This is shocking

I agree that social workers can be naive. I remember reading once that any social worker dealing with children should be a parent themselves. I totally agree with this. Having children gives you vital experience and insight. Many parents are so plausible and social workers can be taken in by their stories.

Sharon shoesmith is the line manager who was sacked on prime ministers question time by Ed Balls. Appealed and got a 6 figure compensation sum and her job back

Chocolatelovinggran

Whingey, I have no idea who Sharon Shoesmith is or what her face is like, but did you read my post?
Parents and carers abuse and kill their children. They cover up very well. The story that started this thread made no mention of any SW having any knowledge of what was happening in this dreadful cult.
The judiciary in my example overruled the social workers, with fatal results.
So - why is it their fault?

Yes! A bit more support for social workers would go a long way. The judiciary isn’t always right but it thinks it is. Therein lies a problem.

Whingey, I have no idea who Sharon Shoesmith is or what her face is like, but did you read my post?
Parents and carers abuse and kill their children. They cover up very well. The story that started this thread made no mention of any SW having any knowledge of what was happening in this dreadful cult.
The judiciary in my example overruled the social workers, with fatal results.
So - why is it their fault?

Remember Sharon Shoesmith on TV news. Told a reporter we can't stop parents killing their children and stamped off with a face like a smacked arse

Once again an account of abuse of children becomes a rant against social workers.
No part of the report suggested that social workers were informed of the terrible things happening to these young people, but the blame lies with them.
Whingey has an anecdote to relay about a neighbour, and tells us that all SW are lazy and need to be sacked.
I can do anecdotes, too.
Professionally, I was involved with a family where eight children ( three families) were removed from their mother's care.
We had the younger ones, being cared for by Dad and his parents.
Child four, when a teenager, repeatedly ran back to mum, and , against SW advice was returned to her mother, with a raft of caveats. In a few months she was dead.

Only found out I had a social worker next door when I went to the corner shop and taxi driver handed a briefcase to my 14 year old boy. Wasn't even locked! She had men in and out all the time and they all hit her 4 year old daughter

I am really shocked.

I live in the area where the Jesus People (as they were known here when we first came to this area, before they rebranded as the Jesus Army) were founded,
My children were at school with their children, and although it was widely rumoured that the young adults that they conscripted, for want of a better word, on the streets and put to work in their many businesses, were little more than slave labour, it never crossed my mind that the children of families that we knew within this brotherhood might be at any more risk of sexual abuse than any other children.

Those members of the Jesus Army that I knew personally were families, and probably middle-ranking or higher in the hierarchy - I wonder if that meant that their children were less likely to be victims of abuse at the hands of others in their community. For their sake, I hope so.

The article doesn't actually say that victims were being abused by their parents. I can't say it didn't happen because, sadly, it can happen anywhere, but in their shared houses, it feels more likely to me that the abuse came other community members rather than family.

I'm not sure how social workers could have helped unless someone actually reported abuse or suspected abuse. Without such reports, then surely they would have had no more reason to investigate the Jesus Army than to investige you or me.

It is so sad that children anywhere are subjected to such abuse.

Social workers do not make decisions alone, they have line managers who have managers, ad nauseum, to whom they report. There is regular liaison with police, health and education and other authorities.
Where there is any concern case conferences take place, with all agencies involved with the family attending, parents are usually invited. Decisions are then made and agreed by those present. . Courts can also be involved if appropriate which decide about children’s wellbeing.

I know because I worked in safeguarding for 20 years. It can’t have changed that much since I was forced to retire due to a physical attack by an angry man twice my size who subsequently served a prison sentence.

I loved my job and did my very best but would not encourage anyone considering this poorly paid much maligned stressful career because of what happened to me and while I know mistakes can be made, it’s not the decision of just one lowly social worker. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Yes, it is the parents, or more often mother and biyfriend who abuse children, but time after time the abuse should have been discovered long before the child was killed but Social Workers allowed themselves to be fobbed off by excuses from parents why the child could not be seen, worried families have rung Social Services, only to have their concerns dismissed, teachers as well have expressed concerns about children and been ignored.

Social workers should not be in their jobs if they constantly let a cholds carers, often attrociously manipulative, pull the wool over their eyes so many times.

I do not deny that being a Social Worker is a hard job, but that is no excuse for what so often seems to be incompetency.

nanna8 I couldn't agree more. Naive indeed at times, this naivety has caused four years of battling by my son to clear his name and gain more access to his daughter.
His ex has reported him twice to SWs for very trivial reasons.
No action to be taken. It's all nonsense. Maybe one day he will get an apology but I doubt it.

What really annoys me is when social workers get blamed for the abuse when it is clearly the parents and/ or caregivers who are at fault. Some people can be very charming and lovely on the outside but underneath they may be pure evil. Unfortunately many social workers are from stable middle class backgrounds and can be a bit naive. I saw this when I was working, not so much child abuse but other forms of abuse and lies on the part of those we were trying to help.

Social workers do have an almost impossible job, but I almost lost my grandson thanks in no small part to their incompetence.

The majority of children who are sexually abused are abused by close family members in their own homes.
Social workers have an impossible job, blamed when they do something and blamed when they don’t.

Yes, sadly, if many children each year are killed by their parents, perhaps we ought to be complaining about the state of parenthood in this country, rather than social services.
However vilified, social workers do not kill, abuse or neglect children; it is their caregivers who do that, often covering their tracks with great care.

Children are abused and people blame SWs? My personal experience is they are just too thin on the ground to do their job. We need more, obviously.

The Jesus Army were disbanded years ago but I remember them well, they were everywhere at one time!

Paedophiles will always operate in these arenas, often just under the radar.

Cults are secretive and controlling. I just listened to a BBC Sounds podcast called Servants and Saints in the crime next door series.

We have to be alert to what may be happening under our own noses and not dismiss the voices of children.

I dont think social workers have been useless for decades, it's really tarring a few with same brush. There simply are not enough resources to do a half decent job. Not enough time to adequately visit and assess, co-ordinate with other agencies. Pretty thankless task when you then get blamed.

Well Whingey I'm not sure that " sacking lazy " social workers would have a positive effect on outcomes for children
My professional experience of SW was that they worked hard and were almost universally vilified.

Whingey

With a 22 billion hole in finances and the fact that social workers have been useless for decades let childrens charities do it. Sharon Shoesmiths book learning from baby P says 4 children are killed by parents every week. Sack the lazy lot of them

Shocking statistic. A bit harsh to tar all social workers with the same brush, but I do take your point.

I saw a mother take her shoe off and threaten her tiny toddler with it the other day. Toddler was in a pram and looked terrified, all he had done was take his hat off.

I didn't intervene this time, as last time I did all I got was abuse and pitying looks from passers by. It made me want to cry.

This is truly shocking, when I first started reading it I thought it must be in another country, not right here in plain sight.

Phillipa Barnes is a brave woman. That photo of her as a child is very sad, even though she is beautifully dressed and feeding the ducks, she looks pale, drawn and anxious. Poor children.

Evil masquerading under the cloak of religion again.

With a 22 billion hole in finances and the fact that social workers have been useless for decades let childrens charities do it. Sharon Shoesmiths book learning from baby P says 4 children are killed by parents every week. Sack the lazy lot of them

Another horrible story about sexual abuse linked to a cult .

It seems to me that abuse in varying forms is no rare occurrence .

I travel regularly on public transport and I often see children , who look malnourished - pale with dark circles around their eyes and thin inadequately dressed on a cold day and are absolutely terrified of their parents usually their mother.

On one occasion , I witnessed a women threatening to throw her son off the train ,another time I was left with a toddler in a pushchair when her mother got off, I saw a two years old repeatedly knocked to the ground at Waterloo Station ,the toddler called f-----g c--t by her mother over and over again ....

If this is how they are treated in public -what is done to them in private ?

I've reported many incidences .

I feel that our society is failing these children .

Sadly, it is not uncommon. There is a very high incidence of child abuse in these cult like religious organisations where members go and live together in communities, often with very little contact with the outside world.

As we have discovered in recent years child abuse, physical and sexual, occurs in almost any organisation where adults have authority over children and are trusted. Religions, schools, social care, scouts, guides and other youth organisation, but it seems to be particularly common with religious cults.

There was a report in the last few days of another big religious cult in, I think, the USA, where it has been found that sexual abuse started with the leader and was widespread.