Little Arthur

One of the problems of social work is that everyone thinks they could do the job better, without really having any understanding of what the job is.

Exactly. Strangely enough, those same people get all worked up about the 'nanny state' too

Germanshepherdsmum just two points.

I have worked in both the public and private sectors as a social worker. The best practice was undoubtedly in the public sector. The type of training provided, and the concerns of the CEO in the private sector were aimed at maximising profits for the shareholders, in one case a Canadian private pension scheme. They never came close to the people we worked with or made any attempt to understand the nature of the work. I felt ashamed that I had ever sold out by taking that particular job.

The Director of Children’s Services in Solihull, who has come in for a great deal of criticism on here, was not a social worker but a ‘professional manager’ who had held a series of different management jobs. It doesn’t seem to have worked out too well in this case. I have had managers in the past who were not social work trained and we were never on the same page - very frustrating for both of us. One of the problems of social work is that everyone thinks they could do the job better, without really having any understanding of what the job is.

Looking at the photo of the awful bruise on little Arthur’s shoulder which his grandmother reported to social services, it’s utterly beyond me how they arrived at the conclusion it was a ‘happy’ home. And Covid was cited as one of the reasons the ongoing abuse was missed - was this meant to excuse there being no follow up visits ? I think until there’s a complete overhaul of the working practices involved with child services, this will inevitably happen again. What’ll be their excuse for failure next time I wonder ? When I heard the pitiful recordings it just floored me - it must also have been traumatising for everyone involved in the trial.

GillT57

... children's homes are now mainly in the private sector and there have been many disturbing reports of inadequately trained staff, dreadful safeguarding lapses and the prices charged to over stretched local authorities are eye watering

One report (forget where I read it now) said that homes run by equity-holding groups can cost up to £250,000 per year, and that they make £millions in profits. Unsurprisingly, very few children are placed in them.

Of course, safeguarding lapses, inadequately trained staff, etc, can all happen in the public sector, and it'd be foolish to put on rose-tinted specs and think otherwise.

I suppose it all comes down to ideology and I share your view that there are some services that simply should not be privatised. The privatisation of the probation service is a good example.

But you won't sway anyone who believes that privatisation is the right route to provide essential services. That's a fact.

My apologies, I meant to say that we can’t blame everything (not anything) on budget cuts.

Of course there are good and effective social workers (sadly I didn’t meet them) but there is absolutely no accountability to anyone but another social worker, the head of department, who may have been promoted beyond her capabilities - we have seen instances of a head of department who presided over a scandalous case getting a headship with another local authority, where history repeats itself. This lack of accountability spreads across all local government departments and it astounded me. It’s almost like a secret club run on taxpayers’ money. So long as social work remains a public sector remit then what I have always called the public sector mentality, because I saw so much of it, will mean that nothing changes. What I encountered in local government would not have been countenanced in the private sector. There
are not-for-profit organisations in the private sector but personally I wouldn’t object to share dividends, or bonuses to reward results, if it meant that we got away from this vicious circle of enquiries into children’s deaths, the ‘learning of lessons’ and then it all happening again. The social workers need professional managers who of course understand the job, but are not themselves, or have been, social workers. The sort of professionally qualified managers who work, and get results, in the private sector.

As a foster parent back in the 1970's and 80's for two East London boroughs, I dealt with a lot of Social workers. Back then we foster parents did not receive any salary or pay - just out of pocket expenses covering the children who came to live with us for short of longer periods.

Always a shortage of foster parents, but we all got so much satisfaction of what we did then. Over the years I had some forty babies as temporary part of my family, two stayed, one for the rest of his life and one for 13 years. We did fall foul of the new ruling which stopped black children being fostered in white families. whereas, I think this on the whole was a good policy, I strongly objected at the time as this meant the removal of a child in his early teens who had been with us since he was sic months old.

Most Social Workers I dealt with over the year were great people, seriously dedicated to their jobs and doing the best they could, usually under extremely difficult circumstances, They provided good role models.

As policy changed to try to keep children in the home with their bioligical family, their jobs often became even harder. Blood is not always thicker, etc...and finances usually mean that proper, support services are just not possible.

Not sure about the amount of money that Foster Parents receive these days, do worry if it may encourage people to do it for tis payment rather than out of love of children.

germanshepherdsmum*, I am pretty sure that my g.daughter would refuse to work in a privatised system, just as her mother has always remained within the NHS. Often 'headhunted' for high wages by the private section she has always refused.

About the most important part of her work is the feeling that she is genuinely serving society, not providing profits for some faceless bosses!!!

I would whole-heartedly vote for privatising social work and hiring effective managers. I appreciate your frustration GSM, local authorities in every department, from planning to child protection and everything inbetween can be very frustrating to work with, and no doubt many are indecisive and hide behind box ticking and rules, but the rules are there for a purpose, for protection of employees and of clients. I totally disagree however with your proposal that social work should be privatised, my reasons are many, but without going into a lengthy list; children's homes are now mainly in the private sector and there have been many disturbing reports of inadequately trained staff, dreadful safeguarding lapses and the prices charged to over stretched local authorities are eye watering. The privatisation of the probation service was such a disaster that there was a very swift u-turn. Some things, like health, education, safety are a human right and cannot be just seen as an item on a balance sheet, let alone a profit for shareholders.

Funding has been cut across the board, but if someone in my care had 140 odd injuries, I sure as hell wouldn't let it go.

GSM (handy abbreviation, that)

We cannot blame anything on funding cuts. It's a handy excuse. The private sector finds a way to get things done when there is a downturn in revenue. It's called efficiency and employing the right people.

If funding cuts mean that we cannot afford to employ x number of social workers when the caseloads demand them, then we can certainly bring it into the equation.
I have a fairly dim view of the way the guidelines are being interpreted by SWs and these problems existed before the cuts to social services, but to insist that budget cuts have no effect whatsoever is rather obtuse.

What we need are social workers who can think for themselves, not blindly follow guidelines which have been proved to have fatal results. Social workers who don't just left a child's t-shirt and find one ageing bruise, but who proceed to look for more.

We cannot blame anything on funding cuts. It's a handy excuse. The private sector finds a way to get things done when there is a downturn in revenue. It's called efficiency and employing the right people.

We get the same with the elderly, with a blanket belief that older people are happier staying at home. Even if it means being stuck in a chair alone all day wearing nappies because they cannot take themselves to the toilet, and with carers rushing in for 15 minutes three times a day.

... that's always bothered me, too.

It's hard to leave 'politics' out of the issue because finance is definitely a consideration when these policies are decided.

But the failures of social services cannot entirely be blamed on budget cuts, the problem is more the 'guidelines' that they adhere to.

I once worked on a temporary basis for my local council's social services - back in the day when copy-typists were employed... long before current means of communication were available - and long before any funding cuts to the services. Reading the reports that I had to type-up were a real eye-opener. The thinking was very much along the lines (those 'guidelines') of keeping children with the parents. A fine idea in principle, but not in reality. As this case proves.

Apologies Franbern, you posted as I was (angrily) typing. I would hope that those studying to become social workers might find good positions in my brave new world privatised social services. In my experience the private sector can find ways of efficiently working to a budget. Not so in the public sector.

I have posted before about my sheer frustration at working with social workers in the 70s. With all due respect to anyone on this thread who is/was a social worker, those I worked with would be hard pushed to organise the proverbial in a brewery. Shuffling files. endless case conferences and going round in circles. I apologise for repeating this. Again with respect to public sector workers I found similar inactivity in other departments I worked with. I moved to the private sector and though the demands were much greater, the hours much longer and I didn’t get that wonderful pension so many were just hanging on for, I found activity, decision making and accountability. Shuffling papers was not an option. I would whole-heartedly vote for privatising social work and hiring effective managers.

This continual knocking at Social Workers does a lot of harm at many levels.
One of my g.daughters is currently at Uni studying for her Social Work Degree - she has stated that she will probably want to specialise in Children's Services when she qualifies. She does know and understand what she is letting herself in for. Her (single parent), Mother has worked for the past thirty odd years in NHS Mental Health and is under more pressure at work at present than she can ever remember anytime in the past. Total re-organisation of that service (declared two years ago, pre-pandemic), is still having to keep t that time-table despite, far fewer staff and far higher case loads. Some tragedy there is going to hit the media headlines soon, and people will fail to understand the real reasons behind it. Cuts, cuts and more cuts!!!!

I am wondering how many of those students at Uni at present training as Social Workers may be having a re-think about their future careers as they read all the SW bashing going on in the media. After all, none of them are going into this career for the money!!!

Tickingbird, IMO It’s impossible to discuss the devastation of public services that contribute to the difficulties in child protection without acknowledging the impact of severe cuts to all the agencies involved,

MOnica, I agree with your concerns that some share the belief that children must remain in their families no matter what. It’s also clear that investigation, work towards change and decision making for children must be in the child’s timescale. That needs well trained, highly skilled, experienced social workers. They need clinical supervision and to work closely with health visitors, midwives, teachers, police, community drug/alcohol workers to name a few. In the 80’s and 90’s thst model of working was being developed in some l.a. areas. Then came austerity.
I’m not disputing that poor decision making is central when things go horribly wrong.

Germanshepherdsmum

Please read my post again Iam. It talks of those intent on keeping families together even when there is cruelty to the children. I have no knowledge of that being the case with Arthur.

I’ve re-read germanshepherd’s mum, apologies for attributing the quote to you.

Well said Monica. Also to all the Tory bashers please stick to the political threads if that’s all you can contribute to this thread.

Social Services performed exactly the same under a Labour government so please just leave politics out of this one.

While funding is clearly a problem, Social Services do have a habit of announcing some guiding principle and then applying it to every case regardless.

With children it is a blind belief that familys should be kept together, no matter what. Even if that is the case, this does not mean that the child/ren cannot be removed from the home on a temporary basis and what does it say about our Social Services that someone can effectively write that it is better to leave a child in an abusive home because the care home expereine could be even nore damaging!

There are too many stories of children not taken from homes and found new families until they are so damaged emotionally that they are damaged for life and where loving and determined adoptive families have to retun these children to specialised care because they are so disruptive.

We get the same with the elderly, with a blanket belief that older people are happier staying at home. Even if it means being stuck in a chair alone all day wearing nappies because they cannot take themselves to the toilet, and with carers rushing in for 15 minutes three times a day.

This case may have hit the headlines but we should remember the other children who have suffered, apparently 28 die every year by the hands of their carers, which is more than one a week. Only a short while ago a young black woman went partying for three or four days leaving her toddler ALONE to die of starvation. Some people seem to have no understanding or empathy for helpless children at all.

GillT57 Oliver Dowden was on TV Friday morning claiming that the govt had just announced £300 million for Social Services. But they have cut £1.7 billion from the budget since 2010. The govt can't or won't find the money for such an essential service but could find £37 billion for Dido Harding's useless test and trace.

Why on earth is anybody still voting for the Tories?

Please read my post again Iam. It talks of those intent on keeping families together even when there is cruelty to the children. I have no knowledge of that being the case with Arthur.

I agree wholeheartedly with tickinbird's comments. No excuses. Things need to change and fast.

(This is nothing to do with this case, but I remember so well when I was doing my degree, we did research into the Probation Service, and I cannot remember what era it was now but it was exactly the same attitude, the Probation Service vehemently refusing to recognise that changes were necessary).

I just hope this turns out differently and Social Services and other Agencies involved see things need to change. Unfortunately, the lovely sweet little Arthur is gone. Heartbreakingly sad.

“Do gooders”, what on earth is that supposed to mean in the case of this little boy?
Yes residential care isn’t the best option for any child. Yes there’s a shortage of foster and adoptive parents.
This is t the place to detail the emotional and behavioural difficulties so many children in care have

There was a reference on one of the threads yesterday to ‘do gooders ’. I think that phrase would fit the people trying to keep families together when there is clear evidence of cruelty to children. Heads in the clouds - until they’re involved in an ending like this. I agree that children’s homes aren’t ideal, and there have certainly been some horror stories. It’s a crying shame that there is a shortage of foster homes and that adoption seems to be incredibly difficult.