How on earth did the the authorities let this happen?

[Admiral Huddy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7723042.stm

I'm sorry, but why do the local autorities and social services think they can brush this aside everytime something like this happens without consequence. Then, as Sharon Shoesmith said, "we are learning by our mistakes".

So how many more mistakes must you make before you actually learn?

The baby had been visited over 60 times by the authorities and social services were warned that the baby was in grave danger. Yet after numerous hosiptal visits, this was still allowed to happen. Surely someone would have thought "Somethings not right here?" and had the balls to put the baby in foster care but the system and the protocol prevents anyone doing so.

Sharon Shoesmith (http://www.rip.org.uk/aboutus/whoweare/partners.asp#ss), chair of the board, said: "The very sad fact is that we can't stop people who are determined to kill children."

This is total bollocks. You don't have to actually pull a trigger to kill someone. These people are just as much to blame than those that killed baby "P" and should be prosecuted for manslaughter for neglection of their duties.

What makes me angry is that they blame lack of staffing and lack of foster parents. We lost our right to foster because we had no bannisters on our stairs. Surely, in the interest of a childs saftey, it's best of placed in a home where a child is being cared for with minimal risk , than to be placed somewhere where they are abused and murdered. What the **** is wrong with some people!!!!!

**** you social services!

[Greenlizard0]

I know what you mean, the whole concept of "ahh, well, erm, ok, sorry about that, but we're still learning and can improve in the future" excuse is just total ****.

(Are we allowed to swear on here?)

[Admiral Huddy]

34 views and only one comment.

[Haly]

34 views and only one comment.

What can be said other than what you've already posted? :confused:
Yes it's awful, yes social services should sort themselves out. Not really much other discussion needed I would have thought.

[Piggymon]

Stuff like this makes me so angry !! GRRR

[phykell]

34 views and only one comment.
This is just another example of professional incompetence, though in this instance, the consequences are tragic.

What I can't understand is that in this day and age of formal processes, computers, databases and surveillance/intelligence, such tragic mistakes can still be made.

[Del Lardo]

Two social workers and a lawyer have been given warnings over the case.

So public sector workers can be grossly negligent and get a slap on the wrist. If this had been the private sector these people would have been fired quicker than you can say what a complete discrace.

[Admiral Huddy]

So public sector workers can be grossly negligent and get a slap on the wrist. If this had been the private sector these people would have been fired quicker than you can say what a complete discrace.


Exactly, if I was to be found guilty of gross negligence that result in the company loosing money, I not only face expulsion, but prosecuted too, depending on the situation. Why should these people be any different? These are lives at risk here.. Not money

[Marmoset]

That is absolutely sickening and heartbreaking. That poor wee child. Just awful. :'(

[Kell_ee001]

What makes me angry is that they blame lack of staffing and lack of foster parents. We lost our right to foster because we had no bannisters on our stairs. Surely, in the interest of a childs saftey, it's best of placed in a home where a child is being cared for with minimal risk , than to be placed somewhere where they are abused and murdered. What the **** is wrong with some people!!!!!

I remember all the hard work you went through to start fostering and how quickly they took it away from you. They may be part to blame for what happened to that poor child but they are completely to blame for their not being enough foster parents.

[Pebs]

I have taken 2 children into police care and 100% of the time Social Services have been an utter utter waste of time. I'll elaborate later when I have more time, but for one of them I was literally crying with frustration at them.

[phykell]

OTOH, social services personnel often have unfair and unworkable constraints imposed upon them. A friend of mine works in the field and she's about the most caring person I know. There's no way she wouldn't do everything she possibly could to protect a child.

[Pebs]

I'm not sure it's a criticism so much of the individual (although in this case, who knows) but of the service. Or both.

[AboveTheSalt]

Let me offer you another perspective on this type of case.

I know a professional who has an involvement with social services. She was told by the father of a child that the mother punished their child by threatening to drown it and pushing its head under the bath water. She reported the child as being "at risk". An extensive but inconclusive investigation took place and in due course, the child was taken into care. Some time later, the devastated mother committed suicide.

The father admitted that he had made up the whole story and the lady I know has received innumerable threatening phone calls and letters, she has given up her job and moved to another part of the country. Despite being convinced that she did the right thing, she would think VERY carefully before reporting a similar claim in the future.

It is easy to say that she should just accept that sometimes you get things wrong and that she had no choice but to report the allegations, you haven't had to give up a job you loved and in which you worked incredibly hard and move house. I wonder how reluctant her friends and colleagues will be to report similar unsubstantiated allegations in the future?

[phykell]

I imagine that social work, especially where kids are involved, can be extremely demanding and stressful. You're dealing with people's lives and your decisions can lead to a lot of heartache, sorrow and grief. People aren't perfect and they make mistakes and having said that, I'm happy to judge the procedures they have in place to prevent such tragedies occurring but I'm much less willing to judge the individuals themselves.

[Pebs]

I'd imagine so much time is being taken ticking boxes, replicating data and getting various authorisations that not a great deal gets done.

My experience is such, 100% true -

Child 1 is about 9 but is tiny, size of a 6 year old due to malnourishment at the hands of his birth parents. His parents actually died in an accident before he was taken into care and he was sent to a foster family who told him that talking about his parents was not allowed in order to 'help' him move on. They had him a while and then moved him on, I don't know the details surrounding this. Foster carers no 2 have him a week. They live in a fabulous house, everything is just so and they spoil him rotten, taking him to 2 theme parks, cinema etc in his first week. He visits a family who live around the corner who he has known since foster carer1 and who do not live in a fabulous house, have kids crawling out of every crevice and its all a bit haphazard. Happy family, happy kids, just a bit of a mess. Fosterers2 decide he is not allowed to see these kids and ban him, for no better reason than this. He goes to see them anyway ( as kids do from time to time, especially messed up kids!) and we get called (wtf?!) They tell me where he is, so I go and find him (why they couldnt do ths is a mystery) and he's sat on the floor noshing on a giant bowl of pasta, happy as a pig in poo surrounded by this family. I take him home, tell him he shouldnt really be running off, ruffle his hair a bit and ring the doorbell feeling job well done. The fosterers tell me they dont want him. In front of him. He's a trouble maker and after all they have done for him this is how he repays them. The wife is on the phone to Social Services as they speak and I'm left WTF with a kid stood next to me visibly shrinking. I try to talk them round, I try to get a bit mean, and nothing. All they could talk about was he wasn't worth the monthly payments and they'd been doing this 20 years and it just wasn't worth the trouble with these types of kids. WTF do you expect from the type of kids you get in care ffs?!!? So, I speak to SS. Well, we can't do anything at this time of night (it's about 8pm) they say. Well you're going to have to, I have a child here who is now essentially homeless I say. Nope, they say, nothing doing. I swear to god if I'd heard her filing her nails I wouldnt have been shocked she sounded that disinterested. So I say I'll be taking him into police care and he'll be taken to a police station (which is considered a place of safety for kids at risk but is far from ideal) then and then you'll have to sort him anyway. Fine she says, do that and she HUNG UP! So I'm stood like a goldfish in front of this kid, and the woman walks over and hands me two carrier bags. For his stuff she says. So me and this kid go to his room and his entire wordly goods are packed into two carrier bags. I'm not ashamed to say I was really biting back tears at this point, I just could not believe just what the hell was happening. Social services finally deigned to arrive at about 2am and took him to Norwich. Thats the last I heard. 2 foster homes that shouldnt be allowed to have children set foot in them and a disinterested social service. No wonder these kids are like they are when they hit teenaged years.

Child2 is from a family who has more than 5 children on the 'at risk' register. We are there all the time, doing such basic things as checking the kids are in bed after 10pm. Single dad, alcoholic, they're not abused as such as far as I know (but I'm at the bottom of the 'need to know' chain), they're neglected, grubby, wild, naughty and are well on the way to being prolific customers of ours. Anyway, one night one of the old kids (under 14) was found very late at night very drunk. At Social Services request if we find anything amiss we PPO the kids (police protection order, same was what happened up there ^^) and they'll come and take over asap as they are 'building a case'. So, after a very very heartbreaking removal from the family (yeah, they're a nightmare but she loves her parents and was scared to death. It's just not nice taking kids, even if they need it for their own good) we physically took her away. She sat in one of our interview rooms for 5 hours, asleep upright on a chair, with one female officer or two male officers with her at all times until SS suggested that we just return her home as they wouldnt be able to sort anything out until 9am the next day. So we took her home. What a total and utter waste of time which makes a total mockery of the process.

It's hard not to be cynical. Even harder not to let emotions get involved...not something I've mastered yet.

[Admiral Huddy]

OTOH, social services personnel often have unfair and unworkable constraints imposed upon them. A friend of mine works in the field and she's about the most caring person I know. There's no way she wouldn't do everything she possibly could to protect a child.

If we can't rely on these people to do their jobs or the system is failing, then what hope have we of proctecting our children.

I read this morning, that Brown has pushed for an urgent publib enquiry. Like everything, it's always a little too late.

[Admiral Huddy]

Not sure if anyone watched Panaroma last night but this made me physically sick. My wife was actually not well last night. I don’t think there has ever been a case were I’ve actually felt as upset and angry as much as I have this one. I guess having a lad the same age and looks hasn’t helped.


In my opinion, the child should have been taken into care if not after the first hospital care but certainly the second. It saddens me that not one person was brave enough to make a stand. Both the birth father and grandmother have come forward and declared that they knew something was wrong and they loved the child dearly. Rubbish, If that was my child, I would have taken him somewhere were no one knew were he was despite the consequences I’d face.

As the program said, and I agree, there was too much emphasis on the family and that the child is always best off with the mother, which as we know, is not always the case.

The there was the doctor. Why did he or she let that child go with a prescription without a check-up. That check up could have finally have sealed that babys fate. Another fail.

I wondered last night, why if the mother thought the baby was in the way of her life, why on earth she didn’t give the boy away and accept that she couldn’t give the boy the love and attention he deserved. Then it dawned on me. She didn’t want the boy taken away because I believe the mother used the child for benefits, to feed her smoking and drinking habits.

I'm not that naïve to think that this sort of thing hasn’t happened nor the fact it won’t be the last but it’s the gross neglect of other people in this case that could have prevented this happening and those people are just as guilty for not acting appropriately. Those people do have blood on their hands and I hope they never learn to live with the guilt.

[AboveTheSalt]

... the child is always best off with the mother, which as we know, is not always the case ...As you say, the child being kept with the mother is not always the best solution - however, what are you suggesting, that children should ALWAYS be separated from the mother if there is any evidence of child abuse?

I'm not that naïve to think that this sort of thing hasn’t happened nor the fact it won’t be the last but it’s the gross neglect of other people in this case that could have prevented this happening and those people are just as guilty for not acting appropriately. Those people do have blood on their hands and I hope they never learn to live with the guilt.That seems incredibly harsh. People make mistakes. To suggest that someone should never recover from the trauma of a mistake is tantamount to suggesting that people should never learn from their mistakes.


I genuinely think that all those people who are up in arms over this one event should either give up their jobs and apply to join social services or keep quiet - after all, we all know that working in social services is a dead easy, very well paid and stress-free 9 to 5 job.

I am sure that there will now be a flood of applicants eager to fill the many unfilled posts in Haringey Social Services, that workloads will significantly reduce and that every social worker will become infallible.


Incidentally, Admiral Huddy, this isn't particularly a dig at you, it is very much a dig at the sensationalist Panorama team and at the many journalists who have chosen to jump on this particular bandwagon this week and will move on to something else next week :angry:

[Matblack]

I heard a woman on the news the other day say that the whole of Haringay social services team should step down hmmmmm, what are the consiquences of that then?

I can understand the emotion involved in this but this is reality, child protection is not a routine problem with a routine solution, if a childs life is broken the diagnosis is always unique, you can't pull the motherboard out and slap in a new one, you have to arrive at a unique tailored solution for the case. In this case 90% of the people involved seem to have followed the new rules since the Climbier case BUT a number of decisions were made which weren't right, they weren't universially wrong but in this case they weren't quite right and a child dies.

Before we lay blame lets think about the number of abuse cases that the new rules have prevented, its a sad fact that it some point something or someone is going to slip through, in this case its a little boy and NO, ITS NOT ACCCEPTABLE but it IS ENVEVITABLE. Especially when you have a number of people surounding the child (family and friends) who have deviberately mislead the authorities.

Being a social worker is HARD it is one of the emotionally hardest worst paid roles with a requirement for a higher education qualification and with this come the hatred, dislike and distrust of just about every other agency and parent around. If you think you can do it better then have a crack at it, first you will need to get a Social Work degree, then you will almost certainly need to take a massive paycut and a massive work load increase, go through huge amounts of emotional anguish, take crying children from crying mothers and fathers. If you screw up and remove a child who isn't in an abusive situation you'll most likely have to leave your job and move because it will be in the papers, if you don't take them and they are you'll most likely have to leave your job and move because it will be in the papers.

This child should never have died but people need to level their hatred in two directions, the professionals who made mistakes should be scrutinised but remember they didn't deliberately break this child's back.

I'm sorry if this isn't the party line but its hard being in a job where you have to be responsible for these things, its part of my job and EVERY time I come close to a CP case I wonder if I did the right thing and I'm not even close to the role of a social worker but I could very well be one of the professionals who missed something which would have led to the prevention of a death and its not an easy thing to do.

MB

[Admiral Huddy]

I don't think it has anything to do with emotion and I understand everything you are saying but this isn't the first time for Harringay and everytime they say "we are learning". This isn't just about Social Services, it's about everyone, including the Doctor, Childminder and so on. I'm sorry but heads should roll. These people are put into a position of trust and responsibility regardless of their remuneration. An exmaple has to be made, the system reviewed and a radical change in the way the system operates. There is too much "passing the buck" and "ticking the boxes" just get a job done without actually doing so.

As you say, the child being kept with the mother is not always the best solution - however, what are you suggesting, that children should ALWAYS be separated from the mother if there is any evidence of child abuse?




No that's not what i said at all. I said "Not always the case" which is not the same as "Always".



That seems incredibly harsh. People make mistakes. To suggest that someone should never recover from the trauma of a mistake is tantamount to suggesting that people should never learn from their mistakes.



Harsh?? Yes people make mistakes and learn.. but not where childrens lives are at risk. These people are employed with the responsibility of protecting children. They failed.

Dealing with social services ourselves whilst fostering was the single most frustrating thing about the whole experience. I must have told them on 5 accounts, that one lad shouldn't be in our care because he kept running away back home as that he was in danger, as his destination back home was about 3 hours on the run. They ignored every call until they decided that after a month I was right.

[Matblack]

I don't think it has anything to do with emotion but a case for a review of the system Heads should roll but along with it, a radical change in the way the system operates. There is too much "passing the buck" and "ticking the boxes" just get a job done without actually doing so.

From what I've read there wasn't a lot of buck passing, in fact at last one social worker and one agency pressed to have the child removed and the decision was made by someone who wasn't close enough to the case to actually 'know' what to do. That's not buck passing or in fact an issue with the system, its a mistake. If you understood the changes which have taken place in the system since Climbier then I think you might be less in inclined to jump on the 'wholesale change' bandwagon. Wholesale change causes massive disruption and actually puts more people at risk.

MB

[Admiral Huddy]

I'm pretty sure I read that decison was overturned due to financial reasons and lack of experience iirc.

May I ask who regulates Social Services?

[Von Smallhausen]

I have taken 2 children into police care and 100% of the time Social Services have been an utter utter waste of time. I'll elaborate later when I have more time, but for one of them I was literally crying with frustration at them.

Sadly true.

I once had a blazing argument with one of them trying to put my point across but it fell on deaf ears.

They piss me off royally at times.

[BBx]

After watching the panorama programme last night I felt quite the way that Huddy describes above, but you have to remember that the media in this country is so heavily regulated and a lot of the facts and information still haven't been divulged, even after the programme.

Therefore, a lot of the public outrage is based on: a) the information that has been released so far and b) the media's interpretation of it.

People also forget how ridiciously PC and full of red tape our country is.

What the programme doesn't explain is how hard it is to take a child away from a home.. a magistrate has to agree this is the best action to take, and when the doctor doesn't agree that the 'injuries' were not caused accidentally, this doesn't help the case.

I copied this from my response on OCUK, so sorry if its undermining anyone who's had personal experiences with SS.

I posted this after talking to my friend who is a Social Worker in another area, but has received the full report from Haringey, and after reading it said that there isn't anything that they (her SS) would have done differently.

BB x

[Admiral Huddy]

I agree with you BBx but the problem lies with the whole system failing, not just a few parts. What's unque about this case was the continued injuries that this child sustained without any positive action being taken. This could have been prevented and for the SS to say they wouldn't have done anything any different is just b******. I'm pretty sure they would have.

[BBx]

I'm just saying that there is a lot of information that we don't know about the case.

We are not SWs, we don't know what they can or can't do.

Its so easy to point the finger without having all of this knowledge.

BB x

PS this should be in News, Current Affairs and Debates section - no wonder I couldn't find it yesterday! :p

[phykell]

I'm just saying that there is a lot of information that we don't know about the case.

We are not SWs, we don't know what they can or can't do.

Its so easy to point the finger without having all of this knowledge.
I completely agree.

I don't believe social workers do the job for the money or benefits and generally speaking they do a job which many people, myself included, couldn't do. I'd rather wait until any investigations are complete - only then should it be appropriate to point the finger of blame. I just hope an enquiry will help our social support system avoid such tragic cases ever happening again.

[Desmo]

I agree with you BBx but the problem lies with the whole system failing, not just a few parts.
Which is why, in my opinion, you can't ask people to resign over it. If one or two people have made big mistakes in what they've done then they should be out of a job. If however their hands have been tied by the system then it's not really their fault.

[Matblack]

I completely agree.

I don't believe social workers do the job for the money or benefits and generally speaking they do a job which many people, myself included, couldn't do. I'd rather wait until any investigations are complete - only then should it be appropriate to point the finger of blame. I just hope an enquiry will help our social support system avoid such tragic cases ever happening again.

It will avoid them but I can catagorically say it won't stop them and when the next one occurs we'll have another enquiry and that might vilify a few people who will have to live their lives having stones thrown at them but it will happen again and again, even if social workers never get sight of the child concerned. The upshot is there are vicious, mentaly ill people out there who will do this kinid of thing and the tigher we try to grasp there will still be cases that slip through, we are already in a situation where administration is outweighing contact time and SWs have less and less time with the families and there will always be professionals from other disiplines like the health services who won't understand or believe the injuries they are seeing are from abuse we can reduce it but not eliminate it.

When something like this does happen again the press will decend like dogs on a rotting corpse and there will be another witch hunt. I am sorry this happened but social workers work to reduce these occurances they won't be able to eliminate them.

MB

[phykell]

It will avoid them but I can catagorically say it won't stop them and when the next one occurs we'll have another enquiry and that might vilify a few people who will have to live their lives having stones thrown at them but it will happen again and again, even if social workers never get sight of the child concerned. The upshot is there are vicious, mentaly ill people out there who will do this kinid of thing and the tigher we try to grasp there will still be cases that slip through, we are already in a situation where administration is outweighing contact time and SWs have less and less time with the families and there will always be professionals from other disiplines like the health services who won't understand or believe the injuries they are seeing are from abuse we can reduce it but not eliminate it.

When something like this does happen again the press will decend like dogs on a rotting corpse and there will be another witch hunt. I am sorry this happened but social workers work to reduce these occurances they won't be able to eliminate them.

MB
The cynic in me agrees with you and I have little optimism left. Ultimately, people will continue looking for scapegoats, the media will continue trying to provide them with one, and the people who are actually out there trying to make a difference will eventually give up and do something else instead. It will be the kids who actually lose out as a result. You'd think there would be some sort of reasonable compromise, but no :(

[Admiral Huddy]

I am sorry this happened but social workers work to reduce these occurances they won't be able to eliminate them.

MB

I don't think elimination is the debate here. Nor is it anything to do with "scapegoating". It's merely a point of a multiple failure.. In this case, the same department has been the center of controvesy not for the first time. If lessons weren't learnt the first time, then there is surely a serious problem which needs to be addressed..

[Matblack]

I don't think elimination is the debate here. Nor is it anything to do with "scapegoating". It's merely a point of a multiple failure.. In this case, the same department has been the center of controvesy not for the first time. If lessons weren't learnt the first time, then there is surely a serious problem which needs to be addressed..

I have CP training every 2 years as does anyone who works with the under 19s, every institution has CP policies and a designated CP officer and procedures to follow. Social services has a dedicated help line to inform them off occurances and we are all trained on joined up thinking and joint working so these things don't happen. In 2010 a new computer system to keep all CP information in one place is supposed to come on stream, it won't, but its supposed to and when it does that'll help too. I can assure you lessons have been learned and the system is being constantly refined.

I feel desperately sorry for the social workers caught up in this, they will be cruicfying themselves they don't need the press stiring up 'teh outrage' as well.

MB

[Matblack]

Mark Easton has writen a blog post on this, I agree with a lot of what he says and he write a lot better than I do :D

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/11/we_must_never_let_it.html

MB

[Admiral Huddy]

Gordon Brown has insisted those to blame for failures in the Baby P case should be "held accountable".
The Prime Minister pledged to act quickly when the report into the tragedy is published next month.
"It is in all our interests that where there is failure we change the system and where people are to blame for failures they are held accountable," he told MPs at question time.
In a marked change of tone from the ugly exchanges in the Commons last week, Mr Brown said there was "common ground" on the need to take action and Tory leader David Cameron thanked the Prime Minister for setting up an independent inquiry into the case.


...

[Von Smallhausen]

Example from me.

I attended a job where two kids were knocking on doors wanting food. On arriving I asked them where mam was ?

The reply was she was at court with the youngest child, a baby, and she had left the kids ( both under 12) in the house on their own.

I asked the neighbours some discreet questions and couldn't find out any relatives to take them to so I had no option other than to take them into protective custody and as such a place of safety.

Social Services got involved and the children were returned to the mother. I penned a lengthy CP1 ( Child Protection form ) to the Vulnerability Unit and Social Services.

I got a letter from Social Servies some weeks later that the parent involved declined to take part in parental improvement classes and they considered the matter closed.

I couldn't believe what I was reading.

On the subject of Baby P, heads should roll starting with the appallingly arrogant Ms Shoesmith.

[AboveTheSalt]

Gordon Brown has insisted those to blame for failures in the Baby P case should be "held accountable".
The Prime Minister pledged to act quickly when the report into the tragedy is published next month.
"It is in all our interests that where there is failure we change the system and where people are to blame for failures they are held accountable" he told MPs at question time.Strange that Mr Gordon Brown doesn't apply this philosophy to the Banking and Finance community.

Still, I expect that there are far too many of them, and some of them may even be personal friends and/or New Labour donors.

[Desmo]

Strange that Mr Gordon Brown doesn't apply this philosophy to the Banking and Finance community.
Or even MP's.

[Admiral Huddy]

Example from me.

I got a letter from Social Servies some weeks later that the parent involved declined to take part in parental improvement classes and they considered the matter closed.

I couldn't believe what I was reading.



Shocking :shocked:. In this case, declining help should trigger the case to be taken to the next level.. with the child taken into temporary care but not closed.

Strange that Mr Gordon Brown doesn't apply this philosophy to the Banking and Finance community.


I couldn't agree more. Ideally they should but in reality something had to be done otherwise most of use will be seeing more P45s than we should be. That's a seperate discussion but I share your view on this.

[Admiral Huddy]

Can someone please explain to me how this happens?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/3501757/Mother-of-Baby-P-could-be-free-within-months.html

[Admiral Huddy]

About time..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7772060.stm

All that remains is a few of her colleagues and a radical shape up.

[AboveTheSalt]

Can someone please explain to me how this happens?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/3501757/Mother-of-Baby-P-could-be-free-within-months.htmlActually, I think that the explanation is fairly well covered in the article.


About time..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7772060.stm

All that remains is a few of her colleagues and a radical shape up.I would be very surprised if Sharon Shoesmith doesn't take Haringey Council to an Industrial Tribunal.


As to the radical shape up (shake up?) at Haringey Council, I understand that that is (once again) in progress. Sadly, the likelihood is that lots of money will be spent on reports and advice from external consultants, the deckchairs will be moved around, good people will leave Haringey Social Services, nobody will want to join, the few remaining staff will be placed under ever greater strain and things will only get worse :'(

Like Lynne Featherstone, Ed Balls and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, I have no idea what the solution to the problems in Haringey will entail but I do know that Haringey is a very deprived area with high levels of unemployment, lots of dysfunctional families, & etc., etc., etc.

Daily Wail, Torygraph and even Grauniad readers protest loudly but I very much doubt that any of them will "up sticks" and relocate to Haringey or take up very stressful jobs there helping the families and children for whom they profess such concern.