Rotherham Child Abuse

All of these issues need to be considered but I reiterate that the reason these children were let down was not because of any fault of individual social workers but of a system that was not just inadequate but corrupt. I fear Rotherham is not unique.

Social workers and police officers very quickly learn to discuss sexual matters without embarrassment Flickety. The councillors might struggle with it, I agree.

The police were always very good at offering peer support and de-briefing to help them deal with the distressing nature of their job, but social services much less so. When I worked in child protection it was expected that I would go out on an abuse investigation and return straight to the duty desk to carry on with other calls. It does take a toll after a while.

I respect your post FB but I have to say I don't agree.

Believe me there is nothing a police officer will not have seen or heard during the course of their working life and if they find sexual issues 'uncomfortable' they should not be in the job.

Good points, FlicketyB.

I think a major factor, even in this sexually explicit age, is that far too many people, particularly men are uncomfortable around matters of sex, other than in very limited circumstances, look at the figures given of the number of parents who still feel uncomfortable talking to their own children on the subject, let alone addressing the subject of sexual crime and intimidation. Locker room jokes will still include jokes about underage girls.

The fact of the matter is that both police officers and social workers felt personally uncomfortable approaching these subjects and dealing with themselves, let alone, the almost exclusively male councillors with no experience or training on the subject. Instinct would be to dismiss, and downplay the topic and blame the girls for what was happening to them to protect themselves from areas where they were not comfortable..

This is neither an excuse nor a mitigation. This kind of work is part of social worker's and policemen's jobs and what ever their reason for shying away from the issue, it is dereliction of duty, but I think when both groups are being trained simply having training courses on the subject is not enough, there needs to be counselling or psychological support to address their personal lack of comfort in dealing honestly with the subject of deviant and criminal sex.

POGS, I believe in at least one case it wasn't just a threat of murder, one girl was actually murdered and her body was thrown in a canal. Allegedly for bringing shame on her killer's family. I believe this 17 year old girl had a child by this vile individual and had been in touch with his parents.

I am certainly no fan of Yasmin Adibhai Brown but she did an interview with the BBC News today and for once I totally agree with her. I think she wrote an article in the Daily Mail at the time the Rotherham story broke ages ago saying pretty much the same as todays interview.

Basically she said that she is known for hating all things racist but in this instance she has to speak out as this particular case IS all about Asian culture and the fact that some Asian males do consider white girls as 'trailer trash', her words not mine. She clearly said this is widely known throughout the Asian community but now is the time for it to stop. She said many things that would be uncomfortable for some to hear but I think she would be defiant if anybody called her racist for saying the truth as she firmly believes what she says and I take my hat off to her for having the guts to speak up.

It is said by some that paedophiles are mostly white. Who says so?

When a paedophile ring is found out and they are white, have you ever heard anybody say "Well Chinese, black and Asian men do it too". No, why, because we all know that paedophilia doesn't share the same colour of skin, wealth, intelligence. politics or faith. That's why it can never be racist to say in this particular case it was a paedophile ring of Asian men who raped, threatened with murder and other horrible things to girls who were white or from their ethnic background but not their faith.

What I am now getting quite angry about is the fact the filthy /#-1\'s that have caused the lives of so many girls to be ruined are not even being mentioned, the story is all about the police, social services and the council. Well there is also the side to the story that people like YAB are trying to raise but no doubt it will be too hot to go down that road, THAT's WHY THE FILTHY \0-@-^'s GOT AWAY WITH IT FOR SO LONG. There must be accountability by the services involved but the community must look in on itself too.

I think there are many people who should hang their head in shame but please let's not forget the men who were so vile to those poor children they have hardly had a look in by the media.

Even more laughable when, were it not so tragic. If he had any decency he would keep his head down.

Interesting article thatbags. Forgive me if I don't pay much credence to the thoughts of a psychiatrist about a profession that he clearly does not understand ('vague and grandiose' - seems to describe psychiatry very well to me).

However my main criticism is that what he is describing is a style of social work that no longer exists. The practice of 30 years ago is dead and buried. Talking of social workers having great empathy and trying to do good is sadly laughable. That's not to say that there are not some practitioners who still hold on to those values but they are few and far between and these are not the values that are deemed essential or even important to good practice. Nowadays it is tick boxes, targets and timescales. There is no measure of quality of practice, however that might be measured.

The failures of social work in Rotherham have nothing to do with social workers who 'excel at empathy' but have an 'inability to carry out coherently planned action' and everything to do with the increasing bureaucratisation of the work, transforming it to nothing more than social policing in action, together with an agenda from political leaders that has nothing to do with social work.

Social work, when practised well is indeed an art and not a science. That doesn't mean there can never be any rigorous research to measure what interventions work well and there is far more of this than there was 30 years ago. However, one can never remove the effect of the individual practitioner and this is where the artistry comes into it. One recognises skilful practice when one sees it, but it is almost impossible to break this down into its constituent parts. I have seen many excellent social workers during my career. I have taken parts of their practice and tried to absorb them into my own. But I would never expect that they could have taught me 'how to do social work' any more than I would expect Leonardo da Vinci to teach me how to reproduce the Mona Lisa.

bags that article by Colin Brewer. Is that retired psychiatrist Colin Brewer who was struck off the medical register after 14 counts of gross misconduct in drug treatment including the death of a patient? Appears to be.

Now for a shocking fact- shameful indeed. In Switzerland, prostitution is legal from the age of .... 16. So becoming a prostitute at that age is seen as a 'lifestyle choice'- often linked to poor self-esteem, drugs, alcohol, broken family, etc, etc. The Left here is fighting to change the law- but the Right talks about 'the right to choose (: despicable.

Manchester has a similar team, Safe in the City. Vulnerable girls, at risk of, or being, sexually exploited were referred to the scheme, and cases closed by sw teams despite the obvious child protection concerns. "making lifestyle choices" indeed! Sw were more case managers, than case workers. Work the family sw should have done with the family, all too often delegated to non statutory projects.

Thanks for the link, bags. What's worse is that the report makes it crystal clear that one project, Risky Business, was doing a good job with the victims but wasn't part of social services so was hampered at every turn and was finally taken over. Been there, done that. Professional protectionism and bureaucratic megalomania.

Apparently not Terribull but here is what Denis Macshane has to say about the situation. Of course he is now disgraced after falsely claiming expenses so I'm not sure how much we can believe anything he says.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rotherham-sex-abuse-disgraced-ex-mp-4118695

I grew up in Rotherham and my dad always said that the Labour Party could put up a monkey for election and he would get in. Although my dad was a Labour Party member he didn't think this was a good thing. Seems many people took advantage of this state of affairs.

Some of the girls' parents did their best to get help for their daughters, and were let down by the police and social services. I wonder if any of them approached their MP, and if so, what response they got.

Social workers will not like this

I hope this Twitter link will work. Mark Williams Thomas has put the link for the full independent inquiry report on his Twitter thread about 24 hours ago. The introduction explains how Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) was not understood in terms of coordinated intervention in Rotherham before 2009. It amazes me that CSE cases could be discussed in isolation and not in the context of organised crime.

https://twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/504351935202594816

My heart is so heavy for the victims of this crime, that seems to be wide spread not just in Rotherham but in many towns and city's across our country, the innocence of our youth has and is being destroyed at the hands of the most depraved and sickest, the police, social services have let every single one of them down, they have given the green light to the filth to not only commit these crimes, but to carry on and spread far and wide, they should be made accountable and be forced to step down, with no golden hand shake, (baby p) I've heard there are people congregating outside Rotherham police station demanding resignations, and the the offices of social and have been there since lunch time, I have also been told that the staff from social services were looking out of the windows and laughing WHERE IS THERE SHAME?? I hope many more wil join them outside and bring as much publicity as possible, child abuse, is child abuse, at least there are a few who are prepared to stand up and give these children a voice

This kind of investigation does need well trained, and supervised staff, from police and social work WB.

I haven't yet read the report. My question is, has a team if police/social work/health professionals ever been set up in Rotherham, to work specifically on this kind of organised abuse of children. It's clear multi agency meetings took place, but did they simply share information and agree it seemed an impossible task? That seems to have been the approach, put it on the "too hard" list, so far as senior police and sw managers go. Those on the ground have tried repeatedly to raise it. I've been in that position, and it's awful.
The police do have specialist teams working with domestic and sexual/other offences against children. 4 years ago, they didn't have teams specialising in organised abuse like this. They do work closely with sw teams where concerns arise about groups of people suspected of sharing children to abuse. I've been involved in a some of that work, and my question is if it didn't happen in Rotherham, why not. It's clear the issue we're discussing was widely known about in sw and police circles, and that councillors had been informed. Did they continue to operate on a single case by case basis. If so, that's truly shocking.
Thanks to when and night owl for their posts. I share night owls view that sw with the training and experience to work in this difficult area are vanishingly rare. One nearby authority has children and families teams where 80% of the staff are in their post qualification year.

Sadly grannytwice you are right, there is a lack of understanding of how women and children are treated, and the titillation in the celebrity press doesnt help. However, people who are paid to look after the interests of children, women, all of us, surely dont need training in this? I dont need to read a manual or attend a course to know what is right or wrong?

Well said!

Actually WB - sadly lots of people still need training that sexually abusing children is wrong as is domestic violence and rape even if the woman is drunk. And its not enough just to castigate the public sector - the gutter red top press feeds into the sexualisation of children and denigration of certsin types of women. There's been comments on GN about some of the girls 'asking for it', knowing ' what they doing' on the celeb sex abuse threads.

Race is an irrelevance, as is religion, gender, nationality. The law has been broken many many times here, and if any body who works in the public sector be they Police, Social Services, Teachers or whatever, says that training is needed then they are in the wrong job. Nobody needs training to know that sexually assaulting a child is wrong. Cultural respect goes two ways, and I for one am sick of all this apologetic respect of culture nonsense. I understand that a few women within the Asian community were aware of these awful things going on, but as they were unable to speak to a Police officer on their own, without one of these bloody self appointed (male elderly) community leaders present, nothing could be reported. These community leaders are culpable too for if they are the all knowing omnipotent people they believe themselves to be they must have known what was going on, even if they only heard rumours. If they did, and failed to report it, they too are guilty. Not only of sexual offences, but of obstructing justice, harbouring criminals, and of racist crimes. I am sorry if I am raving and rambling, but like many on here I am incandescent with rage, not just about what has happened, but about he fact that it was allowed to happen. I seriously despair of our elected representatives. All I have heard so far is people distancing themselves from it, saying they werent there at the time

NICE!! GT.

Well Nonu FYI one of the points in the report is the failure of the authorities to communicate at all with the wider Pakistani community and of course in particular its women. So yes she would say that wouldn't she?