'A Royal Commission of Inquiry
into the entire child protection system is urgently and increasingly
necessary'
I have some sympathy with Rachel’s
argument that the current flaws, and dysfunctions of the child
protection system are systemic but would totally refute her arguments that
this is largely due to shortages of resources.
I have also been engaged in child
protection social work for over 40 years, with several local authorities and
in several capacities. In the 1970s child protection social workers had
caseloads of over 70 cases and there were twice as many children in care as
there are today, all requiring the supervision of those social workers and
probably three times as many families under `Voluntary Supervision’ to
provide of social workers to provide “advice, guidance, and assistance,
including financial help”. Yet in those days there were probably only a
quarter of the number of social workers there are today.
There have been massive financial and
personnel resources pumped into child protection social work in the last
thirty years, usually after Public Inquiries into the deaths of children
have recommended those increased resources.
It might have been reasonably
expected therefore that child protection services would have actually
improved, yet the opposite is true. With such a massive increase in
resources and a massive reduction in workload, it would have been reasonable
to expect that the quality of social work would have improved, especially
the support, assistance, and guidance offered to families who were beginning
to experience difficulties, but this has not happened.
Instead those vastly increased
resources and personnel have been used to increase administrative and
bureaucratic systems and social work has become largely an administrative
function, with social workers doing little more than reporting to managers
with `Assessment’ procedures as the principal tool for them to report to
their managers and those managers making decisions based only on what is
written in a report, without ever seeing or meeting with the children or the
family concerned.
So what has happened?.
Firstly, has been the withdrawal of
social work management into a siege mentality, living and working in
constant terror of a child’s death whilst under Social Services supervision
and resulting in the public pillorying of social workers and their managers.
In consequence, social work managers are unwilling to bear any risk of
anything going wrong (but they still do). This system of `fear-based’ and
`risk evasion’ management has led to all autonomy of social workers being
removed into the higher echelons of management and into `meetings’ where
decisions are made by `the Group’ with no individual taking responsibility
or accountability for the `Group’s decisions. Social workers in the 1970s
were largely autonomous and took responsibility and accountability for their
decisions and their subsequent actions and they had the confidence (and
managerial support) to take calculated and carefully managed risks.
Secondly, has seen the thwarting of
the good intentions and principles embodied in legislation. The Children Act
1989 contained a radical change of emphasis whereby children `In Need’ and
‘In Care’ would be greatly empowered by the legislation and the accompanying
regulations and guidance. Such empowerment was contained in requirements
that social workers must ‘Consult with’ children and their parents, and must
work `In Partnership’ with them. If children and their parents were
dissatisfied with the quality and quantity of the services they received,
then they had the right to make a complaint.
These objectives of `Consultation’,
`Working in Partnership’ and a fair and just `Complaints procedure’ have in
various ways been largely thwarted by child protection agencies and Social
Services Departments in particular, and in fact children and their parents
have conversely been disempowered in the entire child protection and child
care system.
Thirdly, has been the change of
mindset among social workers whereby care and concern for children and
parents as human beings, has been replaced by an uncaring mental exercise of
social policing. This has been related to an influx of people into social
work who are extremist in their beliefs about child abuse and who have
latched onto every half-baked theory of child abuse which has been totally
lacking in scientific research, as an excuse for invading and interfering in
the lives of innocent children and their families, spreading destruction and
devastation in their wake by their draconian and punitive actions. It is
this situation which has led to such notorious scandals as Cleveland,
Rochdale, Nottingham, the Orkneys, the Isles of Lewis, etc etc.
After every one of those notorious
scandals, attempts have been made to try to re-assure politicians and the
public that such incidents would never recur with statements that “Lessons
have been learnt” and “We have changed our procedures to ensure this does
not happen again”. But lessons have not been learnt as these situations
continue to recurring with an alarming and increasing frequency and changes
in procedures have led only to more bureaucratic and punitive procedures.
Social workers live and work in a
cocooned, sheltered and insular environment and are rarely exposed to
problems and difficulties of many of the families with whom they engaged.
Many social workers have a grossly inflated sense of their own importance in
our society and believe they are at the centre of the universe of everyday
activities of families. They have very great difficulty in coming to terms
with the fact that what they do is unknown and irrelevant to the vast
majority of the population.
In 1990 I left government
department-based social work and became engaged in voluntary work providing
advocacy and representation for children and their families who were caught
up in the child protection and child welfare systems. Standing alongside
those children and their parents, and acting as their advocate and
representative when requested to do so in their dealings with social workers
and their managers, was and continues to be a harrowing and chastening
experience. The times that the children, their parents, and I were treated
with derisive contempt and disrespect and the complete disregard by social
workers for professionals standards and ethics are too numerous to mention.
Although I had risen to very senior ranks in social work and honorary
positions in the national and international social work community, my
knowledge and competence was completely disregarded and I was viewed merely
as a renegade and traitor who had moved into the enemy camp.
Fourthly, social workers in the 1970s
recognised and acknowledged that there was a very tiny minority of parents
who were sadistically brutal towards their children, but the vast majority
of instances of child abuse were not because of wilful maltreatment by
parents, but were strongly influenced by external factors which caused
parents to be depressed and in despair and which were often beyond the
control of the parents. Such factors included isolation from support
networks such as their extended families, friends, and even neighbours who
could be willing to help and support a family in difficulties. Inadequate
income, poor housing, unemployment, and mental illness were also recognised
as factors which were regularly present in cases of child abuse and which
were not within the powers of parents to control.
Government statistics on child abuse
show that less than one child in a thousand is placed on the Children `At
Risk’ Register in the U.K. and such cases are only to a very low level of
evidential proof of a social worker’s opinion with little, if any, factual
evidence tested by challenge and cross-examination. Yet every year many
thousands more children and their families are subjected to the invasive and
devastating intrusions of a child protection investigation based on false
accusations. Such statistics prove irrefutably that there is no `hidden
iceberg’ of child abuse in the U.K. but quite the opposite – that there is a
`hidden iceberg’ of families who are devastated and often destroyed by
unnecessary and unwarranted child protection investigations.
Rachel Bramble argues that social
workers no longer have a voice. This is untrue. There are now more social
workers in Parliament and in high Ministerial positions and central
government departments than ever before – so what kind of influence are
those social workers having on the political and social welfare agenda?.
Certainly there has been a worrying
trend in the last decade toward the government and its agencies intruding
into family life, often on perverse pretexts of protecting children or
ensuring children’s health and well-being, and with a worrying belief base
that the State and its agencies know better than parents, how children
should be raised and looked after. Perversely such intrusions have proved to
be destructive of many families and the lives of many thousands of children
have been devastated as a consequence. This belief base of the State knowing
better than parents how children should be looked after and brought up, has
led to the State agencies driving wedges between children and their parents,
especially when child protection `concerns’ are claimed. State agencies such
as Health, Education, and Social Services previously occupied a role of
supporting and assisting children and families but have increasingly become
social police agencies with draconian powers of intervention into family
life.
These are but a few of the problems
which have led to the child protection system becoming deeply flawed,
erratic, and dysfunctional and why a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the
entire child protection system is urgently and increasingly necessary.
ByCharles
Pragnell
February 25, 2006
Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care
Expert Witness – Child Protection
and Social Care Consultant
and Child/Family Advocate.
Please read...
Petition answered with Spin and Sophism
The Silence of the Media Lambs!
Doctors in a Dilemma
Are you an `Appropriate’ person?
Childrens Plan
State Terrorism
The Seriously Unhealthy State of Paediatrics
RAD – the Return of a Nightmare
Persecution of Children and Families
Why I am Petitioning the Prime Minister
Vaccines and Child Abuse Accusations
Why did Sally Clark Suffer and Die?
Perverse Reversal of Child Custody
Child Protection in Kangaroo Courts
Fabricated and induced illness in Children
A History of Man’s Inhumanity
A System out of Control
Forced Adoption
