Shoesmith in Court this week

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 9, 2009 at 8:58

I don't like the child protection register. I know it's trying to alert "authorities" to children who "may" be at risk but many of the children murdered by their parents. The trouble is, which kids do you put on this register? We get it wrong all the time, there will either be too many, too few or just plain old the wrong blimmin kids. The ones being killed are by and large not on the register (see daily mail link here, apologies for porn down the right hand side).

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 9, 2009 at 9:34

One more thing... the reason that baby/child deaths are increasing (as per that daily mail article) is that there is a baby boom on at the moment. It started in 2000 and really accelerated in early 2005.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on October 9, 2009 at 10:33

John, in your opinion do you see any merit in local authorities trying to monitor children and babies in potentially abusive situations? In you view, what should be purpose (if any) of an At Risk Register?

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 9, 2009 at 12:00

Well let's imagine that I do see a point in having such a register. How do children get onto it? Do they all start "at risk" and earn their way off of it? Do they all get looked at during their lives to see if they should be on it? Do they get put on it when someone who deals with them is suspicious that all is not well in that home?

Very few children on the "at risk register" are killed in comparison to children not on the register so I guess you could say that there is some merit in having one. I just wonder would the world be any different without it. Certainly local authorities may have more money to spend on surestart etc.

I'm not going to answer the last question other than to say I think the jury is still out on whether or not having one has helped children in general.

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on October 9, 2009 at 12:17

Clive, do you see any merit in having police forces trying to prevent crime? Especially given that despite the best efforts of police forces across the globe, crimes continue to be committed.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on October 9, 2009 at 12:55

Alan, I was going to use the same apt analogy myself for John's benefit. People sometimes criticise the police. The police are not perfect and occasionally there are abuses. But that doesn't mean we should abandon the idea of having a police force; far from it. Crime would be much worse were it not for the hard efforts of the Police. We should try to work to make it better. Likewise for mechanisms in Child Protection.

John's link to the Daily Mail article was very helpful. But John's view, which seems to be, Sh1t-Happens-Why-Bother, doesn't seem to be supported by evidence of the excellent Daily Mail research.

Some key points from the article:

It is a sobering fact that half the children who died were known to social services and somehow slipped through the net of officialdom to their deaths. But, just as significantly, half had never been referred to the authorities: they weren't even in the net.

But the fact is that, contrary to public perception, social workers appear, on the whole, remarkably good at safeguarding children - once they are on child protection registers.

It is clear, too, that the authorities should be alert to parents with serious mental health problems, which was an issue in one in four of the child homicide cases we examined [this is one area of unanswered questions for Haringey’s Childrens Services]

Social workers, health visitors, police, GPs, the probation service, school teachers and members of the public must take on board the plain fact that far too many children are failing to get the protection they need. ... Most children living in violent homes are known to the authorities, yet most do not qualify for child protection

What must also stop is the purely advisory nature of official guidelines for child protection. They need to be mandatory on local authorities, with sanctions if they are not followed. Only then can we begin to stem this tragic tidal wave of easily preventable deaths among the most vulnerable in our society.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on October 9, 2009 at 13:42

Thanks, Clive. So perhaps instead of posing closed questions, you'd have saved time by giving us the link to the Daily Mail article.

If you're interested in some alternative reading on this topic, you might want to look at the studies published by Peter Reder and Sylvia Duncan.

Though I expect other HoL members with a professional and academic background in this area may have some other suggestions.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 9, 2009 at 14:04

Police != child register. Not in the least.

Perhaps you'd like a special police force that only looks out for children? Oh wait... the police force we have at the moment is supposed to do that.

Permalink Reply by Malcolm on April 1, 2010 at 23:11

I don't know where to begin in picking holes in this argument.

- It's not a tidal wave of deaths. Less children die now than at any time in British history.
- Hindsight is always perfect - "if only someone had spotted the warning signs". But there are thousands of "warning signs" every day and, inevitably, the overwhelming majority don't lead to children's deaths. So what to do? Take every child into care when any warning sign is triggered?
- "For example, the figures show quite clearly that children of violent parents are most at risk", just like the figures show that most terrorist attacks in the UK since 2000 are by Muslims. Neither statistic is helpful in determining - in advance - which violent parents or Muslims will go on to commit atrocities.
- "Twenty-two children were killed by the mother's new boyfriend, usually within three months of moving in" - so let's put every new boyfriend onto the "at risk" register.

This article is frankly ridiculous. The few good points it makes (few children die, few of those are on the CPR) are overwhelmed by failure to account for hindsight bias, selective quotation and irrelevant correlations.

Children dying at the hands of their carers is horrific, wrong and we should try to reduce it. But to suggest that there's some way to stop all such deaths and that if only the professionals would listen to the Daily Mail we could achieve it is just lunatic.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on April 2, 2010 at 1:04

Dear @toryboy, you're so right I could cry. Can I vote for you?

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on October 8, 2009 at 23:42

I assume that calling me "commendably loyal to your colleagues", is a polite way of saying: "You would say that, wouldn't you, because they're your political allies."

Well, actually, I wouldn't. Not if I believe that one my colleagues is wrong or has made a very serious error. Clive, you know well enough that I don't hold back private and sometimes public criticism when this is the case.

In any case, a child's murder is more important than party loyalty.

I attended internal Labour Group meetings. Our discussions were not about party loyalty. Or the need to 'back' colleagues. George and Liz were not "clinging on for as long as possible". Nor was George Meehan's resignation statement insincere. (He is sometimes wrong-headed; but he just doesn't 'do' insincere.)

Lord Laming's Report has some helpful things to say about responsibility. In brief, he says that front-line staff carry their share of responsibility; as do their managers if the front line staff have not been properly supervised and supported. And so should the senior managers and the leading councillors if proper systems and practices are not in place.

Lord Laming’s view was that if an individual staff member fails to carry out their job adequately they bear responsibility. But if the errors, failures, lack of procedures etc are across the organisation as a whole, then responsibility goes up to the top. That’s the point for resignations. Once George Meehan and Liz Santry had read the Joint Review, there was no other honest course. Because it set out that this was not errors in one tragic case by a few people.

I have to say though, that what it did set out has now been challenged, in great detail, by Sharon Shoesmith. I expect we’ll hear more about this.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on November 10, 2009 at 15:48

Bob, keeping your 9 October comment very much in mind, I've tried to avoid posting anything on this topic that isn't strictly new.

Perhaps many people will be astounded by this news today on the BBC website.

But I'm not at all surprised that OFSTED has had to apologise to the Court for a "deeply regrettable error". As I recall, OFSTED made a similar error at the Victoria Climbié Inquiry. And it needed a second inspection after the murder of Peter Connelly before it was able to spot serious problems in Haringey Children's Services.

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