Logan Mwangi

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dinahmo, thank you for posting.

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.

Curlywhirly

M0nica

Curlywhirly in several recent cases parents and neighbours were reporting their fears and knowledge to Social Services and doing the other things you mention, but nobody took any notice of them.

Sadly this seems to be happening more and more. However, I'd be like a dog with a bone if it was my neighbour's child. I would get my local Councillor involved (having worked in Local Government all my life, I can tell you that usually gets Chief Officers attention, they don't half move if a Councillor gets involved), write to my MP, shout it from the Town Hall steps, anything to make the authorities re-visit the situation - I just couldn't let it lie.

Those actions don't help the people who actually have to do the work. There are too many cases of child abuse (and adult abuse) and not enough SWs to go around.

My niece is a social worker specialising in child care. She left the service for a variety of reasons and now works on a freelance basis doing assessments prior to court cases. The SWs are underpaid, over worked and poorly supported.

It’s not SWs who abuse the children, it’s the parents/step parents. The social workers can only work within the constraints of the job and unfortunately because of inadequate funding, children cannot be removed soon enough. That’s the nub of the problem.

MaizieD

MissAdventure

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

OK. Understaffing has nothing at all to do with poor practice... I get it ?

I despair that so many say they shed tears for these children, talk about the revenge they’d like to take on the 3 responsible for murdering this little child, yet have no interest in why 2 children each week die at the hands of their carers

I haven’t read if this child was being monitored by SS and if so for what reasons ?
I m sure it is the father 14 year old son 3nanny6 but as far as I m aware it hasn’t been made public knowledge that he is related although it certainly sticks out like a sore thumb that he is and was perhaps the instigator of the beating
What did that beautiful little boy ever do to deserve even one hit let alone the massive beating he took
I firmly believe in life meaning life.for these vicious, vicious people and that includes the 14 year old

M0nica

Curlywhirly in several recent cases parents and neighbours were reporting their fears and knowledge to Social Services and doing the other things you mention, but nobody took any notice of them.

Sadly this seems to be happening more and more. However, I'd be like a dog with a bone if it was my neighbour's child. I would get my local Councillor involved (having worked in Local Government all my life, I can tell you that usually gets Chief Officers attention, they don't half move if a Councillor gets involved), write to my MP, shout it from the Town Hall steps, anything to make the authorities re-visit the situation - I just couldn't let it lie.

I remember when this case first happened and then it was the three of them that were accused of murdering that innocent little child.
That disgusting thing that does not even have the right to call herself a mother I hope the jail sentence is long and she rots in
hell forever tortured for the part she played in his death. Her partner and step father to the child I hope the same for him let him rot. The fourteen year old is the biological son of the step father he sounds a vicious depraved psycho and he should be locked up for long time.
All punishment is too good for them they are loathsome filthy scum of the earth not fit for any compassion or anything else. Wrap their bodies up in plastic and have them dumped right out at sea with no chance of survival dump them like rubbish which is what they done to that poor little boy.

I haven’t read the details of this case and I’m not sure I want to, though I remember the wee boy going missing.

My dd runs services for schools in a LA in Scotland and during lockdown she and her team managed to keep tabs on almost all their At Risk children, getting them into school and making sure they were fed and generally keeping them safe.

Unbelievably, her council was then taken to task and criticised by the Scottish government for spending too much money on these children! I cannot tell you how angry that made my daughter. She was working 17 hour days at the start of the pandemic to keep ‘her’ children safe and especially the vulnerable ones and then to be sh*t upon by our esteemed (not by me) leaders was just extraordinary.

No wonder these poor children die. ?

Agree, disagree, roll your eyes.
No skin off my nose.
I work in a sector that is chronically understaffed and underpaid.

I don't abuse anybody though, and I know the signs to be aware of.
Standard practice.

mumofmadboys

I don't think it is fair to say the buck stops with social workers and to blame them. They are often doing their best with heavy caseloads and of course we don't learn of their successes, only the cases that go sadly wrong.

I agree. Interestingly, I have was having a discussion with a person involved in visiting children in their homes, just this very morning, and she said that due to lack of funding and properly qualified experienced staff, the bar for intervention was being lowered all the time. Filthy houses, heavy smoking parents, 'accidental' bruising were not reasons for reporting concerns, so cases like this, and of Star and Arthur would not even make the list as the children appeared to be well fed, clothed, and living in a cared for home. We blame the wrong people if we blame social workers and social care departments, we should be blaming those political parties who withdraw funding for Sure start centres, and force local authorities to lower the bar so far for referrals.

MissAdventure

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

OK. Understaffing has nothing at all to do with poor practice... I get it ?

Exactly, poor practice is very different from an understaffed, overworked agency missing a cue, or a child slipping through the net of red tape.
Sustained abuse of a child is rightly something to be questioned, and accounted for.

No one is defending poor practice. Given the views about s.w expressed here - who would encourage their child to go into the work?

I have taken note of it, and it doesn't change my opinion at all.

If a social worker is engaged with a family, then what they so in the time they spend with them can make all the difference.

Hence the services being found after investigations (usually) to have missed opportunities to protect the children.
Hence, baby P's mum being asked to write an essay about her dreams and aspirations.

The parents of children who are being abused can be very devious and possibly quite intimidating in preventing social workers actually seeing the child. Much better communication between different agencies is needed and any concerns need to be acted upon quickly. This might mean a Police Officer visiting with a social worker. Yes more resources are needed but blaming social workers or lack of resources solely for the horrific deaths of children is forgetting the actual people who committed the crime which in many cases is family members.

Take note of what Iam64 says

There is a desperate shortage of social workers, especially experienced staff.

This is a consequence of political decisions to cut Local Authority spending to the bone, and beyond. These decisions feed into people's daily lives and the deaths of vulnerable children are part of it.

Yet I wonder how many of those lamenting yet another poor child's death would be indignant about increased spending on social workers? And support parties which inflict the cuts?

I think its entirely fair to question what was done to safeguard children who are under the watch of the agency whose job it is to do just that.

I don't think it is fair to say the buck stops with social workers and to blame them. They are often doing their best with heavy caseloads and of course we don't learn of their successes, only the cases that go sadly wrong.