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"

Homestart are an organisation which do a lot of good work in supporting families in my constituency. One point they make is that many family problems arise from unstable or inadequte housing.

scottishmummy yes, on balance, after careful consideration of his opinions, and after having dealings with him when he was head of Probation. He is, and has always been a cock.

I have read many of the posts, and any intellectual argument has been said much more eloquently than I could write it.

scottishmummy I would also not presume he has ever held a caseload, he has not been the head of Barnardo's for any respectable length of time. He has not worked his way up through Barnardos. His job is to enter organisations, rip the heart out of them and fuck off again. He is there because he left Probation after screwing it up.

his background is not of compassion his background is related to doing the governments bidding, which is in essence, to disempower society.

Pavlov - I think it would not really be representative of a fully reasoned debate were it not to include an interjection/statement such as your earlier one.

I would truly hate a world in which statements such as that did not appear!

But ...

I am rather glad that Scottishmummy prompted a fuller statement from you!

'In a way, capitalism produces these families necessarily'

In a way the welfare state has produced these families: by providing them with the benefits to continue to produce children.

pavlov,he experience and knowledge of prisons and reforming institutions.quite an impressive CV actually and 2 PhD

is it the message or the messenger you dislike

and i think reducing it to "he's a cock" doesnt add much to your pov . i am intersted in all the pov on this matter

scottishmummy exactly. He has attempted to reform prisons. He has experience of working with criminals, with people who have proven time and again that they are 'inherently bad' rather than inherently good. That is his stance, best stop them getting there when they are born, rather than the original probation and prison philosopy hy that change is possible and should be encouraged.

And he might have reformed prisons/probation - but have you seen what has been left behind? Do you think his input had anything at all to do with, for example the inherent messups that culminated in the Sonax case? Have you read the case?

He walked away from a mess. A mess which I work within.

Oh and is it the message or the messenger I dislike - both, it is the wrong person to give the wrong message about parenting.

And, sorry but I still think he is a cock.

I never once said or suggested that rich people make better parents, or that poor people should have their babies ripped from them as a punishment for being porr or anything else.

I and others have suggested that a very small minority of babies should be removed from their parents for the protection of the baby, where there is evidence of risk of abuse or neglect.

Nobody has suggested that children should be taken into care for being poor or scruffy ffs.

Mermalaid asked if we had cold hard fact that social workers don't have many cases in the stockbroker belt - I don't have any to hand but I've asked a few times now, has there been or is there ever likely to be a case like Baby P or a Calum Ness amongst middle class professionals?

I've never heard of a case like that in the UK.

on any given day the majority of caseloads will located in socio-economically deprived parts of a town/city

socio-economic deprivation,poor education,unemployment all statistically increase likelihood of child neglect/abuse

that is not to say all those who fulfil that criteria will go on to neglect children. they wont. this isn't straight cause and effect

however poverty,poor educational attainment, parental childhood experience and upbringing are compounding factors which increase likelihood

Poverty and social deprivation are huge stressors, huge stressors are a significant factor for many types of child abuse (except sexual abuse iirc). Middle class families are under much less stress than deprived/impoverished families.

Unfortunately no one is prepared to make the big changes in society that would mean children didn't grow up in poverty, so instead the only option left to social workers is to try to remove children from abusive situations.

Given that removing a baby and getting it adopted costs something like 200K there should be more cost effective solutions for many of these cases.

I still look at the policy stresses. Having unstable or inadequate housing is a much more important issue than for example not having uptodate household equipment.

We first saw social services about fostering three children that we know back in Feb 2008.

Due to the parents appeal to not have the children taken away from them, our assessment was put on hold and the children have remained with their temporary foster carer. She has now had them for 2 years!

Because their appeal was unsuccessful, we are now being assessed and hoping very much to give these children a permanent home. If all goes well, we will become their foster carers early next year.

It will have taken us 2 years to achieve what we set out to do. We know it's a good thing and that the kids will benefit greatly.

But isn't it sad that it has all taken so long?
Two years to a small child is a very long time.

And all because their parents had the right to appeal.

What a waste of precious time!

We first saw social services about fostering three children that we know back in Feb 2008.

Due to the parents appeal to not have the children taken away from them, our assessment was put on hold and the children have remained with their temporary foster carer. She has now had them for 2 years!

Because their appeal was unsuccessful, we are now being assessed and hoping very much to give these children a permanent home. If all goes well, we will become their foster carers early next year.

It will have taken us 2 years to achieve what we set out to do. We know it's a good thing and that the kids will benefit greatly.

But isn't it sad that it has all taken so long?
Two years to a small child is a very long time.

And all because their parents had the right to appeal.

What a waste of precious time!

We first saw social services about fostering three children that we know back in Feb 2008.

Due to the parents appeal to not have the children taken away from them, our assessment was put on hold and the children have remained with their temporary foster carer. She has now had them for 2 years!

Because their appeal was unsuccessful, we are now being assessed and hoping very much to give these children a permanent home. If all goes well, we will become their foster carers early next year.

It will have taken us 2 years to achieve what we set out to do. We know it's a good thing and that the kids will benefit greatly.

But isn't it sad that it has all taken so long?
Two years to a small child is a very long time.

And all because their parents had the right to appeal.

What a waste of precious time!

johnhemming - do you think that good housing would have helped baby Peter's mother? or how about these children?. It's far, far too simplistic to say that if we waved a magic wand and gave everyone a decent place to live, they'd stop neglecting their kids. Tracey Connelly had a pretty decent house and that didn't stop anything.

the parents have the right to appeal as they still have full PR if they didnt have this loads of kids would be adopted and that is wrong in my book. All because of over zealous SS or one that is frightened they'll get the sack if they in their minds fuck up.

Someone else said after 6 months no change take the kids away and adopt. Do you know how bloody long it takes an addict to get clean and not relapse whilst they want the kids there and they do love em a bit blinded by their own short comings over there addiction.

If that had happened in the past I would be childless as I was one of the addicted to drink. I relapsed 3 times and I was supported by SS and helped thankfully.

I think this man is wrong in what he wants as he sits in his ivory tower without knowing the real mess on the ground.

He wants the problem to go away and spouts this crap and then we have the ones that sit there in judgement over these parents tarring them with the same brush as baby P's parents. Not all parents are the same as Calebs either but do you see how the SS supports families even if their workload is crippling them most weeks.

A full over haul of the system as we know it should be done but it wont as it will cost to much money thats why. So kids will suffer as they are left in care and babies cant be adopted till the right of appeal is done and dusted.

Who says no abuse in middle class families? There's masses, it just tends not to cause crime or cost tax payers money so we don't hear so much about it.

Here's an example to get those who think it doesn't happen started - www.sophieandrews.co.uk
Which incidentally is also an example of an adoptive parent becoming an abuser - no wonder the whole process is so difficult.

The rich never kill babies? 2007 wasn't it that that Swiss Re executive battered his daughter to death?

If there was no right to appeal, there would be no time to get a second opinion about children with undiagnosed medical conditions.

It is all very well saying "of course this should not apply to children with medical conditions like brittle bones", but how are you going to know that a child has brittle bones if the parents aren't given time to get to see the specialist?

I know I keep harping on about this, but I do have two children with a medical condition that is often misdiagnosed as parental abuse and is usually only diagnosed after parents have been going through the medical system for a while (dd's first paediatrician diagnosed it as sexual abuse).

Now in my dcs case, the condition is not fatal, so the only result would have been the trauma of being taken away from the family and the likelihood of permanent damage done to their bodies due to lack of management.

But another syndrome in the same category is fatal if not treated, so children could well die from simply being taken away from the parents who are the only ones who believe there is an underlying cause.

And sadly, the symptoms in some of these conditions do look like child abuse: big bruises, open gaping wounds ("he did it crawling over the carpet"), unexplained joint pains and inability to walk, falls that cannot be explained, incontinence. Sounds like classic signs of abuse, doesn't it? Yet a social worker who reacts too quickly on these signs could well end up killing the child out of sheer well meaning.

Oh, and I forgot to mention scars that look like cigarette burns: another classic sign of Ehlers Danlos syndrome. But how many GPs or social workers are going to know that one?

'In a way the welfare state has produced these families: by providing them with the benefits to continue to produce children'

Abra, that is an appalling statement! So basically what do you propose we do?

I'm sure there are plenty of cases where good housing can't prevent abuse / neglect. But in a vast majority of cases, unnstable & inadequate housing is a huge stressor which could, potentially, lead to parents feeling angry, sad, stressed, desperate etc... all leading potentially to abuse / neglect. And even if there is no neglect / abuse, surely it's a horribly big problem for our society to tolerate such a large percentage of its members living in such awful conditions?

The problem is that yes, we're not willing as a society to make big structural changes in order to prevent such problems... so it's a kind of vicious cycle, and these problems are almost an inevitable part of the picture. I think it's horrible that in the UK at the moment there are people who accept that they should be able to earn huge, huge amounts of money, while there is this level of poverty at the other end. I'm no die-hard socialist / communist at all & I don't presume to know the answers, but this is just common sense to me, and I do feel that the economic gap in UK society- between poor & rich- is actually widening. No parenting classes will prevent or be able to deal with the resentment & difficulties this gap causes.

I agree with Abra that we need to look harder at the unintended harmful consequences of a welfare state that allows people to perpetuate lifestyles which are very harmful to themselves and their children.

The pieces of the jigsaw are many and poverty and poor housing play a part, but are neither necessary nor sufficient to make someone a really really crap parent.

I've had plenty of clients who have been moved into decent, decorated accommodation. In a few weeks they've trashed it. I don't think it is so much material poverty, but poverty of aspirations, lack of hope. I wonder if our appalling education system with its bonkers insistence on testing over learning has a role.

And I stick by my earlier suggestion of six months to sort yourself out or lose the kids. I know that drug addiction is a very difficult thing to deal with, but why should any drug addict parent have the right to screw up their child's life as well as their own?

And if the problem is capitalism, at the risk of being glib and simplistic, why is it that those societies who offered the alternative to capitalism build walls to keep their people in and shoot those who try to get out??

Spero: 'a welfare state that allows people to perpetuate lifestyles which are very harmful to themselves and their children'.

Ah, how enlightening. So it's the welfare state that ALLOWS people to perpetuate 'lifestyles' () e.g. poverty, inadequate housing, single parenthood etc. Interesting idea!

But seriously though Spero. Don't you think you too would have poverty of aspirations & lack of hope if you were living under such appalling circumstances & could see no way out of poverty & could imagine no future for your children?

OK I'm not trying to be completely left-wing here, nor do I have an idealized view at all of communist societies- not at all. But surely views such as Spero's & Abra's just show a completely cold-hearted lack of compassion. And also lack of imagination for a better, more fair society that would prevent some problems? I'm sure that other problems could never be prevented...

Maria2007 you don't do your arguments justice by accusing others of 'cold-hearted lack of compassion'.

I've got compassion a plenty or I couldn't do my job. that isn't the issue.

The issue is that paying welfare benefits out to SOME people (note not ALL) allows those people to continue lifestyles which are actively harmful to themselves and those around them. Drinking, drugs, never getting out of bed, keeping large and dangerous dogs and never exercising them, etc, etc, etc.

You are living in a dream world if you think that the problems we face as a society are exclusively down to our political system. There are SOME people who, sadly, will always be total fuck ups regardless of the time and money invested in them.

The key is identifying those people and a)offering help and support then b)if help and support not acted upon not permitting them to screw up the lives of small children. Thus the vicious circle perpetuates itself.