems that so much gets swept under the carpet, and has become normalised as just another bad experience. Well, lucky for you you never had to deal with that.

Instead, you accuse sonic of not having evidence to back her statements. What evidence does she need, over and above what you have furnished? This is HER personal experience, as she has made clear. Are you accusing her of lying?

What truly disturbs me is that there are very few mnetters who in fact report good experiences with social services. One would have thought that many many more like you would pipe up.

Instead we get mnetter social workers who say they are doing a good job or at least the best job they can (very likely) with a sprinkling of support from families who have contact with them.

But the tide of mnetters who describe horrific encounters with social services just dwarfs these positive stories.

I want more positive stories. Believe me. But in the meantime, we need to do something about the horror cases and how to ensure that does not happen.

See we fear the SW when they come knocking well some do and some have reason too, but there is good and bad in any proffession as I said before.

I have met good and bad as I have met good and bad policemen and council workers. Yes they should be held accountable if they bugger up that they put others at risk be it the child from abuse or lieing to get the child removed for their own reasons.

The thing is who is believed in a court of law with regards children the proffesionals thats who. Not the parents who have tried there best for their kids but the so called SW or a doctor that raises the alarm over nothing and it goes this far as it has in the past.

Also I would like to see more decent SW properly trained SW and they only get to work with kids for 3 years as it can jade you seeing the worst of it. Also they have a caseload they can manage not burdened and missing abuse signs because they are overworked, jaded and numb by it all all or so up their own arses they think everyone is abusing their kids and wants their removal for stupid reasons.

This will never happen of course because it all boils down to one thing

MONEY!!!!!

The government wont employ more per council so the kids that need help the most suffer for it. The easier cases are taken and they think they can hookwink parents to giving up their offspring. Or taking them to court thinking they are a lost cause when clearly some are not and just need a helping hand.

Would I become a social worker yes I would if I wasnt burdened with to many caseloads I couldnt do. Also that I can go into another department of SW after my 3 years stint.

Yes we have had personal experiences of SW so we say what they have been and of our friends too as I have. I know the law and what they can do. How many parents dont and think what they are saying is correct when it isnt.

So for me there is good and bad out there.

for the record i never accused sonic of not having evidence for her persoanl experiences and have never said she was lying
what i said about not having the evidence about was in reply to the poster saying she had evidence against thousands of social workers and im saying what evidence does she have is it the parents who feel misjudged and their words because some people can be very manipulative if they feel a wrong decision was made.

and the thing is none of you know anything about me or my life or what i have endured and whether ive had previous children removed from me or anything so please dont be judge and jury over me unless you know me or my experinces.

Just because i say i have had some fantastic social workers you all assume i dont know what it feels like to be wronged so without going inot details as it is private i have felt very wronged in the past
and at that time no one could tell me that social workers were any good and it was because of the consequences of their involement

and sometimes people cant see the error of their ways until many years later when they do make the necessary changes and are motivated enough to move on

i must also add that i have no idea where the idea that social workers should only work in a department for 3 years before moving on surely thats taking someones choice away from them, what if they wanted to stay within their chosen field are you saying they shouldnt? or is it that your saying they cant move after 3 years as im a little confused as to what it is your meaning.

if there are any social workers left out there who have not fled this thread can they please clarify for me whether they would want to be forced to move depatments after a 3 year stint? or apply for different departments when they wanted to?

you also mention that you want to see social workers properly trained can i ask you what they would be exactly because currently they have to do a degree course whether its a BA or MA and they have to do a 200 day work placement in at least 2 different areas, they then have to do post qualifying studies in addition to a certain amount of training and be registerd and provide evidence of further training.

what more would you like to see? a phd?

I certainly would not want to see a PHD.

Preeny, I am jumping in here as IMO completion of a degree course should not be treated as some kind of ?licence to practise? on the frontline as it is far too risky.
SW's should not be allocated difficult cases, upon graduation as often happens now, because of shortages in the profession.

I agree that commitment to the professional development of social workers should be supported but it will depend among senior management in local authorities.

I'm sorry but a 200 day placement would not cut the mustard with me - as it depends where - it won't be much help to anyone - including the sw being trained if the placement is with a poorly performing team and/or borough - which at the moment it can be. What would have learned if you had been placed in Haringey for example?

I also understand that the degree course has been criticised for not having enough academic rigour and having some low entry levels -and that there has been a reluctance to fail students.

My brother has a degree in physics but I wouldn't let him near the collider. Having a degree does not make you capable of doing a job, just paper trained, but then the courses themselves for sw are not exactly up to scratch and with the changing theories about CP every other week what exactly makes a 'good parent'?

What I believe to be a good parent is not the same as what someone else would believe, you can say that's why sw's train, but they are training to a certain dogma, not the real world, what a few influential shrinks spout out.

There is so much wrong with the doctrine that CP doesn't stand a chance, let's see some common sense for goodness sake, that would be a start, just because someone had an eating disorder, maybe a little stalled in the learning department or may visit the doctor whenever their child spits up doesn't make them a bad parent and deserving of investigation leading to removal of the child as soon as it's spat out of the womb.

Just because someone was raped when they were younger doesn't mean they will be a bad parent and shouldn't be trusted with their child, where is the sense in that? In these cases maybe everyone who is involved with children through teachers, childminders, sw's, nurses, doctors etc should all have their past vetted and not be allowed to practice.

Where does it end when every parent is looked upon as being guilty and needing to be proved innocent, and try proving that innocence in the family courts, the onus is on say-so of the professionals, whatever they say even when wrong is taken as gospel.

That's wrong.

blueshoes I disagree that anonymised judgements are always fine. What if a mother is unable to protect one or more of her children from being raped by other family members? But some of your other children now live with their father in the same small town? Even if the details of the case were anonymised, in a small town, it would be pretty easy for most people to be able to make a relatively good guess at who the family was. And that's what I meant with my 'morning coffee' comment - I found the level of prurient interest in the details of the Baby P case on MN very distasteful and can only imagine that would be worse in situations where you could play 'guess the family'.

I don't have an issue with increased scrutiny per se, far from it - I think better openness in the family court system would benefit everyone. And I already mentioned the horror of taking children away in the night - I can't see how that can be anything but intensely traumatic for everyone involved. And putting gagging orders on parents has got to be wrong. Having said all that, the lives of the other children affected (and their wider family) also need to be taken into account. Perhaps in cases like that, the case could be heard in another town - I have no idea how feasible that is.

My issue with the horror stories is that I think a polarised debate is a bit pointless - we need to find a way to develop a system that works for children and their parents

prawnpig, I cannot possibly disagree with your statement that "we need to find a way to develop a system that works for children and their parents".

However the system currently seems to protect ... the system, rather than children or their parents.

Just because there is some level of prurient interest (as there will always be, for child abuse, rape, etc) is not a good enough reason for blanket secrecy. The press only reports a very small proportion of child abuse cases in any case. And as for that small town, what are the chances that people would apply to read court transcripts to play guess the family? I would assume that anonymity would include not just the name of the family but also any details that would identify the family such as their town, if it is small, and address.

I think your concerns are overblown and IMO not enough to merit the continued secrecy under which family courts currently operate, to the detriment of families in enough cases to raise serious reservations.

Don't the press only report on a very small number of cases precisely because of the confidentiality of family courts though? What protection would families have from them? IMO child abuse cases are precisely the sort of story many hacks would love to be able to report - because salacious details sell papers as I'm sure you know.

Just to emphasise, I am in no way in favour of secrecy at all, I just think the ramifications of changing that need to be thought through very carefully.