Baby p the untold story

[thoughtsbecomethings]

What are people's thoughts on this program ??

as usual the media do not care about tbe individuals involved in a case like this. they cared about driving that narrative to its conclusion with the sacking of social workers. it sold papers. they did not care about protecting children. failings across the board but ultimately the people who failed baby peter were the adults who lived eith him. could not bring myself to call them parents.

What the programme didnt properly draw out was the failure of agencies to work together to safeguard Peter. It was obvious from the programme, yes, but I dont think that it drew out how THAT was the crucial factor in the failure of authorities to protect him.

Yes, the cover up stuff is shocking.
Yes, all agencies failed that child miserably.

But it was the woeful lack of information sharing and joined up thinking AND action that is glaring.

The whole thing was so bloody depressing. The press seemed to behave atrociously, too, whipping people up into a mob mentality and hunt for 'blame'.

I despair, really. I'm not a SW, but work in the area of safeguarding children in a London borough and I am still seeing stupidly overworked social workers, police who do not take some cases of abuse/neglect seriously and gaping holes in multiagency working.

I thought the paeditricians husband was very brave talking about his wife
I wonder if he & her children go & see her

i think there is more information sharing now though, in light of this?

I see the then Chair of Ofsted Zenna Atkins wasn't brave enough to interviewed.

Yes I do agree Sharon Shoesmith and Maria Ward were scapegoated unfairly, every one of those agencies involved with Peter, let him down. The systems were flawed. Hats off to you Stars. The Paedritrician was on her own, there were no notes of information about Peter, and she was not adequately qualified for the job.

was someone talking near the end, with a slightly distorted voice but no face? female? who was this

Even if mistakes were made, nobody deserves to be vilified like the social workers in this case were. You have to assume that you would enter a profession like social work to help children.

She was a Labour supporter, allegedly.

R4roger, it was an Ofsted worker.

But it was the woeful lack of information sharing and joined up thinking AND action that is glaring.

Yes yes and YES! Totally. I mean the very basic fact that the doctor that saw him last didnt have access to his medical history! What? In 21st century Britain? There should have been a system set up with flashing red lights and alarms sounding by the time she was seeing him!

Makes me so angry and sad but I think give it what 6 maybe 8 months and it will be the whole thing again with another poor child. Lessons don't seem to be learned from these appalling situations.

Itsgotbellson - you are right, the lack of information sharing was hardly mentioned and yet it is crucial in this case. From a personal point of view, I also think many GPs and other doctors are still woefully lacking in safeguarding training. On our computer system at work, which is meant to be shared with GP, some of the GPs have the 'sharing' turned off, so we can see a child has been to a GP but cant see the content of what it was about. This is for kids on the CP register!

R4rgwr - yes there is.

Better safeguarding training for non-social workers who work with children, too - teachers, nursery workers, health professionals etc - and training for designated professionals now includes a substantial look at serious case reviews and covers the danger of a 'male-who-is-not-the-father-in-the-home', the toxic trio, troubled families etc.

But in practice? I dont know. I would imagine it is different in different areas. In my borough, the threshold is extremely high for child protection to even take on a case, SWs are stupidly overstretched and can be quick to take no further action or pass the child on to a non-statutory support service. I n my last role, I had a heated debate/argument with a social worker on average once a week minimum in order to get them to take the action I knew I had a responsibility to ensure for a child. I was forever escalating things to managers at children's services and writing lengthy complaints. It is a horrible feeling to go home at night and not know if the other professionals involved have taken your concerns seriously.

I have also had difficulties with getting the police to take sexual abuse, incest, exploitation issues seriously. Another story, though...

SleepingBunnies it sadly wont be 6 - 8 months. Children die at the hands of their parents every week on the UK. They just dont do it in Haringey in a slow news week where the papers desperately need a story and get handed a picture of a smiling blonde toddler.

Is it true that if you turn down a pay-off you risk being hit with the entire legal costs of a case? In which case Kim Holy was very brave.

Witch-hunts are never good or helpful. If only the frenzy had produced a passionate cry for more funding for safe-guarding.

I felt very sorry for the doctor.

All very awful.

With this gov cutting early intervention services, and council services, as well as the national childrens database (which was being made by last gov) it is easy for services to work in silo. Thresholds are dangerously high, and believe it or not, evidence suggests children are best with their parents. We need services to have a decent amount of time to spend with families and resources to use, what is not useful is defensive work. Making sure your computer files are ok incase ofsted appear but no time to do decent work.
I work in youth justice but the two areas cross more frequently than you think.

However, I am outraged at Great ormond streets behaviour. And that of the press who, once again misreport and vilify the wrong people.

I think the whole system/lack if communication was to blame in this case (and many others). Children like Baby P are know to many 'services' and it's often luck that each know about another's contact.
BUT from personal experience, my son had v bad eczema, when 'well' his skin looked bruised. He also had seizures, so we once ended up in a hospital away from home. His 'bruises' were classed as suspect, and his Dad and I were separated from him and each other whilst we answered questions (and a call was made to the consultant at our local hospital). This was 1996......how have things declined so much?
Although I didn't like it (and made my views known v well at the time) the right thing was done for my son.

The ridiculous thing is - there are and have long been processes in place to ensure that professionals work together to safeguard children.

There are TAC (team around the child) meetings and child protection case conferences. These aren't new and existed when this child was 'in the system'.

Did they happen? If they did, did ALL invited professionals turn up and/or submit reports? Depressingly, I have attended TACs where it was only me and the social worker - health professionals and non statutory services haven't showed and have sent flimsy reports....

Star66 - yes. Great Ormond Street behaved appalingly!

they said on the programme that the mother turned up didnt they, to these meetings.

on newsnight now, apparently if you were typical back then, you did blame sharon shoesmith , not me.

I'm shocked david Cameron said the mother was 17 and a load of other nonsense

I'm really shocked he couldn't get those details right

the sun have behaved disgracefully

felt most sorry for the dr tbh
and her family

bit shocked at the police and gosh and Ofsted aswell