Behind The Headlines: Is it the toughest job of all?
WITH the possible exception of bankers and greedy, occasionally criminally fraudulent MPs, it is hard to think of a single profession in recent years which has taken such a hammering as social workers, specifically those working in child protection.
The shadow cast by the appalling failings discovered following the 2007 death of Baby Peter while in the care of Haringey social services was long. Less than 10 years earlier, similar failings by social workers and NHS professionals had led to the death of Victoria Climbie and a subsequent inquiry by Lord Laming (who also carried out the review post-Baby Peter) talked of lessons learned and efforts being made to ensure this would not happen again.
Of course it did as we know all too well. Indeed Laming’s second report indicated that far too many authorities had failed to take on board the necessary recommendations to try to prevent repeats of what was sustained and appalling physical abuse and neglect of a child.
However, this time around it does seem as though the message has sunk in with English local authorities, many of which – including Northamptonshire – have seen a spiralling in the number of children taken into care. Currently in this county, 766 children are in care, an increase of 200 in the past five years and the reason for that upward drift, according to the county council’s child protection spokesman, is because social workers are being more proactive in the wake of the Baby P case.
While, thankfully, the number of serious case reviews in this county has remained relatively low, it was evidence from one of them – following the death of Callum Bland in a fire on Wellingborough’s Hemmingwell estate in 2007 – that found that while every effort was being made to give the parents a chance of improving their ways, a neglectful situation had tipped too far the other way in favour of the parents.
No council wants another Baby P case in their proverbial in-tray and, consequently, social workers are now more risk-averse, a fact borne out this week by CAFCASS’s January figures which show 903 children were taken into care across England.
Of course this may prevent problems further down the line. Looking after children in care is an immensely costly business – more than 6.5m has been set aside for looked after children next year in Northamptonshire alone – and while most local authorities have ring-fenced the budgets while all around them are cut, the question remains as to how long can this be sustained.
Intervention will increasingly be seen as the way forward.
Getting social workers and NHS professionals in before the problems start and, as so often is the case, the vicious circle starts to repeat itself.
Sure Start schemes, for example, can play a vital role here providing their funding isn’t.
While the funding of child protection is a matter for Government and locally elected politicians, it is the frontline social workers who remain at the coalface dealing with the problem children and, more often than not, parents, that come with it.
Over the past two weeks, the BBC has gained extraordinary access to child protection teams working in Bristol, a fly-on-the-wall series that has attracted close to 2m viewers.
It has been gut-wrenching to watch at times. A young social worker confronted with two hopeless parents in charge of a three-year-old who wears a nappy and is unable to speak. He’s menacing (and treats his dog better) and she’s pregnant with another one. You watched the endless to-ing and fro-ing and the genuine efforts of the professionals to keep the family together until it reached that tipping point where the child and the newborn baby girl had to be taken away. And this week, we watched a couple ravaged by alcohol and with a string of children already in care preparing for the birth of a baby while still drinking (and smoking) heavily and on occasion overdosing on paracetamol.
Hope briefly flickered for the baby boy following birth, but in the end the child had been put up for adoption and the parents were back in each other’s arms. Very probably readying themselves for a repeat of proceedings.
For the public and those sections of the media who have lambasted social workers ever since Baby P, they could do much worse than watch Protecting Our Children.
They might then understand the effort and see the avenues explored in trying to keep families together. And appreciate just how problematic the parents can be and – the real tragedy of all this – the increased likelihood of that tiny infant turning into that feckless parent further down the road.
Child protection workers deserve society’s respect, not its condemnation. It’s an immensely challenging job that most of us – not least those carping from the sidelines – would never be able to do.
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lady muck
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 07:19 AMfor some, compulsory sterilisation is the only measure which will prevent the cycle of inadequate parents, unwanted and cruelly mis-treated babies.
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Monday, February 13, 2012 at 02:57 AMToughest job of all? What a joke.
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