Baby p the untold story

[thoughtsbecomethings]

What are people's thoughts on this program ??

There was a lot of politics.

The Labour government responded to the Lord Laming inquiry on Victoria Climbié's murder with 'Every Child Matters'. When the news broke that Haringey had another preventable death under Labour, the Conservatives' David Cameron - aided and abetted by his friend Rebekkah Brooks of the Sun - scented political blood.

Ed Balls knew this and went on the 'active defensive', with allegedly a little help from some supporters in his own department and in Ofsted.

Meanwhile the truth was sidelined.

I have experience of dealing with Social Workers with regard to getting the appropriate care for my Grandmother who had dementia. I don't know how these people do their job. From my experience the people at the coal face are on a hiding to nothing, they are overworked, there is no structure or support for them, no consistency and no communication. The government needs to take a good look at itself but sadly it won't happen. And this will happen again and again and again and no, lessons WON'T be learnt

The truth is indeed underfunding of social services, and a lack of people time to make the connections with the Police and health workers, collate the file, and make a decision based on need not rationed budgets.

Active defensive by blowing it even bigger, declaring the system and the people crap and selling it out. I'll never get power and politics I fear. Just saddens me that everything is just so damn corrupt.

I too didn't feel like it told baby P's story

And have experience of turning up to TAC, core group etc with a ton of apologies at the start from people not making it. In all cases I have thought that thank god it's one of the lower risk (to my mind) when that happens... So I guess exactly why people who should be there didn't prioritise it. But that's exactly what happened here. The mum wasn't hiding, she was engaging and attending appointments etc

I think they should make it illegal for agencies not to send a rep to such meetings, however services are far too over stretched already for that to be possible

I'm against a nanny state, but in some cases perhaps on a flag kind of system eg 2 flags from seperate professionals and your up that info should be held on a centralised system and available to professionals who come in contact with the family after

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/27/baby-p-untold-story-cover-up-bbc
interesting read

I haven't watched it yet but I want to know whether the caseload of 18 children Maria ward had were all CP cases. In my team we do mixed work (lac, cp, s17) and 18 is the theoretical maximum but in reality it's a lot higher for most people.
I work in a 'good' local authority but the pressure on social workers holding far too big caseloads is immense. Another excellent SW signed off with stress recently - and that's not someone who's not up to the job, that's someone who has been working at 110% for too long and can't do it anymore.
Social work teams need to be 50% bigger, staff wise. That's the bottom line, and it will never happen.

As someone who works in the nhs. I recieve TAC invitations for my consultants. They don't attend, but I wouldn't say it was apathy but these meetings are scheduled in the middle of the day often miles away from the hospital. It's simply not viable for them to leave for several hours when they may be holding clinics or performing sugeries.

I also think it's very common for hospitals where patients are treated regularly for issues not related to abuse or neglect to not know about child protection involvement. I've had more than one instance where I've referred to our child protection workers due to concerns about patients missing several appointments only to find out they're also on a child protection plan for neglect. Surely we should know this?!

I've had teachers or other local workers call me and begged for me to keep pressure up as they're sedulously concerned about children they know and aren't being taken seriously by child protection services, these are children that we often have never seen as they just don't come to appointments. When they don't attend another referral is made, several weeks later the local social worker will come back with some excuse and another appointment will be made to 'give them a chance'. This will often be changed several times as it's inconvenient despite being months away (each time pushing it further back). In the run up to the appointment I will call to confirm ith the family, email the social worker so they can engage with the family and often text a couple of days before. Again they don't show and it all begins again. This same process can happen upwards of 5 times. What more can I do? Surely at this point it warrants escalation?

That's the article I read last night when the programme was on R4Roger very interesting reading the comments section was even more insightful there are still so many people who believe Shoesmith is entirely to blame and that she was treated fairly at the time. Unbelievable IMHO, that people think it's ok for an establishment to treat the person at the top like this, and try and get away with it.

I don't tend to read tabloids and take what I read with a pinch of salt. This documentary is a perfect example of what happened and what was reported to the public, and how the media can have such an impact and influence on the public.

They quoted last night that SW's having 18 cases was dangerous. My friend is an SW and she has on average 40 cases at any one time. Unbelievable.

If you give people houses because they have a child then there is an incentive to have a baby. So people who don't care have babies. So the rest of the population provide for all the care, supervision, health care, extra support at school, prison costs, for babies who aren't loved or wanted or properly cared for.

But suggest not helping the poor or homeless and you are lambasted so it is a catch 22 situation.

And the problem never goes away.

I would be interested to hear what other countries do and if their SS are more able to cope and why.

I didnt see this, so can anyone explain a bit more about the pay off offered to the dr? who offered it and why?

thanks

She had written to GOSH saying how dangerous the services at St Annes hospital were and then she went off sick. They pay off was allegedly to encourage her not to speak out about the concerns she raised to the media/ enquiry and basically to get her to 'go away'

From what I could understand ssd the doctor involved made a complaint that the clinic in question was understaffed and they were expected to see children with no notes or history at all. The appointment system was a shambles and she was worried (quite rightly in retrospect) that children in danger of harm would be missed and the risk of taking wrong clinical decisions was high. She then felt bullied by management for complaining so went on stress leave. Nothing was seemingly done to fix the issues then in the wake of baby p case GOSH lawyers saw her and offered 120k to gag her and not tell anyone about the problems at the clinic.

Nanadookdookdook - I would be interested to hear what other countries do and if their SS are more able to cope and why.

Not really able to cope better...although they were under a lot of deception from the mother

Ssd, the link posted by rforroger is to an excellent guardian article.

I wish there was more funding. I am increasingly alarmed by what I am reading here about the impact of council cuts, NHS cuts and continued underfunding of social services.

I am disgusted that this was used by Cameron to get power,and that cuts continue under the austerity lie. It costs children their lives.

Where is the outcry that services are stretched beyond their safety point and people are dying and suffering harm because of this?

As a society, I think we need to face the truth of our 'choices' and to stop hiding behind blaming individuals.

Nanadookdookdook

Your post implies only poor people abuse their children. This is a very blinkered and dangerous idea. People across the board abuse their children there is no one 'typ'

People don't get pregnant and think yes I'm going to get a house ffs.

That is the mindset which means that we as a society don't take child protection seriously, hence demonization of social workers etc.

Some people do get pregnant for a house unfortunately

I went to school with a girl who did
She then went on to have two more as she was initially only given a two bed flat and wanted a three bed house....

To do with abusers not a great deal
I am pointing out some people do do it as a previous poster stated they did not
And I know that was her thinking because she told me, she was quite open about it tbh

The truth about "early intervention" initiatives is that work that would have been done by SWs several years ago is now routinely carried out by school staff, health visitors and the voluntary sector.

In my borough thresholds for children's services intervention are now so high that only child protection cases get any attention. And that's not a criticism of SWs. They have been told where to focus their attention. Anything else is "stepped down" to unqualified people in agencies like schools that are supposed to be educating children, not doing the work of junior SWs.

*Some people do get pregnant for a house unfortunately

I went to school with a girl who did
She then went on to have two more as she was initially only given a two bed flat and wanted a three bed house....*

That maybe so but it doesn't equate to her being likely to abuse her children than someone who pays rent!

People have children for a variety of reason for example some because they are getting older and feel time is running out does this mean they are more likely to abuse their children = no of course it doesn't.

What about children who weren't planned = does that equal More likely to abuse.

No.....just the poor then!

Well we are talking about baby P here.

I agree abuse is across the board, possibly the media prefer these stories as there are more public services involved so they can berate and destroy the careers of more people - and the baying general public can congratulate themselves as to how caring they are when they see the Sharon Shoesmiths of this world, and the unfortunate doctor's lives destroyed memo to me, shouldnt get involved in these threads subject too angering