Another poor child killed at the hands of his parent and lover

I'm avoiding looking at the news; I just don't feel that I can absorb any more. Sickened is the right word Iam64.

The murder of Lily-Mai sickened me when I read the details before the guilty finding. I haven’t read the link. It was clear from earlier reading, this baby should never have been allowed home. The hospital staff raised significant red flag concerns about absence of bonding. My initial conclusion was sw managers over rode the multi disciplinary and sw assessment.
I could scream but - were they trying to avoid expensive care proceedings and negative assessment they’d ‘too many’ children in care? Or were they stupid

I think you might be right Antonia. Relations were always down the street or around the corner, families helped each other not compete which quite a lot do now.
People accepted that if their child was caught being naughty someone would tell them or give them a smack.
I worked in a place where one of the workers turned out to be a paedophile. It was horrible we all had to have interviews and talk to a psychologist. Some felt guilty as they had always had doubts. Others like myself were new and perfectly ignorant of what had been going on.
The accused was found guilty and sent to prison. They soon had to be moved to solitary confinement because of the way they were treated by other inmates. They are considered the lowest of the low by them.
I often wonder if they are now out and living somewhere under an alias. If so hopefully not near children.

I can't bear to look, sorry

OMG we have another child death, a newborn this time. The mother not sent to jail because she was suffering post-natal depression.
Baby Lili-Mai shaken to death

Our students had been advised by Tutors to choose any area of social work but to avoid child protection at all costs. The fear of a child death, the horrors thst involves for everyone involved seemed to be eclipsed but the terror if being photographed on the front page of the daily you know what

fewer people do want to become social workers and retaining staff is a challenge.

I'm not in the least bit surprised Iam64. My, now retired, social worker friend was asked to work under Children & Family Services but she only managed to cope for a few months, before moving to Elderly Care Services. Burn out, unimaginable pressure, depression, unmanageable case loads and public vilification if you make a mistake...... why would anyone subject themselves to that. You're right; it does need overhauling.

How right you are VioletSky

The thing that concerns me is that these poor murdered children are the very tip of the iceberg.

They are what's visible.

Then there are all those mistreated in childhood with lifelong depression, anxiety, addiction issues, personality disorders and the many who suicide.

I've had extensive safeguarding training and I'm passionate about protecting children from abuse having come from an abusive background.

You would be amazed how many don't take me seriously, tell me my experience makes me too biased to discuss it and don't even agree with what constitutes abuse let alone how serious a problem it is in society.

So many disregard their own children's needs and feelings and are so quick to forget how easy it is negatively impact a person just because you think you know better or you don't agree they should feel the way they do.

Children are intelligent, perceptive, individual and worthy of respect.

We have to start teaching society that.

BlueBelle

I believe we need to know what’s happening to these children we need to hurt, we need to cry, because we need to do something about it I don’t know what but something has got to happen these vile people have got to face more punishment than languishing in a well kept prison

We need to prevent more children being mistreated and killed by unfit parents rather than discuss the appropriate level of punishment of the guilty parties.

To have any hope of doing so, we need to try and work out why these horrible crimes are being committed, and ensure that teachers, doctors, and anyone else who work with children can recognise the early signs of abuse and act on them.

Chewbacca, fewer people do want to become social workers and retaining staff is a challenge. 12 years ago, the 4 students on our team were 19, in the 2nd year of a 3 year sw degree, they were so young and lacking in life experience. I trained at 30, I’d worked in a variety of places, engineering / building works. done 2 years in an unqualified role with the Probation services, working with recidivist offenders.
Students did a 2 year course, had to be 25 years old, with two A levels. If you’d done a relevant degree, you could do a 1 year course from age 22. Our teams were made up of enthusiastic young graduates and people who’d trained as mature students, we had ex military, retired police, former admin staff, hair dressers, yiu name it. we were sponsored by local authorities or by the Home Office if yiu were going into probation, with a small salary. Students now run up £60/70,000 debt to train.

It needs an overhaul.

Well said Chewbacca. I worked closely with social workers and they do indeed have a thankless job, and everything you say about funding and stress of the job is true.

Where things go wrong it is usually down to the system and it scapegoating of individuals does not help towards future change and improvement.

I defy anyone who is critical of social workers to walk a week in their shoes. I can guarantee there will be sleepless nights.

The only thing about social workers that surprises me, is that anyone wants to become one. They're hugely under funded, they're understaffed because they're under funded, if they remove a child because they believe a child is at risk, they're accused of breaking families up and if they leave a child with a family and try to put support in place and it fails, they're accused of endangering that child with their negligence.
During the pandemic lockdown, social workers struggled to maintain contact with families on their books: no schools open to spot any obvious signs of neglect or abuse. No social worker home visits allowed. No extended families, friends or neighbours were allowed to visit, so no reporting to social services. Many thousands of families were already struggling before the pandemic hit and social workers had impossible to manage case loads.

But none of that applied for Sebastian because he was never on any radar as a child at risk; his death wasn't because of a "negligent, over worked social worker"; his death was because of a cruel, sadistic, monster of a mother and her equally monstrous lover. MollyGo is right; they are the only perpetrators.

The media tend to portray child protective workers as unfeeling ,cold, bureaucratic people trying to separate children from their natural families. That is the problem. The children are usually too scared to tell the truth.

Social workers do spot the signs and do not ignore warning signals, but they have attempt to work with the families while trying to find a place of safety for these children, and there are few available.
The focus needs to be on the sadists who commit these crimes, but attempt moving a child from a parent you know to be inadequate with a dangerous partner is very very hard.
Unless you have worked with these people it is hard to realise just how cunning and manipulative they are, and how utterly devoid of conscience.

It’s true about the missed opportunities. We hear about reports not followed up or injuries disguised but the blame for these appalling happenings rests absolutely on the perpetrators.

Most people realise the difficult job social workers have, but when you read of so many missed opportunities to spot the child was in trouble it doesn't seem like there's any excuse. In many cases they admit there were catastrophic failures and warning signs were ignored.

Iam
Difficult work and few rewards. And a lifetime of memories, some good, many bad, some haunting. The reality of some children’s lives is unimaginable.

night owl, thanks for recognising my feelings. Often, the response to these horrific murders, is to put blame with social workers, that happens even when children’s services haven’t been involved. Rarely if ever, does anyone acknowledge to toll on social workers of spending their working lives trying to safeguard and support the most vulnerable children in our country.

If we can't have them hung, drawn and quartered then a full life sentence will have to do. If they can't be jailed until death then I would say until they are 70 years old, no matter what age they are when they get locked up. By 70 years old their vital years will be over and they can hobble off and spend their energy dealing with their arthritis and bowl problems.

You were wise Iam.

Iam I know what you mean. Sometimes just one more child makes you realise how many case records, case reviews, court reports, medical reports you have read, how many hurt children you have seen, and how nothing ever seems to change. I ask myself whether my whole career has been a sham. Poor beautiful boy, such a loss to the world.

I just couldn’t read it. Unusual for me but I’d read a couple of sentences, seen his beautiful face and felt destroyed by his terrible life and death

It's horrible. I can't stop thinking about Sebastian.

I was just reading about Frankie Smith MissA, even after her case was reviewed under the unduly lenient sentencing review, she only got 12 years. For utterly catastrophic and unsurvivable injuries to a 16 month old baby.