There is a part 8 review going on at the moment. I did 33 years in child protection social work/work with offenders and was exposed to all manner of horrors. However, this little boy's sad and painful life in our country, and his awful death, has haunted me. I read this morning that his head teacher is a 32 year old guy, who has since this boy's death moved to be head at another school. His class teacher was 26. She and the TA had regularly reported concerns to the Head, who I assume was the designated child protection/safeguarding rep at the school. The news this morning indicated the head didn't feel the concerns about 2 black eyes were significant enough to be referred upwards, or even recorded in their concerns book. It's so rare for children to have two black eyes, these should always be subject of a medical evaluation. (I say this as a parent whose 18 month old fell on the corner of a coffee table, and 2 black eyes developed as the bruise in the centre of her forehead went down) Like Mishap, I struggle to see how this child wasn't high on the multi agency radar. Broken arms can be clarified as accidental or deliberate, not always but usually. In situations where the paediatrician couldn't be sure, or there were existing concerns about excessive drinking/drugs and violence, we would seek a 2nd opinion from a local expert in abuse, or the local paediatrician would refer on.
In a home with children, where incidents of domestic violence, especially in the context of drug/alcohol abuse, have resulted in the police being called, it is normal practice for the police to notify the children's services team. We used to get so many of these, that our response to a first notification was often to write to the family, telling them where we were, what services were available, and reminding them how frightening/damaging exposure to violence is for children. Subsequent notifications wouldThe next one would lead to result a social worker visiting and attempting to talk to the mother (usually the victim but not always) about the incident and trying to clarify the extent of difficulty in the family. It isn't clear what, if anything happened in this case.
The broken arm was sufficiently concerning for the police to be involved. In my area, that would have been a joint social work/police enquiry, not single agency. It seems that as the paediatrician accepted the fracture was an accident, and this story was supported by an older sibling, no crime, no prosecution, no reason for social work involvement. The case review will identify whether police/health/school ever re-referred this little boy. Any child who stole food in the way this little boy did, the description of him sitting, sad and isolated in the school sand pit, eating dried beans just awful. Any loss of weight should have been referred to the school nurse, who should have referred him to a paediatrician. The paediatrician should have ensured the mother's information about the Polish doctor diagnosing an eating disorder was right. The fact there was violence in the home, and the mother reacted aggressively when challenged by medical staff, should have had alarm bells ringing and a proper social work assessment taking place.
I despair - truly I do. Poor little lad, and his older sibling, witnessing this abuse, and giving evidence in court on that. Sorry for the rant folks - I am distressed by this and hope we get more out of the part 8 review that the need for agencies to work together, and some platitudes about how it's all so much better now than it was this time last year.