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"

I would be easier to convince if I could see any evidence that drug abuse/bad parenting/having more children than you can handle did not occur in countries without a welfare system, or that in such countries children are invariably cared for by competent adults or not born at all. Go on- show me the evidence. Prove to me that drug addiction and child neglect are not a problem in places like Brazil and then I will believe that we can solve them here in Britain simply by getting rid of the welfare.

Backing up a bit, Cory raised (imo) a good point earlier, when she talked about the appeals system.

It is hard to see, in real terms, how children could be removed faster without in some way affecting the legal system, which has wider ramifications than just the situation regarding neglected/abused children.

Is that true? I did notice that other posters said that the legislation already exists and wouldn't require changing, just the will to enforce it? Is that true? And would even just a change in the will to enforce effect a subtle shift in the legal system? [curious]

Anuntie - nobody ever said there was no abuse or neglect amongst the middle classes or the better off. All people have said is that the bulk of this problem does not lie with them.

I don't think taking welfare payments away from people is going to help. The concern I do have about our current system is that it doesn't foster a sense of personal responsibility. Everything becomes a problem for 'the social' to sort out - rather than the parent.

Thought I would add my voice here as an independent social worker with over 30 years experience in childrens services dealing with child protection and fostering and adoption.

There is no easy answer or "quick fix" here as many have pointed out. One of the problems that I don't think has been raised is that the emotional harm that is done to children by their birth parents cannot ever be erased and "follows" the child around through the life span in many cases. It manifests itself in all kinds of difficult behaviours and attachment problems. This is the reason that there are many failed fostering and adoptive placements. No matter how much you try to prepare prospective foster carers and adoptors for the manifestations of attachment difficulties, the fact remains that it is incrediby difficult to deal with on a long term basis. Many foster carers and adoptors struggle to maintain placements often at the cost of their own health/marriages etc but no one can know until they have tried to do this how difficult and stressful it can be.

I have noticed a lot of comments about speeding up the process for fostering and adoption and being more "flexible" etc. I have to say I disagree with this, as it is a hugely complex business and needs proper time and attention. I accept however that lack of resources in SSDs does mean that people wait a long time for assessments to be completed etc. 50 years ago anyone could foster or adopt so long as they had a clean house and a reference from the vicar! Surely we do not want to return to those days.

On balance I think the pendulum has swung a little too far in favour of parent's rights and children are kept in abusive families for too long. The sad fact is as Martin Narey says some families just can't be "fixed." However because of the damage inflicted on a child (even with babies for relatively short periods of time) the long term damage remains and can prevent a "happy ending" for the child.

As others have said social workers have to be able to proove to a court that they have made absolutely every effort to keep the child in the family, otherwise the Judge will not grant an order to secure a child's future. I am sure a lot of s.ws. would be very happy to make plans for permanency for more children but they know how the courts behave in this respect. I think a lot of people don't realise that it is the court that makes decisions about children not social workers, who only make recommendations to courts.

As for John Hemming .........I think he should stick to politics and not meddle in something he clearly does not understand. I have read his assertions previously that social workers try to get children adopted just to keep up with targets for adoption. This is blatant nonsense and demonstrates that he clearly does not understand the system. He also makes some amazing statements "8 year olds are hard to place because there is no demand for them" - yes that in it's simplest form is true, but WHY is there no demand for them...........because most people who want to adopt want a baby and not an 8 year old. Permanent foster carers may consider an 8 year old but because that child will have been so damaged by his pre placement experiences and possibly being moved around foster homes because of his behaviour, they would be reluctant to consider such a child. Again it is the damage done to him long before he entered the care system that is the real problem.

John Hemming also mentions a particular case about a child being returned home because he couldn't be adopted. I doubt that he knows the details of this case at all as this would be confidential and he has used it to try to support his position. There are all sorts of reasons why children are returned home but if it was unsafe for a child to go home then the fact that he could not be adopted would be neither here nor there. In sucha case the child would remain in foster care.

He also mentions a case where a child should have remained in residential care as this would have given him a "stable environment"..........oh please John Hemming, how many childrens homes have you visited. do you honestly believe that being cared for be a total of 8/9/10 different staff members on a rota basis and living with 6 - 8 other emotionally damaged children/young people is conducive to living in a "stable environment." It is difficult to imagine anything less stable. Again this demonstrates to me that you little awareness of a child's needs for emotional stability.

I don't have any answers - all I know is that SSDs are hugely under resourced and struggle to cope with child protection cases. This society is really only interested in the creation of profit and public services of course don't create profit but that is another story............

That was a really excellent and informative post Nana - thanks very much for taking the time.

what worries me about all this is that it's all knee-jerk reactions.

a couple of years ago, we had the news stories of children being taken away from their families and parents being sent to prison on insufficient medical evidence so then it was all "don't believe the experts"

then the revelations were made about abuse in foster homes and foster families so we had a spate of "don't take children away from their families"

and now there have been a couple of cases of children being murdered by their families so now the pendulum is swinging to "don't wait for the evidence, take them away as quick as you can"

Of course, any one of those reactions may be right for any given case, but we need some sort of overall picture, rather than just "flavour of the day".

agree with Nancy about Nana's balanced and informative post.

story here about the existence of adoption targets

Agree with Nana.

I'm not saying welfare payments are the problem and stop them, all will be fine. If you want to engage in a debate on that level, go ahead but it is pretty useless and depressing.

In my opinion no one can sensibly deny that some people are kept in an unhealthy state of dependence by a welfare benefits system which in some cases operates as a perverse incentive NOT to work.

What is wrong with acknowledging this and trying to think about the problem and solutions to it?

Knee jerk reactions cut both ways.

Those who bleat on about how social workers are evil child snatchers seem to be the first to complain when children are not removed and are left to be murdered. You can't have it both ways. I think children are left far, far too long with awful abusive people and frankly I don't give much of a crap at the moment about why their parents are so horrible and how much of it is due to capitalism etc, etc. I just think these children are innocent, they did not ask to be born and they deserve to grow up and enjoy an adult life as free as possible from the emotional legacy of abusive parenting.

On the whole I agree with you about the second paragraph, Spero. But that is assuming that all parents who are suspected to be child abusers actually are child abusers. Which is going to be hard to know if you are not required to satisfy some sort of court.

I know how easy it is to be suspected of child abuse. My child was innocent too! And she is not free from the emotional legacy of the horrible time we went through when her medical condition was misdiagnosed as abuse (not by social workers though).

marking place

Thanks Nana for an interesting post...

NanaNina has clearly not read my comments.

What I said about residential care is that there are times when residential care is a sensible option. Indeed the Childrens Select Committee visited Denmark where they make a greater use of residential care. The children seem to do better in these circumstances. I did not cite a case here.

The case about a disabled child returned to her parents because they could not find adopters was reported as part of the criminal prosecution of the parents following the way they maltreated the child after her return.

Most importantly NinaNina misses the point that some elements of attachment disorder are caused by the children being in care.

There is good psychological research that has identified that generally each placement shift (including that into care) causes some problems. I have that in London, but am working in Birmingham at the moment.

As to the question as to how many children homes I have visited I do not think this is particularly relevant.

However, it is over 5. Some more frequently than others.

Great post nananina. V good pount that it isn't SW who 'take kids away' but a decision made in court.

I think it's ben said a million times already but nobody is seeking to take babies away to punish parents. It is solely for the protection of the child.

So how the parent developed the problems that they have is irrelevant: if the problems they have at present mean that they cannot protect and care for their child, then the child should be protected by SS.

The discussion of socialism etc is another debate altogether - babies and children are being abused and are suffering now. They can't wait for us to 'fix' the nation and make everybody's life problem free - as if such a thing was a realistic goal anyway.

As Morris says the one thing that matters is to protect the child. And that means finding out exactly what protection the child needs. Which means court proceedings. They arenot just about protecting the parents; it's equally about protecting the child.

We must not forget that a child that has not been abused is as innocent as a child that has been abused. If an unabused child is removed and harm ensues from this, then that matters as much as the other way round.

And there have been cases where children who were only thought to have been abused were removed into foster homes where they then were abused. And iirc cases where a child has been removed from a parent who was thought to suffer from Munchausen by proxy and then become very ill- in one case I think died from an undiagnosed brain tumour because the foster parents had been told not to look for medical reasons for any symptoms.

I think we can all agree that this is not protecting the child. Otoh as we all know there are many children who desperately need to get away from home.

'It's not social workers, it's the court' is akin to saying 'it's not the police, it's the court'. Yes, the court may make the final decision, but SWs play a jolly important part in the process that leads to that decision.

And the damned if they do remove children, damned if they don't argument is pretty tiresome. All anyone is asking is that they get it right. Protect children who need to be protected and leave happy families alone. Of course SWs and lawyers and medical witnesses etc. etc. etc. are only human and sometimes they will fuck up. But the system should try to limit those fuck ups.

The system does try to limit those fuck ups though doesn't it edam? And social workers do try to protect children who need it.

I'm sure they do, just frustrated at the 'SWs can't win' line. People who are horrified when a child is killed despite SW involvement with the family are entitled to be concerned, just as they are when SWs get it wrong in the other direction by harassing perfectly innocent families. All anyone wants is that they do their job to the best of their ability. Sadly there seem to be some real structural problems that are simply not being addressed.

To pick just one sign of this, the way the govt. keeps calling in Lord Laming to tell everyone what to do after a disaster, when he refused to investigate the Islington child abuse scandal that affected Baby Peter's mother when she was a child...

John Hemmings - apologises if I misquoted you about residential care. However in my view residential care is "never a sensible option" but that is another matter. When you talk of Denmark surely you realise that you are not comparing "like with like" - the social policies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden are far superior to those of the UK and therefore there is little point in making such comparisons.

Re your point that I am missing the point about attachment disorder - I think not, rather I think it is you that is missing the point. You state that "some elements of attachment disorder are caused by the children being in care" - now firstly can we define "attachment disorder" and it's origins. Put very simply attachment difficulties arise when a baby has not been nurtured and protected by it's parents in a very crucial stage of his/her development. Human babies need to be nurtured and have all of their physical and emotional needs met as soon as they are born if they are to thrive. Parents need to be attuned to the needs of the baby in order to meet those needs. When this does not happen, a baby learns that adults are not to be trusted and some kind of attachment difficulties arise. There are various kinds of these difficulties dependent upon the degree of harm inflicted upon the baby. These difficulties manifest themselves in all sorts of varying brehavioural difficulties and are apparent in some cases to a greater or lesser extent through the life span. In fact there is now evidence to suggest that babies can be adversely affected in utero if there is tension in the mother. Babies removed at birth will by definition be shielded from the effects of neglect or abuse which give rise to attachment difficulties. However children removed later, (even at a relatively young age) will be emotionally harmed by their pre placement experiences PRIOR to removal and those difficulties do not evaporate as they enter the care system. I know that many people believe this but sadly it is not the case.

Attachment difficulties arise either prior to birth or immediately after for the reasons stated and NOT as a result of being in care. Having said that I absolutely agree that the care system often exacerbates the difficulties and in many cases the effects of the attachment difficulties are unable to be modified or reversed. It takes a great deal of understanding and patience for carers to be able to work on this issue. Many local authorities now run courses for all foster carers and adoptors on attachment difficulties, as we have become more and more aware of the importance of this issue.

I suggest you read around this subject if you are going to make the sort of assertions that you do as your comments indicate that you clearly do not understand the terms that you "bandy" about.

I note that you are getting very little support on MN and I also note that you totally fail to respond to many questions that posters have raised with you. Yout ralk of "needing to protect children rather than get them adopted" quite naturally raised many questions and requests for an explanation from you, which I do not think were forthcoming. Why would this be?

I would be interested to know why you have thrown yourself into this issue from such an unenlighted position? Why do you have such an "axe to grind" I don't know anything about your background but I would bet it has nothing to do with childcare? Why are you putting yourself forward as some sort of expert - this is too important an issue for people in your position to be "dabbling" with from an unenlightened and uninformed perspective.

the attachment disorder isnt helped either when the child is taken into care and then the legal system goes into action also how many fosterer parents will the child have as this will make the matter worse wouldnt it not help it.

How many times have we heard of the child have double figures for fosterers. Not good for any attachments at all so going into care can make it worse if intervention isnt there as in a proper foster parent or if a child that has been taken at birth because of other siblings the process should be quicker but it isnt sadly.

Oh by the way not all attachment disorders are from birth as you have stated. the attachment disorders dont come into play till after 6 months old or even older.

"hereit is"

Ahem - John Hemmings has contributed to a number of MN threads, as it happens, and yes, there are a considerable number of people who appreciate his contribution.

there is a huge crisis in social work at the moment due to the severe shortage of social workers. i would suggest that those of you who are so concerned about the state of social services try doing something about it - there are plenty of social work degree courses available.

There seems to be a lot of interesting debate on here and lots of good points. I think it's fair to say that I have found myself having different views to some of the posters here and I surprise myself by agreeing with Johnhemming about residential care. It hasn't been seen as an appropriate choice for some time now, but hildren need a range of care situations and i think for some young people it can be ideal in providing a less emotionally I tense environment allowing attachment processes to
activate more gradually. (sorry, iPhone not so good for grammar and spelling)

I also think Edam's perspective is useful, we can expect
social workers to get it right most of the time, but perfection isn't possible. The fact that we have error in terms of failure to protect and over zealous attempts to protect where I is not required suggests that there is more of a balance and consensus within the systems and this is encouraging to me. I would be more worried if the errors were only on one direction. I'm not arguing his as a plea for complacency and social workers are usually the first to want to do better for their clients, but it doesn't seem such a bad thing to me that the mistakes occur in both directions (that isnot to say any mistakes are good)

Sigh. Attachment theory is one of many theories in child psychology. In the UK it's presented as THE theory, THE only truth, THE proven theory. It is far from proven though!! It's a much contested theory. The idea that those first crucial few months make such a difference is a contested one. See for example this book among others. Look at this too on a similar topic (bonding & attachment are often presumed to be proven concepts; they are far from proven!!)

Having said that, I don't of course disagree with the essence of what Nana says, it's all extremely sensible & obviously she knows her stuff. I do disagree however that attachment disorders very early in life play- necessarily- such a crucial role in the whole life span of a person. This is a very reductionistic view & far from proven.

I agree with the Barnados boss. I have seen all to frequently recently the devastating effect shit and inadequate parenting has on a childs life and their potential to grow into a 'normal' (whatever that is) adolescent.