Child abuse deaths still rising despite action after Baby P

[johnhemming]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7010408.ece

So how does one better coordinate services then?

The Police and Health are particularly poor at talking to schools and Children's Centres, for example

Same goes for mental health services. In fact, mental health services are more important than social services imo if you really wish to tackle abuse.

Then parenting support.

Everybody keeps looking to CP services rather than addressing the underlying and core issues.

The firefighting approach is all resources allow and so it goes on and on and on.

Oh, it's John Hemming again.

Riven, sending you some strength and unMNyhugs. I saw your other threads yesterday and it sounds like you could do with some, hope you get some help from somewhere. xx

Riven - have you tried Homestart?

Homestart are very good.

I've been supported by them for 8 years now, I was at breaking point then too.

Agree.. social services are crap when you ask them for help, Tried for ds but they didn't want to know

Riven - another unmumsnetty hug from me

Do you have any charities in your area that can offer help

(sure you've already exhausted all options though...)

Did anyone read this article? It raises more questions than it answers, but is less trite and soundbite ridden than the times article, IMO.

< kicks johnhemming to the side >

riven..my best wishes go to you...

Oh Riven. That'll teach me to read the whole thread.

Hope you're ok...

Riven I hope you get the help you need, Wish we could do something for you.

tethersend That article really really upset me over the weekend to the point where I broke down reading it on the bus home from work. That poor wee darling .

Why was her Auntie able to take the 'last' photo of her 2 weeks before she died but not able to get the authorities involved or remove her from the house??

With regard to that article....What is amazing is the degree to which friends, family, neighbours etc collude. They are not blind but somehow find it easier to ignore the obvious signs then confront the abuser.

The people in the pub must have wondered where the kids were, the mother must have seen the squalor and worried when the little girl appeared ravenous and thirsty. Did they not ask where the kids were when she was working all the hours in the bar FFS!

I would like to think if I had concerns that I would do something about it.

There's no 'I would like to think' about it for me fifitot. I would be straight on the phone the minute I realised a child was being mistreated.

There is NO WAY people did not know something was badly wrong there.

You're right it is collusion.

I wonder if they feel guilty now??

That Guardian piece was shocking, there were so many chances to save her

The Guardian article was sooooo distressing to hear of a child eating wallpaper.

I agree that many people have colluded with this childs situation. I would like to think I would say something but somehow we always find it difficult to imagine the worst. Somehow people believe that they would know if something like that was happening.

It is hard to conceive that someone can starve a child to death but there have been two cases I am aware of in as many years.

All to often there are many chances to intervene but they get missed. That said it is always easier to spot this with reflection and hindsight with the outcome in front of us.

A very upsetting and distressing article. I have to admit I cried at reading the guardian article.

The thing is, someone (a health visitor) did alert the authorities- and, due to staff shortages, untrained staff being on the other end of the phone it seems a letter offering support was deemed an appropriate intervention.

Obviously, I'm only going on the article, but I thought it put forward a case for more funding for social services far better than the 'social workers are incompetent' subtext of the times article John Hemming linked to.

I also read that Guardian article and it really really depressed me. As a mother of a little girl and expecting another that story was just unbearable, I have been in tears every time I think about it.

Why didn't anybody do anything? This odd jobs man who found the girl alone in the dark in her room, the pub regulars who heard her footsteps or saw her in the window. Why did her family not do anything? If the girl was with her grandmother a few days before she died and was seriously ill - and the grandmother said it was the mother's job to take her to a doctor! Or her aunt, or her father??? And what about those rubbish health visitors who did not insist on gaining access to the children's rooms?

Is this about the culture of complete indifference that people have for the suffering or difficulties of others. When everything is just about the individual these days. Don't we care about others? Are we afraid to "interfere"? Why? I think what is lacking is any kind of sense of social responsibility, a duty towards the community.

And I must say I think this mother (and the stepfather) got off far too lightly.

Me too want to kick John Hemmings aside.

It is terrible what happened to the little girl and the case got no publicity in the way that baby Peter did. The problem I'm afraid is not as JH would have it incompetent social workers. It is as the Guardian report indicated, a service totally overwhelmed with the volume of work, and trying to run a service with a massive vacancy rate. I was a sw in a l.a. for over 30 years and have been retired for 7 years and the writing was on the wall then in terms of work overload and now things have got so much worse.

With the best will in the world, you can't run a service (as many SSDs are now trying to do) with a 30% vacancy rate and a large percentage of workers off sick with stress. This is I think the main reason why cases like Tiffanys are not being picked up. It isn't even crisis management. I really worry for the future and for all the other Tiffanys who won't be protected. People like JH likes to post about incompetent social workers snatching babies for adoption and taking the "wrong" children into care. This is why he posts articles like this. This is nonsense - it isn't the case that the wrong children are being taken into care. The problem is that the service is "on its knees" and cannot cope with the workload especially in inner cities.

Whichever political party wins the election, they have both warned of cutting public services to the bone, so there will inevitably be more and more Tiffanys in the future. Child protection is a stressful and complex job and needs experienced workers with the time to do the work properly and managers who are able to offer proper support and guidance.

Politicians like JH might do better to press govts to stop cutting budgets in public services rather than trying to peddle nonsense about the "wrong" children being taken into care.