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Books, DVD's and Reviews
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect Amazon.co.uk Time after time catastrophic failures in social services, in which children and vulnerable adults are seriously harmed by some of the very people meant to protect them, carry on for years without thorough investigation, without rectification, without redress. There may be client complaints, professional warnings, official inquiries, high level recommendations, police investigations - but still it goes on. Why? Here are some books that you may wish to buy which highlight these problems and give an insight into the Failure of Children’s services, and the corruption that surround them, especially in regards to unjust adoptions and fostering.
by Jack Frost
ISBN 9 781430 316350
Family Court
HELL (Paperback)
Grandparents Speak Out for Vulnerable Children A book exposing the injustice of family law
james@grandparents.fsnet.co.uk
A non political volunteer
charity. No SC 031558
Against All Odds: The Angela Cannings
Story Synopsis
LUNAR GIRL Running time
75min PAL only Click on DVD Cover for order information, £prices ect DVD by Innocent Films LUNAR GIRL is a contemporary music driven drama, tinged with magic and special effects. It takes you on a young girl's journey from innocence to adolescence. When her artistic and unconventional behaviour is interpreted as disruptive and anti-social, she is projected from the beauty and security of her dream world into a bleak and sometimes frightening reality. In an effort to escape the torment in her mind, she runs…….! This is the first film written and directed by Janis Sharp and is filled with bitter-sweet irony, optimism and charm, and a moody, melodic soundtrack. Lunar Girl highlights many social problems, without making you feel that you’re being preached to in any way and touches on some environmental issues just long enough to make you think.
Review Written by a social worker with decades of experience, this book examines the dismissive attitude of society, and particularly the media, toward social work. The text argues, however, that the profession itself—including the bureaucratic machinery underpinning its service delivery to clients—is mostly to blame for its public portrayal as a network of stodgy, introverted, and sometimes ineffectual do-gooders. This call to action recommends that social workers begin to use the media to improve their public image, rather than continually shying away from controversy and news coverage.
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect Gareth Crossman,
Head of Policy, Liberty
An invaluable tool enabling campaigners, lawyers and interested members of the
public to negotiate the Freedom of Information Act. David Banisar,
Deputy Director of Privacy International Michael Crick, BBC journalist Heather Brooke tells readers how they can successfully challenge the system using the latest public access laws More Reviews
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect The Shredding of Families By Lilian and Richard Dunsmore "The Shredding of Families" directly and convincingly causes the reader to stop and ponder current public policy. Personally, I am one who believes there are too many foster care children with natural parents who will never be able to provide care. It has been my belief the sooner parental rights can be legally severed and the children legally adopted, the better. Yet, this book serves a loud alarm: we may be taking too many children away from caring parents too quickly.
This book shows how false reports of child abuse (in some cases, even repudiated cases as when someone makes a report in anger or in revenge) can destroy families. Children, Youth, and Families Agency case workers make determinations in matters of just hours whether to remove children from their families. While I know many case workers have excellent reputations and handle much work, this large volume of caseloads alone makes their jobs difficult. Decisions need to be made quickly, both in the event children need to be removed quickly from families and because there are so many cases to consider. It is very possible that case workers can make the wrong decisions.
Review Protecting Children From Child Protective Services Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect
Protecting Children from Child Protective Services (Paperback) By Alan L. Schwartz Although Schwartz had a number of good ideas for improving a system many would agree is riddled with problems, he failed to expand on solutions he offered. This lack of depth would be understandable if this book was written by an outsider, but was surprising and unacceptable given Schwartz' experience in Child Protection and advocacy.
Schwartz also failed to back up his general arguments with any data or documentation of any sources that may buttress his statements. In one case, Schwartz referred to a government study that found the Child Protective Service departments (or their equivalent) in 45 states to be deficient but he never provided enough information for the reader to gather more data. The average college student would not receive a passing grade if he failed to cite sources on a term paper, yet Schwartz wrote an entire book on a subject that has volumes of data readily available without citing a source. Had he provided documentation or a list of references in addition to expanding on his arguments, he would have easily added another 30-50 pages of quality material, instead of the brief 138 pages offered by the author.
The Experiences of Natural Mothers on Adoption Reunion Click on Book
Cover for order information, £prices ect Review
Memoirs of a Baby Stealer: Lessons I've Learned as a Foster Mother Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect
Memoirs of a Baby Stealer: Lessons I've Learned as a Foster Mother (Paperback) by Mary Callahan Memoirs Of A Baby Stealer: Lessons I've Learned As A Foster Mother by Mary Callahan is the personal account of a foster parent and her struggles to cope with an uncaring child welfare system -- one that, in the words of the author, is "taking kids from places that aren't that bad, putting them in places that aren't that good, and completely ignoring the bond that exists between parent and child". Callahan's struggles and effort to help children, defend herself against unsubstantiated charges, dealing with power politics, and relate the stories of those in her care make Memoirs Of A Baby Stealer very highly recommended reading for anyone considering offering themselves to their community as a foster care resource.
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect REVIEW Out of Control: Who's Watching Our Child Protection Agencies? (Hardcover) by Brenda Scott If you have children this book may save your family. This book may change the way you deal with your family doctor, your child's school, and who you allow into your home. No, I am not paranoid, but there are too many cases documented here of individual rights being trampled, due process ignored, and families destroyed by bureaucracies that are not concerned with what is just. You may also be left with a cynical view of our adversarial legal system -family services workers assert that 'a declaration of innocence is a sign of guilt'. Let's just bind their hands and throw them in the river -you know the rest. Left unanswered is the secondary question of how family services organizations became dominated by so many wrong-headed people, and how our tax money came to fund them. Are they really so deluded that they think they are doing good, or is there a New World political agenda driving them? Why do prosecutors go along with them? Why do police departments make arrests based on little or no evidence? There are a few good people in these organizations but I am afraid they have been intimidated into silence. Fixing this problem will take politicians willing to fight the tide of it-takes-a-village political correctness. How did it ever get this bad? Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect REVIEW Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse (Paperback) by Richard Wexler "In the Los Angeles County suburb of El Monte, a little girl cried herself to sleep and nobody listened..." (more) I have been involved with various aspects of the child protective service system for over 25 years. Based on my own experience, this book does not exaggerate the appalling dangers our families and children face at the hands of these systems. I found the accounts, chilling as they are, to be very accurate reflections of what I know to be everyday occurrences in our child welfare system. This author has examined the data and the facts and has done the homework that all of us should be doing.
WHISTLEBLOWING IN THE SOCIAL SERVICES
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect
Crisis of Accountability I am willing to assert that the problem of organisational failure is not confined to abuse in care settings - the problem is one of the need for the reform of accountabilities throughout our national life - in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Whistleblowing is a symptom of a shortfall in the organisational systems we have to provide for the new expectations of accountability. The conscientious employee who has nowhere to turn may decide to cut through the maze of procedure, especially when it is turned against him or her, and take the simple and direct path and say, in effect, ‘I’ll hold you to account. I’ll tell the world about it’. Unfortunately, whistleblowing does not stop it going on and on. It only provides us with the signs and symptoms of the disease, which are the proper starting point for a diagnosis.
Alison Taylor, who says that years ago she lost her job as a social worker in North Wales for ‘refusing to ignore persistent and widespread allegations about the abuse of children in council care’, believes there is ‘too little impetus in the [social work] profession towards accountability’ (Chapter Four). London newspaper journalist Eileen Fairweather, who played a major role in exposing abuses in Islington homes, says (Chapter One) that there will be more child abuse scandals in children’s homes ‘until publicly accountable child protection becomes a true national priority’. Other contributors to this book emphasize accountability. This persistence is generating a public crisis of confidence: how can public services which shows themselves to be incapable in many instances of properly investigating and correcting their own operations be entrusted by the public to carry out the task of properly monitoring, investigating and preventing the abuse of the vulnerable? Of course, they are right. But what are accountable child protection services and social services in general? What is accountability? How does accountability work? How is it effected? What are its mechanisms? How is it sustained? How do we close the gulf between what we know as individuals to be right and good and the everyday realities of the social services workplace. In order to answer these questions we first have to acknowledge and understand the nature and gravity of the problem we have, which is the point of this book. Accountability is about a preparedness to give an explanation and justification to relevant others for one’s acts and omissions. It is about responsibility to one another, and is therefore a recognition of social duties as well as rights. It is tied up with questions of authority and power because it leaves open the questions: accountable to whom, and why? Accountable for what, and why? Accountable under what circumstances and in what manner? What is the proper content and form for the account one gives? These are questions which delineate a contested area, an area in which claims for an account by one group may be denied as a legitimate or authorised claim by another. We have a crisis of accountability because the traditional and settled authorities can no longer claim a monopoly over accountability - can no longer say with complete conviction ‘You cannot claim an account from me; I am claiming one from you’. In social service so-called ‘users’ are demanding an account, and social services authorities are often saying, in some terms or other, ‘We have no obligation to give you one’ (See Amphlett in Chapter Six). Of course, others are re-considering, while a few may be be
The Welfare of Children
Click on Book Cover for order information, £prices ect REVIEW The Welfare of Children by Duncan Lindsey Today the United States has more children living in poverty than any other industrialized nation. More than a quarter of all children grow up in poverty. The poverty rates for African American and Latino children exceed 40 percent. Furthermore, the United States, a country which once pioneered strategies to prevent child abuse and which now spends more money fighting child abuse than any other industrialized country, has the highest rate of child abuse in the industrialized world. Against this background, Duncan Lindsey, a leading authority on child welfare, takes a critical look at the current child welfare system. He traces the transformation of child welfare into child protective services. The current focus on abuse has produced a system that is designed to protect children from physical and sexual abuse and therefore functions as a last resort for only the worst and most dramatic cases in child welfare. In a close analysis of the process on investigating and handling child abuse, Lindsey finds that there is no evidence that the transformation into protective services has reduced child abuse fatalities or provided a safer environment for children. He makes a compelling argument for the criminal justice system to assume responsibility for the problem of child abuse in order that the child welfare system can address the well-being of a much larger number of children now growing up in poverty. The Welfare of Children is a compassionate blueprint for comprehensive reform of the child welfare system to one that administers to the economic security of the large number of disadvantaged and impoverished children. Concrete policy proposals such as a Child's Future Security account, similar to the Social Security program for older citizens, will spark serious debate on a major public policy issue facing our society.
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