Petition for poor little Arthur

Thank you for answering nightowl and Iam. I hope when the inquiry happens that social workers are invited to say how things could be improved.

I only realised tonight that Arthur had changed schools very recently and that much of his upset was put down to his mother disappearing to prison. That would be enough to cause anxiety in any child and that’s what those at the school thought was happening. Nonetheless if his school hadn’t closed for three months he may have still been alive today.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

nightowl

MissAdventure you and those like you are the rocks on which social workers depend. I have worked in kinship care and I am filled with admiration for the lengths family members go to, turning their lives upside down, and incidentally saving the state a small fortune in the process. After years in child protection that job restored my faith in humans. I can never overestimate how much family carers did for me and my sanity

Thanks for expressing this so well nightowl. Miss A I’ve had such great experiences with kinship carers, their commitment to stepping in, engaging in often gruelling assessment process and the life long commitment is astounding. An invisible army of grans, aunties, grandfathers, uncles, often caring for children who have had traumatic experiences, neglect, foetal alcohol syndrome, emotional/behavioural problems and more.

Calistemon

Germanshepherdsmum

Delete that first sentence MissA. ?

I agree.

I didn't mean I agreed with MissA, I meant I agreed that first sentence is untrue and a nonsense!

? I can't find the flowers so have a piece of cake instead, MissA

MissAdventure you and those like you are the rocks on which social workers depend. I have worked in kinship care and I am filled with admiration for the lengths family members go to, turning their lives upside down, and incidentally saving the state a small fortune in the process. After years in child protection that job restored my faith in humans. I can never overestimate how much family carers did for me and my sanity

I'm the lowest of the low; untrained, uneducated, not enough brains to do anything else, so I do understand

Don't you dare diss my pal. She's very caring, kind, funny, articulate, damned hard working and brave and if I catch you disrespecting my pal again, I'll come looking for you!

Germanshepherdsmum

Delete that first sentence MissA. ?

I agree.

Thank you!!

Delete that first sentence MissA. ?

I'm the lowest of the low; untrained, uneducated, not enough brains to do anything else, so I do understand.
No room for egos though, when there has been a serious failure.
I let it wash over me, because it isn't personal to me.
It can't be, because I do my job properly, and hope those who don't are weeded out, because they have no place in the sector.

I think it’s a little more personal than that MissAdventure. People often seem to go out of their way to tell me how useless social workers are. I can understand it at times like this but I can assure you it’s been pretty constant over the years. It’s upsetting when you’re young and idealistic but it really doesn’t bother me now.

I don't know anyone who hates social workers, per se.
To be honest, most people don't give them any more thought than any other worker.
Part of learning lessons is to put aside that thought, and listen to what people do hate, which is services which are failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.
There are a whole host of failings within the care sector, I'm the first to acknowledge that as am a carer.

I never get offended though, and think everyone hates me, because I am secondary to the people I care for, in respect of meeting their needs appropriately.

maddyone your question is the million dollar one isn’t it? Where to even begin. I have worked in all areas of social work, including adult services and mental health, but for the majority of my career I worked in safeguarding and child protection. I’m still working by the way, but I’ve sidestepped away from front line child protection and into a job I love.

I could write a thesis on the things I would change, but one think I would do is stop one off visits after an allegation of harm. I would like to see such allegations followed up for a minimum of six months by multi-agency teams with regular networking and formal sharing of information. I’d be interested in Iam’s view of this and in hearing any other ideas, also from other social workers on here (I’m sure there are several).

I am aware that my idea is pie in the sky unless there were to be significant investment in services. What I would also like to see is a return to more preventive work with families. We used to work to build relationships with adults and children, to provide support and to signpost to different preventive services - again this would need huge investment as those services have been demolished and social workers now seem to only have time to go from one referral to another. They also spend a great deal of time in court proceedings which have increased beyond all belief if I compare this to when I qualified in 1979. The job is hard and the rewards are few. Who on earth would want to do it, or stay in child protection for long? This means that many childcare social workers are newly qualified and their managers are also inexperienced.

I feel sad for them, at least when I entered social work there was a feeling we could make a difference and a real sense of hope, despite the challenges and the fact that we were hated by the general public. That has never changed.

signed

Sorry for typos, pop-ups are all over the screen again.

^Imagine living the rest of your life in that knowledge.
^
Yes I can imagine and the dreadful feeling of guilt, could i have done more to prevent this.

The law needs to change so that the child's welfare is of paramount importance.

Iam64 and nightowl as ex Social Workers, what do you think needs to change? Obviously I realise children may not have been your area of practice, but your views would be interesting because you know more than the rest of us about social work.
I think the law needs to change, as a law that puts a greater emphasis on family life than the safety of children is just plain wrong. Unfortunately I think that is unlikely to happen.

With regard to the school, I know as an ex teacher that all schools are required to have robust policies and practice with regard to safeguarding, and so I wonder what happened in Arthur’s school, in that his class teacher raised concerns, but nonetheless he was not in school over lockdown as a vulnerable child. Why was he not in school during lockdown? Who decided he was not vulnerable and didn’t need to be in school? How robustly was this school following guidelines and laws for the safeguarding of its pupils?
I hope we never see schools closed again because too damage was caused to many children by lockdown.

I don’t know very much about the police, but clearly concerns were raised by Arthur’s family and ignored. The police should be required to act on any concerns raised about children. They should never be allowed to ignore them.

Anniebach

Can we not think of the pain of the social workers, police etc
Our distress hearing his cries, seeing him trying to lift the duvet, they must surely be distraught.

Thank you Anniebach for your post. I remember your husband was a police officer, as was my father. We have teachers, social workers, nurses, midwives and health visitors in our family. It’s a way of life, rather than simply a job.
I’m still in touch with adults in their 40’s and one of 50 who I met aged 3, 6 and 13.
I’m not defending bad practice, the texts between the murderers are shocking, sickening and impossible to read without feeling terror for that little boy. The social workers and police involved in April didn’t have access to those texts. They were duped. Imagine living the rest of your life in that knowledge.
There will be an inquiry. It will inform practice. I hope it means investment in multi agency working, with specialist teams brought together as we were beginning to do in the 80’s and 90’s.

Anniebach

Can we not think of the pain of the social workers, police etc
Our distress hearing his cries, seeing him trying to lift the duvet, they must surely be distraught.

Thank you Annie most sincerely. It is not often people recognise this, and it in no way tries to diminish the terrible suffering Arthur endured.

MissAdventure

And that poor little soul died thinking nobody loved him.
Absolutely tragic.

Yes, and those who loved him were kept away.
Just heartbreaking.

Already signed the petition

And that poor little soul died thinking nobody loved him.
Absolutely tragic.

I read it and heard it on the TV news.

April 2020
Hughes's mother was concerned and asked Hughes if he would leave Arthur with her. Hughes refused. Joanne Hughes made a report to Social Services together with photos of Arthur's bruises.
April 2020
Hughes complained to the police that his brothers were visiting him at Tustin's house and "harassing him".
One brother reported their worries to the police, with photos of the bruises.
The police were satisfied that Social Services had the case in hand.

I didn’t know that Calistemon, if that’s so then I stand corrected. Hopefully it will all come out in the report - eventually.

And yet the child protection officer interviewed this morning talked about the police and social services being a way to make sure a child being abused is highlighted in the right way.