Logan Mwangi

I really hope that SWs will be recognised and paid properly because children are suffering in the current situation. It’s no use constantly having inquiries about why a certain child died. We need to spend that money and more on better training and more SWs. Children are dying because this is not happening.

Dinahmo, thank you for posting.

SWs can hardly be blamed for leaving the profession. There have always been children murdered by their carers sadly, but is it just me? Has this number increased? We simply won’t reduce these horrific events until we get to grip with the crisis in SW. More SWs are desperately needed. Better and more empathetic training for SWs is needed too. That is empathetic training to the trainee SWs because this job is often harrowing and people need support to cope with it.

What is so tragic is that all these little children were failed not only by society and the so-called support networks, but they were also betrayed in the most awful ways by the people they should have been able to trust the most. Their parents -their protectors (supposedly) - let them down in the most appalling way; we can only begin to imagine the fear experienced by each of those little victims when they realised their parents were in fact their aggressors. It is truly simultaneously haunting and heart-breaking.

I remember when I was teaching, at the time, in the nursery class in my school. Those were children in their pre school year, not babies as it was a school. There was a little boy who one morning gave me a graphic description of what his step father had done to him the night before (sexual abuse.) Our safeguarding leader was out of school for the day, and so I rang the SW myself and explained the situation. The family were known to the SSs. I had to make several calls because the SW responsible for the family was on holiday and the duty SW was engaged with another problem. Anyway I did manage to get in touch eventually but by then I’d had to send the child home, to possibly be abused again. The SW came out to the school to see me and I wept as I explained that I felt I had failed the child as I’d had to send him home to be abused again. The SW was lovely, she said I’d done my best, and she did her best too. She informed the police, who visited the home that evening and questioned the family and the child. He was four years old, and according to police was unable to give a proper account of what had happened to him (although it was perfectly clear to me.) He was left at home. That child never came back to school. He was registered elsewhere, and I did contact the school and tell them my concerns. I done know what happened subsequently.
Parents abuse children. Not SWs. There are insufficient SWs and that’s why it took me the whole day to manage to contact one and speak to one, but that SW responded immediately and acted. We both failed that child.

That's a tragic story, Maddyone, but you did as much as you could, as did the SW.

Neither of you failed the child - the system did, and that's what needs fixing.

Maddyone - that’s a heart breaking story, no wonder it stayed with you. I don’t know when it happened but I’m sure you do. In the 90’s the memorandum of good practice, later best evidence came in. Any information such as the little one shared with you should have led to a multi agency police/social work/the teacher who took the first comments - shared info, other children in the family, planning for investigation and roles agreed.
It sounds as though the police acted with blue light rather than the careful investigation/planning needed. Awful

You didn’t fail the child, the system did - again x