How on earth did the the authorities let this happen?

[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.

Originally Posted by AboveTheSalt

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]

Originally Posted by Admiral Huddy

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?

[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.

[Desmo]

Originally Posted by Admiral Huddy

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.

[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!

[phykell]

Originally Posted by BBelle

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.

[Matblack]

Originally Posted by phykell

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