How could we have let Sara down so badly?

News reports are hard to find in detail but it appears we are still trying to get them returned to the UK. It's agreed they are with the grandfather but not if he has more than temporary custody. I dont know whats for the best!

The children were not protected in England

The children are British, at least one has a Polish mother. They should be returned to England, but I don’t think that will happen. I’m not sure the grandfather is a fit person to raise them since he hid his violent son and lied to the authorities about his whereabouts.

I read that to, 5 siblings

I’ve read today that Sara’s siblings are in Pakistan, living with their paternal grandfather. It seems he successfully fought the authorities there to get the children removed from state care. The children have been made Wards of Court in England. The grandfather doesn’t believe his son is responsible for Sara’s death, he blames the step mither.

My adopted grandchild was removed at birth. The mother and father were found unable to care for their first child.
Some parents, sadly, are not parent material and their children are better cared for by others.
Our little one is the centre of a loving extended family who want to offer the best childhood possible.
It seems from the evidence that Sara was not likely to have a safe and happy time with either her mother or her father.

I don't know eazybee

I do hope Dame Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner for England, is successful in her campaign.

news.sky.com/story/sara-sharif-murder-is-heartbreaking-reminder-of-profound-weaknesses-in-child-protection-13266131

This has gone on too long and I am not going to read any more.

I just wonder if this little girl has been laid to rest, buried,
cremated and if there was anyone there who truly loved her?

petal53

Certainly my grandson seems to have received a better deal. Taken into care at 14 months because of serious neglect. Adopted at two and a half by my son and his partner.
He was not living in Surrey at that time.

The sooner a child is removed from abusive or neglectful circumstances the better imo.

Obviously some parents are neglectful because they do not know how to parent and, with help, might succeed, but some are neglectful because they don't care and children of deliberately abusive parents need to be removed to safety.

Your grandson is one of the fortunate ones.

Certainly my grandson seems to have received a better deal. Taken into care at 14 months because of serious neglect. Adopted at two and a half by my son and his partner.
He was not living in Surrey at that time.

I know, the more I find out about it the more sick and angry I feel.

Exactly how I feel foxie.

Don’t worry foxie, I hadn’t even noticed.

Thank for providing the timeline of Sara’s life. Whichever way we look at it, it remains my position that this little girl was seriously failed by the authorities whose job it was to protect her. That much is evident from the timeline. I cannot, and will not ever be able to understand why this child was placed with her violent father, nor why the father was not charged by the police for his almost identical violence towards three different women.
The failings are serious and no doubt this will emerge with the publication of the inevitable inquiry.

I know, the more I find out the more sick and angry I feel. Where on earth was the continuity required to understand what was happening in this family? Clearly there were records of contact and concerns but was anyone reading them? Surrey Social Services was recognised as being inadequate in 2018, it was evidently inadequate long before that. This is taken from an inspection:

Frontline managers and social workers do not routinely analyse family histories and the negligible impact of earlier phases of help. This results in children experiencing continued neglectful parenting, often including exposure to domestic abuse.
The quality of assessment, planning and reviewing for children who are on statutory child in need or child protection plans is too weak.
The understanding and application of thresholds by external agencies is poor, resulting in too many unnecessary low-level contacts and referrals, and overloading social workers in the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH).
Managers at all levels, including child protection chairs, do not carefully and rigorously evaluate the progression of children’s plans.
Many of these children experience considerable delay in the pre-care, public law outline (PLO) phase of proceedings.
Many children experience lasting harm and arrive in care too late. Some children experience delays in early placement planning, and a large majority do not undergo timely initial health assessments.
Early permanence planning for children who could be looked after for longer periods is too inconsistent, meaning that a small number arrive in permanent long-term homes later than they should.
Older children looked after aged 16 years and over do not have sufficient support from personal advisers, working alongside their social workers, to construct clear pathway plans.
Personal advisers working with young people who have left care are overstretched, meaning they cannot meet all the commitments they make.

www.willispalmer.com/ofsted-rates-surrey-inadequate/

foxie48 Sat 14-Dec-24 15:13:45

Quite honestly, it just beggars belief!
😡😢

Thanks foxie.

As I understand it, it's not the Head's job to follow up on any child protection concern, it's the job of the head to report it and it is followed up by a qualified social worker from Social Services. What I'm unsure about is how much information a head is given by social services with regard to a child who has been subject to a protection order. My own experience suggests that information regarding a child is considered confidential within an agency but perhaps someone else knows the answer.

Jeanathome

But foxie, with respect, all this form filling and box ticking doesn't seem to be working? DBS is money making venture.

It goes a lot further than DBS checks, that's part of it of course tbh I think DBS checks can be flawed but it will stop people who wouldn't pass the initial check from volunteering or applying for a job but it can be expensive. It's the training of everyone who comes into contact with children in the school, the understanding that everyone is responsible for safeguarding, knowing who to go to, to report anything that makes you question if a child is OK, logging that concern properly, knowing when and how to escalate that concern, ensuring that everyone knows who the designated lead is and for that person to have the training needed for that role etc etc. That's what I understand as good safeguarding practice and it's underpinned by record keeping so no one starts at the school and misses the training, that there is a current DBS check for everyone, also that files are kept secure and there's an annual audit to check that everything is in order. I'm not an expert on any of this, it's been a few years now since I was involved so there may have been changes but this is to the best of my knowledge.

But foxie, with respect, all this form filling and box ticking doesn't seem to be working? DBS is money making venture.

eayzbee for the record, I'm not defending the system used by Ofsted, I've gone through two harrowing inspections as COG of a school that had recently been down graded before I joined the governing board. What I was trying to do was show how seriously safe guarding is taken in schools. Perhaps you read different media to me but I commented several times to my husband that heads generally check their records carefully in the short time there is between "getting the phone call" and the inspectors arriving the next morning, because it's the very first thing that they look at and that's was not clear from the reports. For the record, most teachers I know thought it was overly punitive but no one wanted to be in the situation of the school in Soham either. I was also the governor responsible for safeguarding practice in the school, so I regularly sat down to check that records were up to date, asked staff including the catering staff etc about their responsibilities and on one occasion was involved with an issue that was escalated up to the designated safeguarding lead in the local authority (LADO) so I'm not totally ignorant of what procedures should have been followed but personally I don't think anyone knows enough to start condemning the head teacher or the staff of the school. They were in contact with the LADO and should have been receiving advice, I do wonder about the quality of that advice but hopefully that will come clear during the official independent safeguarding review.

Foxie48, thanks for the summary. It makes depressingly familiar reading to anyone who has been involved in safeguarding. I’m not attempting to diminish the level of risk Sara and her sibling lived with, until Sara was killed by her father and step mother when I say I remain convinced that most people aren’t aware of the level of abuse and neglect children experience.
The head of the family division was interviewed on radio 4 this week. He stressed that sadly, Sara’s death and the abuse she lived with, was something he was familiar with

My first team manager told me there’s a pendulum, people learn about poor outcomes for looked after children and were pushed to keep children home. Then a child is murdered by parents and we are told we take too many risks

eazybee

We have not let Sara down; it is the Authorities and most notably, the Social Services Team who spent six days 'examining her case'after the teacher reported bruising, then closed the case. I don't normally blame Social Services because i know the pressure they are under, and how manipulative some parents can be but in this case they were negligent and the child died because of it.
Sara had a case history dating from before birth; she had lived with her mother, removed to live in care, then given into the 'care' of her father, a man with a history of violence. When bruising was reported was this child even seen and medically examined? If so, previous injuries would have been identified. The past history of her father would be on file, and the point of the 'paperless office' is that documentation is available on line immediately, not hidden in files on dusty top shelves.
But the case was closed; soon the father removed her from school for 'home schooling' something else which can conceal a multitude of sins. No check was made, and he was allowed the last few weeks of Sara's life to abuse her at will with the collusion of his wife and brother.
I believe the ideology of the Social Services is also to blame. Support the family, no matter what; don't break the family bond. At case conferences, nothing like as appalling as this, the needs of the mother, or father, seem to take precedence over those of the child, and excuse after excuse is proffered in defence.
The case was supposedly discussed over six days; why were examinations and investigations not carried out.?When the family moved from a flat to another area, were the records not received by the school? Did the social worker not make contact? I have been contacted by social workers from hundreds of miles away, to fill the school in on a new child's background; some visit personally to check information has been received and the staff are aware.

Already excuses are coming: lack of staff, senior workers pulled back, lack of money, when it rests with the incompetence of social services and their skewed focus. .
I know this is a rant, and I am sorry, but I am so angry that this abuse was allowed to go unchecked when all the signs were there. But no-one bothered to follow it up.

I didn't know the history of this case until now. Thankyou easybee.A truly heartbreaking scenario.The poor,poor child! The parents deserve the worst fate possible!

Thank you foxie so much to absorb

Thank you foxie.
Words fail atm.

Petal53 Sincere apologies I confused you with another poster with a similar name.

St. Mary;s School. Byfleet, Surrey.
Ruth perry's suicide and the reasons behind it, the condemnation of the word Inadequate, were fully discussed and explained in news reports at the time