I'm a celebrity, sit me down here

Ofsted will release the official statistics for outcomes of local authority Children’s Services inspections on 24^th January 2013.  

Last year the banner headline from Ofsted was ‘The majority of local authorities are providing good services for local children and young people’. Interestingly Ofsted chose to frame their findings in a positive light rather than focusing on the 15 councils identified as poor performers.

Given the ever present furore around Social Work it seems unlikely that Ofsted will be so charitable this year. Since the Saville scandal broke there has been one negative story after another and a queue of politicians and TV personalities happy to perpetuate the suggestion that we are incompetent.

Highlights (lowlights?) in the tsunami of bile aimed at our profession were;

• Mr Gove’s speech and in which he revealed such an astonishing lack of understanding of what we do that it hard to believe he has ever met a service user or Social Worker.

• Josh Macalister's ‘Frontline’ proposal, which offers answers to a problem that in my opinion does not exist.

• The Rotherham UKIP ‘scandal’, so many had so much to say about it, but so few felt the need to retract or apologise for what they said when the truth emerged.

Regardless of what Ofsted find or how they seek to frame it, the public perception of Social Work continues on a downward trajectory. To compound this we are fighting the battle of perception on more than one front. There is the public perception of Social Workers and there is the professional/political perception. These different perceptions are symbiotic and influence and inform each other. We have seen this acutely brought into focus by Mr Gove’s speech which illustrates he was almost entirely barren of reasoned opinion on Social Work whilst simultaneously quoting Lord Carlisle and Eileen Munro at us. What is it they say? ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’.

To address the public perception there are frequent calls to get more positive stories out in the press about Social Work, a call I have reflected on many times. I have come to the conclusion that the answer to our public image problem is not about getting stories of positive outcomes from Social Work interactions in the media. The simple reason for this is that no one cares. I cannot imagine any newsroom (even at a local level) would run a story about how a Social Worker intervened and prevented… well you don’t what was prevented if it didn’t happen.
We need to think differently, individual success stories are not that interesting to the public. Even when they are wonderful tales of Looked After Children who have prospered in care or families we have helped to turn around. There is a time and place to celebrate these successes, but for the most part the general public are not interested.

So what do I think would help? I am almost tempted not to write this, because I find the answer so unpalatable. But I want to spark debate so I’ll take a deep breath and just write it.

I think we need to engage with the public on a macro non-specific level (trying to make it palatable here). The key to the problem is we need to be sitting down more. We need sit down next Lorraine Kelly on her couch, and sit down on the ‘This Morning’ couch, let’s also sit down with the ‘Loose Women’ and maybe even ‘gulp’ … Jeremy Kyle. In short we need to be on any TV show which covers the area’s that we do in our profession. We need to be accessible to the public, we need to engage with them and we need them to like us.


Wanting the public to like us is perhaps a slightly strange concept. Frequently in child protection you will hear a Social Worker say ‘you don’t do this job to make friends’ or ‘it’s not about people liking you'. I think for the most part that is true, but I believe that if we want to improve our public image it is vital we separate doing the job from our public image. Again this may sound counter intuitive, but if the two things were linked then we wouldn’t have a public image problem. I say this because the overwhelming weight of what we do does not result in tragedy and if our public image was about what we do then the general public would value us. But we are not judged on what we do every day, we are judged on what is reported when what we do leads to a tragedy.

So back to sitting down with people on daytime TV. I’m not suggesting this will deal with all our problems, but I do think it will give social work a more positive exposure to a mass audience. If you speak to the general public about social work it won’t be long before they mention ‘Baby P’ or Victoria Climbié. I am suggesting that if we were on daytime TV there may be other images of social work they can identify with. I think we need celebrity Social Workers, like there are celebrity doctors.

As an example consider the recent media frenzy over the Rotherham UKIP foster carers. This was splashed all over the media and there was almost universal condemnation of the decision. Imagine the celebrity Social Worker talking over the incident with someone like Lorraine Kelly or one of the other daytime presenters. It would not be that difficult for them to at least put the opinion across that there was probably more to the story than was being reported. This message could reach a mass audience in a way that Newsnight never could.

There may be those amongst who may feel that social work and daytime TV are strange bedfellows. You may feel it would be wrong to associate ourselves with this element of the media. I know I felt that way when I first thought of this. But why shouldn’t we engage with Lorraine Kelly et al? Are we above this? Doctors aren’t above it, psychologists aren’t above it and importantly a large section of society isn’t above watching it. Tony Blair and David Cameron both recognised the value of appearances on daytime TV (it backfired on Cameron, but Philip Schofield was forced to apologise). We need to wise up as a profession and realise that if we do not define what our profession does to the general public then others will do it for us, and it will seldom be fair or balanced. Daytime TV is one way we can get a positive message to a mass audiance. Think about how many times you've done a visit and that odious toad is on the TV? I'm not talking about Michael Gove, I refer to Jeremy Kyle of course!

　
　
　

Put up or shut up.

It's time for people to choose what they care about.

Recent events have sparked a tidal wave of media and political interest in child protection. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of the population have a default position of caring about the welfare of children. But my point is, once again the population has become vocal about the protection of children.

The current coalition government is weak, according to figures from the 7^th December 2012 the Conservative Party is 10 points behind Labour in the polls and the Lib Dems are only 1 point ahead of UKIP. A weak government will look for ways to increase its popularity and as such they will be taking note of the public interest in Child Protection. You can witness this by the ludicrous comments Michael Gove made about the situation in Rotherham, branding the Rotherham metropolitan borough council’s decision ’indefensible’ without bothering to find out the truth of the matter. One can only assume that all Mr Gove had to do was make a call and he would have be availed of the facts. Instead he chose to join the squawking right-wing press and attack the Local Authority in a lame attempt at currying favour with the electorate. Incidentally as recently as 4 days ago he was still refusing to apologise.

The government is turning its beady eye on our profession, although judging by Mr Gove’s lack of understanding, his beady eye needs even stronger pair glasses that it already has (you can read my thoughts on his speech here). And at the risk of stating the obvious, Children’s Services are not free, they have to be paid for. However, like roads, public toilets, parks and of course the NHS, Children’s Services are free at the point of delivery (anyone thinking of toll roads and toilets you have pay for, stop being difficult). We are so accustomed to these things that they are viewed as necessities but, as many people from countries less fortunate than our own will tell you, they are luxuries. To illustrate this, although safety features, you will not find Safeguarding children on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 

Taking another casual stroll into the ‘obvious’ Child Protection is paid for via taxes and nobody welcomes tax. But people are awkward sods, so even though they don’t want to pay they complain when they feel there is a problem. One of the few things which has not risen is the price of Council Tax. But it appears that the general public are unable or unwilling, to consider that this translates to less social workers, which in turn leads to higher caseloads, which inevitably leads to less thorough assessments and higher thresholds for child protection. All of these things have a tendency to lead the kinds of mistakes that can have terrible consequences for children. 

 

 

And as much as the general public are upset by the reports of our shortcomings, we are the ones dealing with it on a first hand basis. Do they think we don't care, do they believe that we go home at night and sleep knowing that we have left children in potentially harmful situations? There was a tragedy in the team I work in just over 6 years ago. There are no members of the team from back then still here, but still it influences us and the other professionals we work with. The general public care for a while, but we continue to care years after they forget the names they read about.

I am not suggesting the general public should mourn the loss of a children for years to come. I am also not looking for sympathy for our professional. I am looking for an understanding that this isn’t just a job to us and that the overwhelming majority of decisions and interventions we make are for good and honest reasons. When we make mistakes we do so because we are human. As Alexander Pope said ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine‘.

So we know that the general public are financially squeezed and they don't want to pay more tax. We also know they don't want their day spoiled by a terrible story in the media of a child tragedy. But can they have it both ways? Can Social Work be starved of money and still provide a great service? Can you drive a Bentley if you're only prepared to pay for a Kia? No, of course you can't!

I would also like the general public not to forget that ‘free at the point of delivery’ does not just mean ‘free’. You have to pay in advance, essentially its a bit of gamble, a kind of 'pay now, get it later if you need it' offer. But if the general public want the odds in this gamble stacked in favour of children then they should place their chips with us, we will make good use of them.

So my call to the men and women in the street is a simple one, if you really care about Child Protection then pay up, its not free. Let this government know that you don’t want more cuts in services. Remind them that we live in a capitalist society, 'ya pay your money, ya make ya choice'. We’re not asking for more pay, we’re not seeking to line our pockets, we just want, no NEED, more resources, so we can have the time to do our job in a safe and efficient manner.

A word on commenting

Having spent some time without many comments my most recent post before this one attracted a number of comments.

Initially I responded to the comments which were exclusively challenging me about Social Work and Social Workers. 

However it became apparent that the majority of the challenges were not relating to the post but simply challenging Social Work and Workers in general.

Whilst I welcome challenges on what I write, I will not permit this blog to become a free-for-all attack on Social Work.

This does not mean that I will delete all negative comments, it does mean that any comments which do not relate to the post they are commenting on will be deleted. 

Sacrifice the few to protect the many?

The row sparked by The Telegraph and the story (I use that word advisedly) that they ran regarding Rotherham and the removal of foster children from UKIP voting parents has provoked some interesting debate.

I do not refer to the obvious debate regarding the rights and wrongs of what happened in Rotherham, but instead the debate about the response to the story.

The Guardian has printed a fuller account of why the children were removed from their parents and subsequently removed from their foster carers. In doing so they vindicated the Rotherham decision but also revealed a lot of sensitive information about the children.

Concerns have been raised about the children in this row and how this further information release may effect them. These are valid concerns and whatever else we do we must always remember our job is first and foremost to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our service users.

But I believe there is a bigger picture here. For as long as I can remember the vast majority of negative press about social work intervention is not countered. A story will hit the press and it will be detailed, the detail will be damning to the social workers and/or Local Authority. The Local Authority will issue a press release which will (can)not go into detail and essentially what we get is a weak rebuttal of the original story. Often as social workers we are able to read between the lines of the story and form a view about what may have happened, the general public are not able to do this. Chalk up another point for those who seek to attack our profession.

Another area where the public image of our profession is tarnished are shows (radio and tv) where members of the general public tell their stories of social work interventions in their lives. I have listened to many accounts on radio phone-ins of children that have been removed for seemingly no good reason from loving parents. I have then listened to the outpouring of sympathy for the parents. The parents recounting these accounts do so safe in the knowledge that they can pretty much say what they want without fear of breaching data protection or slander laws. If by some miracle the social workers involved in these cases were listening to the radio phone-in they could not counter the allegations because they know that aside from any data protection law there may be emotional harm to the children by dragging up the detail.

As a profession we normally maintain either a dignified silence (endlessly interpreted as being secretive) or we talk in general terms and as such our counter arguments are poor. We do so knowing that have protected children, but that protection is at a cost to our professional reputations. ‘So what?’ you may ask, ‘at least the children are protected’.

I believe that our professional reputation has been so eroded that it seriously effects our ability to carry out our work. We need the trust and mutual respect of the families we work with to plan and implement effective interventions. If a family does not trust us, or value the help we attempt to provide, this does not make the situation safer for children. We cannot form partnerships with parents and we cannot prevent bad situations getting worse.

Essential in our role is empowerment. We seek to empower families with our interventions with the end goal of improving the lives of children. The erosion of professional reputation is empowering people, but it is empowering them to resist our help.

This situation is bad enough, but now we are beginning to hear calls from those in power to bring children into the care system earlier. Mr Gove tells us we should be intervening earlier to prevent harm to children, we should stop giving bad parents chances and remove their children.

This is now a two pronged attack on families. Firstly they resist our help, spurred on by the perception that basically we do not know what we are doing. Secondly we are pushed to remove children sooner and as a result of families resisting early intervention this will possibly be the right thing to do.

The end result of this is a lot of empowered families finding that their strength to resist our early intervention has led to them losing their children.

The Children Act (1989) makes the child’s welfare paramount. But the spirit of the act is about preserving the family unit and removal is the last resort. We are now in a discussion where removal is not the last resort, indeed it feels that early intervention will become about removing the child. Strange coming from a right wing government which would traditionally be running away from state intervention in the family. I can only conclude it is a populist, knee-jerk reaction to the various child abuse scandals which have recently surfaced involving high profile public figures.

Coming back to the original point of this post I believe that Rotherham were right to release the details of what happened. I think we need to look at the bigger picture and understand that if we do not defend the decisions we make with detail, our profession will be so damaged that will not be able to do our job.

The risk of emotional harm to the ‘few’ is one that has to be taken if we are to protect the welfare of the ‘many’. And let us not forget it is never the profession of social work which takes these stories to a wider public audience.

Ignore us and we’ll go away.

So a referral comes in for neglect of a child, let’s say the home conditions are poor and the child’s presentation at school is also poor. We decide to do an unannounced visit, when we arrive at the home there is clearly someone there, but they do not open the door.

What can we do? Not much at this point, so we put a note thorough the door asking for the parents to contact us and then wait.

No contact is made by the parents, so another visit is undertaken with the same result, ignored at the door.

So from here a more formal letter is sent arranging a visit, with a warning that we may take action to ensure the welfare of the child if it is deemed necessary.

The visit is made at the time agreed and again there is a refusal to engage.Where do we go from here? The message from parents is clear, they are not interested in engaging and the reality of this is we write a letter warning that we may take further action and then we go away.

It’s not that we do not take neglect issues seriously, but without the cooperation of parents we have no power to gain entry to the home or even speak to the children. There is no way the concerns are at a level to take any kind of legal action so the case is closed. After all it’s not like we haven’t got enough ‘higher level stuff to be getting on with!

I suppose in an ideal world we could sit outside the home and wait until a parent emerges. But even then they could tell us to sling our hook and not engage with us.  

How about a similar scenario but with higher level concerns? This time the child’s mother is associating with a convicted rapist, the child has low attendance at school and there is domestic abuse between the mother and her partner (who is not the child’s father). This mother engages early on, mother’s partner does not, mother indicates she wishes to continue her friendship with the convicted rapist but claims he has no contact with her child. Mother was unhappy when it was decided to take the case to an Initial Child Protection Conference and at this point she disengages.

Despite this mother not attending conference the decision is made to have a CP plan and this plan was formulated in her absence. The mother continues to avoid contact with all professionals and we are left with the slightly ridiculous situation of the plan being carried out without the mother even acknowledging it exists. No written agreement is in place regarding the child not having contact with the convicted rapist, but there is no new evidence that there is any contact. No further incidents of domestic violence are recorded and at the review conference the plan is removed.

This situation was not felt to be satisfactory by professionals but similar to the neglect case there were few further actions that could be taken. Despite the concerns being significantly higher that the neglect case they were not at a point at which legal proceedings could be issued.

Mr Gove would like us to intervene earlier and advocates removing children sooner rather than later (not a new concept I might add). But what he fails to realise is that most of what we do is by consent. Hopefully I have illustrated this with my examples.

To illustrate this further the overwhelming majority of children that I have accommodated have been with the consent of parents, I have never had cause to go to court to obtain an EPO. The only other way I have accommodated children is when the Police have taken them into Police Protection.

So do we need more powers, for example a power of entry, or a legal requirement to follow a child protection plan? Do we want these powers? Would more power improve our effectiveness or would that palpable fear that parents frequently exhibit at the merest whiff of Children’s Services involvement rise to such a level that it would become counterproductive?

If Mr Gove is serious about earlier intervention of the most severe kind (removal of a child) then there will need to be changes to the law and we will find ourselves more powerful. Alternatively a different agency or different type of social worker with the required powers would be responsible for these early interventions. Either way its makes me uncomfortable!

Another day in the life of a Child Protection Team

A rundown of what we’ve been dealing with today. No analysis, just some detail to give a flavour of what we deal with.

• A referral from a parent that when their child (aged7) came back from having contact with the other parent, the child had bruising in the groin area and around their genitals. Strat with the Police who felt it was single agency until more detail could be established. Child could not remember how it happened, taken to GP, (still waiting hear back from them). Referring parent starting to backtrack, now saying that neighbour has informed them that they saw child playing with other children and being hit in this area by a ball. Waiting for further info from GP, but possibly NFA if nothing incriminating.

• Referral from school re 15 year old, no food, heating or electricity in home. History of allegations that child has been left whilst mother goes on holiday. In the past it has been found that child was being cared for by relative or friend. Initial Assessment to find out more.

• Court request for report of Children’s Services involvement with a child, private law.

• Serious domestic violence incident, ex partner with machete making threats to kill. 2 year old child was in property at time of incident. Perpetrator taken straight to court and remanded into custody, likely to get custodial sentence. Mum is stating that she had split from perpetrator 2 weeks previously. Initial Assessment to establish more detail about situation, family are from Eastern Europe, unclear about immigration status.

• Referral from parent, teenage boy masturbating into underwear of sibling and other female relatives. Strat with police, no offences, single agency, initial assessment.

• Child on CP plan in other area, moving to our area to with live with father. Transfer in conference.

• One year old Child with burn on hand, two other recent injuries with were thought to be accidental. Strat with the Police, single agency (us) to get more information, which seems to be a standard line these days.

• Child and older half sibling having unsupervised contact with father who has mental health problems and issues with substance misuse. Allegation that older child was hit during contact. Initial Assessment on younger child, older child does not live in our area, so being dealt with by other team.

• Two siblings initially reported missing, turned up with one parent, then made allegations against other parent. Strat with Police, joint investigation, marks on one of the children, but they are now safe as with other parent.

• Concerns raised from private law case regarding a mother’s new partner who had been investigated for sexual assault on child under 16 (was NFA’ed). Initial Assessment to gather more information.

• Drug raid on house, two small children found in home, mother thought to be under the influence. Significant quantity of drugs found, paraphernalia all over home. Children accommodated.  

Late finish again today as we were dealing with the children who were accommodated. Who the hell was it that said we did 9 till 5?

Give over Gove!

Last Friday Education Secretary Michael Gove gave a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research on ’the failure of our current child protection system’. I guess it‘s never too early in a speech for rhetoric and Mr Gove was setting out his stall early. As the title of the speech says, in his view we are ‘failing’.

Mr Gove's opening gambit in the actual speech was an admission (his words) that the 'state is currently failing in its duty to keep our children safe'. Hearing this I was thinking, ‘Hallelujah! He’s going to talk about the mistake of capping council tax'. But you can imagine my surprise when his admission was actually a preamble to attacking social work!

With barely a pause Mr Gove was invoking the 'instantly negative towards social worker' names of Victoria Climbie, Peter Connelly and Khyra Ishaq. In doing this Mr Gove not only continued to set the tone of the speech, but made it clear that he was not talking to social workers or attempting to engage us. It was of course a speech attacking us.
In further admissions Mr Gove goes on to say that ‘we’ are not asking the 'tough questions' or 'taking the necessary actions' to safeguard the emotional and physical wellbeing of children. For me this raises a question I have asked myself many times, how is this type of criticism measured?

Clearly even one child death is too many, but if the bar for our profession is set at the standard of perfection then we are eternally doomed to viewed as a profession in crisis. Our failures are easy to quantify, but it seems that no one yet has found a way of measuring our successes. Without success to measure against failure how do you quantify whether we are successful or not?

This illustrates part of the problem with debating child protection and social work. To counter the arguments made against us you have to make a case that there will be emotional and physical harm of children. This is because the reality of the situation is there will be child deaths and we cannot ensure the wellbeing of every child. That is not in anyway to excuse any failings on the part of social workers. But what I seek to do is reframe the debate by not accepting that what social workers do can be so easily (lazily?) defined by politicians.

In my view, we should always be reviewing what has gone wrong and also what has gone right, and this should lead to services evolving. But the constant redefinition and rewriting of what do is counter productive, as is the constant feeling of working in a profession in crisis. The failings of individuals in cases do not always mean that the whole system is wrong. We should not look to change a system to try and ensure that it is foolproof against an individual failing, or at least that's not all we should do. We should also be asking ourselves what is the cause of individual failure, why did a social worker miss something crucial, or worse case scenario why did a social worker look the other way?

I do not have the answer to the problem of individual failings, but one thing that does not help is the relentless criticism of our profession. It undermines the professional confidence of social workers, and I believe that frequently social workers are effectively paralysed with fear of doing the wrong thing.
 
Mr Gove continues with the observation that ‘we’ are ‘pre-occupied by the much smaller risk of strangers causing harm and in so doing have established an intrusive and inefficient bureaucracy which creates a false feeling of security for parents while alienating volunteers and eroding personal responsibility.’

I quite simply do not recognise or accept this, even the most naive amongst us do not subscribe the outdated ‘stranger danger’ approach to social work. I really have no idea what he has based this observation on.

Mr Gove continues to attack social work and its leadership in this way. I could critique each and every point, but I think we have already established this is not a speech intended to get us onside.

Mr Gove moves on to his belief that more children should be taken into care and at an earlier stage of our involvement when children are at risk. He forms these views from Lord Carlile’s report into Doncaster and the ‘Education Select Committee's recommendation in its report last week on child protection‘. He backs this up with a number of other reports and personal accounts of children in ‘piss soaked vests’. Is it even worth pointing out current exisiting legislation?

And then Mr Gove takes the role of ‘good cop’, having already been ‘bad cop’ earlier in the speech. Mr Gove finds it ‘understandable’ why we do not challenge parents/cares and offers an excuse as to why we may become desensitised to the situations before us. He wants to support those amongst who dare to take a child into care and he wants to improve the care system and the outcomes for those within it. Is this Mr Gove’s arm I feel around me, is he comforting me?

But then we are back to bad cop. Not just bad cop, but bad cop who spends his days reading the newspapers and watching the news. He talks of ‘powerful strangers who hide their abuse behind a cloak of celebrity or in the dark recesses of the corridors of power‘. Apparently we’ve all been looking for danger in the wrong places! It’s not celebrities and politicians who abuse children, oh no it parents/carers as well! Mr Gove talks like an excited school boy that has just discovered how to make a bottle rocket. Can this really be the first he has heard this, does he really think that as a profession statistically children are most at risk from they know?

So with the problems outlined Mr Gove seeks to offer some answers. In one of these he has my support. He talks about the number of different agencies and the problem of Data Protection. Mr Gove I support you in this. Early on in my career I was asked would I rather be accused of a Data Protection offence or accused of not preventing a child death. Emotive I grant you, but I do consider this is in my day to day dealings with other agencies. I am not advocating playing fast and loose with Data Protection, but I am advocating finding ways of sharing information to safeguard children.

Mr Gove also wants to learn from education, he is of course referring to Frontline. My thoughts on this are well documented in my blog, but essentially I feel that it defines a problem which does really exist and then solves it. 
 
In his conclusion Mr Gove says that he hopes to have started a debate and of course he has. But the danger is that our already maligned profession is further attacked and social workers are even more demoralised.

Well Mr Gove, that comforting arm you put round my shoulder, stupidly I thought it might have had a fist full of dollars. But it appears it was just a fist, and once again my nose has been bloodied.

Sandwell pour £1.5million down the consultant drain?

Interesting piece on the BASW webiste about 'Sandwell Council’s decision to award a £1.5m 30-month contract to management consultancy firm iMPOWER to run its children’s services'.

Sandwell have 'canned' some top management and replaced them with agency top mangers to deliver services. 

Double yew, tea, eff? Why would they do that?

I am but a humble assistant manager so this blue sky, out of the box, re-framing, win-win, client focused, resource driven, strategic fit, best value, root and branch restructure makes no sense to me.

Somewhere some how, iMpower is making some cash, somewhere some how, the Local Authority is saving some cash. Or alternatively they are adding another level of management to do what exactly? Well according to Darren Cooper, who leads Sandwell Council, these people “know what excellence looks like". So presumably what they will do is pass on the knowledge of 'excellence aesthetics'. 

Back in February Sandwell reported improvements and Cabinet member for children and families, Bob Badham, said "The whole culture of children's social care in Sandwell has changed. The child is at the centre of everything we do". I'm sure the children will be chuffed at the new 'suits' appointed. But what I find odd is their Ofstead report was improved from 'inadequate' to 'adequate', not great, but clearly heading in the right direction, so why 9 months later spend £1.5 million on consultants?

I've always felt that in Social Care we follow in the footsteps of health and this has that feel of clinical governance about it. Add layers of management to design services that deliver excellence, whilst all the time cutting services, but claiming its an improvement.

It's Council Tax payers money so I hope that at a time of cuts with only more cuts to come, they can justify spending the £1.5 million on management when it could be used to improve services.

I'm bloody Frontline!

This whole Frontline thing has been bothering me, particularly the fact that the Munro Review of Child Protection is used to smack us, our skills and our training, over the head. And the name, 'Frontline' a straight out insult to those of us who actually are Frontline in Social Work.

In his paper, Frontline - Improving the children’s social work profession, teacher, Josh MacAlister, cites Munro's review as supporting his point that 'Of particular note is the quality of the workforce, which has been singled out as a problem'.

I should lay my cards on the table at this point and also say that it bothers me to be ‘singled as a problem’ by a teacher who does not seem to have any actual experience of social work. I could list a host of problems with the way schools work and cherry pick from the plethora of critical reviews of that profession to back my points up, but I’m not going to. I’m not going to because I’ve never worked in a school and would rather concentrate on the issues facing my own profession. Presumably Josh feels Teach First has solved all of education’s problems and he can now solve the other issues facing children, such as the poor quality of social care.

As I’m sure you now know the main thrust of Josh’s paper is the suggestion that the calibre of people undertaking Social Work is not good enough. Josh makes this point throughout his paper and uses Monro to support him. For example he explains that the ‘widely respected Munro review concluded that many newly qualified social workers did not have the necessary knowledge, skills and expertise to deal with the challenges posed by child protection work’. Now to be fair to Josh, Eileen (I don’t know her, but I thought she’s written so much about what I do that we could be on first name terms) did say that. But if you read her review the context of this was not criticising the calibre of students, it is criticising the training they receive. Eileen does not suggest that students just aren’t bright enough to get ‘it’, she suggest that ‘it’ (social work training, explained for non Russell graduates) is the problem, being ‘not consistent in content, quality and outcomes – for child protection’. Later in Josh’s paper he uses the same piece of the Munro report in the correct context, now that really is cheeky! Has anyone told Eileen?

Josh goes on to point out that The Social Work Task Force felt improvement was needed in ‘the quality of recruitment and the training on offer’. Again he turns to Eileen to back this up ‘these findings were mirrored by the independent Munro review in 2011, which called for higher-quality training and argued that children’s social workers need a mix of high-level skills to perform well’. Except they weren’t mirrored, as already mentioned by me, Eileen’s concerns were with the training not the recruitment. Not sure what Josh shaves in, in the morning, but I bet he always cuts himself.

Now I understand that Josh wants to make a name for himself in the world, and he is already doing that with this report. My problem is he’s making a name for himself using my profession. And frankly the more I read of his paper the less I think of it. It’s not that we couldn’t use high quality individuals from Oxbridge, but Josh’s argument on the importance of this is stretched so far that breaking point has been reached. I do not accept the 'findings' of his paper and I do not accept him as qualified to introduce new (adapted) schemes in the recruitment of social work students.

And a final rant on this matter… the sound bite comment by the unelected ex-minister and supporter of Josh’s paper, Lord Adonis, that the state of Social Work is a ‘national scandal' really did infuriate me. So I would just like to point out there have been a number of national scandals in your own profession Lord Adonis, and furthermore weren’t you implicated in one by your colleague Stephen Byers? 

Lord Adonis you are an unelected politician, I have no idea what the point of you is but I bet you went to Oxford (spoiler alert, I know he did, I checked).

Frontline, the saviour of Social Work?

Thank god, or an alternative deity depending on your religious persuasion, Social Work has been saved! 

 

Josh MacAlister , an ambassador of Teach First and Lord Adonis (served in the cabinet without ever being elected as he is a life peer) a Trustee of Teach First, have come up with 'a proposed scheme called Frontline which aims to improve social work's image and attract the best recruits to the profession'.  

 

Josh helpfully points out the problems that face us, Social Workers, in his paper 'FRONT LINE Improving the children’s social work profession'. This includes the 'fact' that we are 'poorly trained' and the struggle 'to recruit and train enough high-calibre staff'. 

 

Josh illustrates the problems of Social Work citing 'Baby P' (he had a name Josh, it was Peter Connelly') and Victoria Climbié, no surprises there. He goes on to say that reviews have found problems with funding cuts and 'ballooning caseloads' recognising that these problems 'require action in a number of areas', but citing Munro, Josh feels that 'Of particular note is the quality of the workforce', in other words, the problem is 'us'. Looking at the calibre of applicant to study Social Work Josh found that only 5.6% came from a 'top university'. Josh feels that the Social Work recruits are a triumph of quantity over quality. Josh then makes the point that we are not trusted as a profession, equating the level of trust that the general public has to that of the Police. He feels this lack of trust may be attributed the public realising that there is low proportion of graduates from Russell Universities starting Social Work degrees.

 

The other phrase that seems to pop up regularly in Josh's paper is 'social enterprise'. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that an organisation which makes profit, albeit one that puts the profit back into the enterprise? The question popping into my head at this point is 'where does this profit come from'? The way I understand it Frontline is the social enterprise and it will be run independently from government and employers, but would form relationships with 'other charities and corporate supporters'. I can almost smell Richard Branson's interest from where I am sitting. 

 

In a nutshell the 'problems' of Social Work are down to the calibre of person applying to be Social Workers and by implication the low calibre of the current workforce. He does at least make a nod to the issues of funding and caseloads (intrinsically linked surely?), but it doesn't suit his cause to dwell on that. 

 

Firstly I want to say that Social Work is not a profession without problems, public perception is poor, funding is being cut and as a result caseloads are 'ballooning'. I do not deny his figures re the recruitment of Russell University graduates either, although I would argue the weight of significance Josh gives this. 

 

But will Frontline address any of these issues in any significant way? I do not believe for one moment that an increase in graduates from Cambridge or Oxford would increase our standing amongst the general public. I would be interested to know how many members of the general public could actually name a Russell University, or care if their Social Worker (if they have one) had been to one? The next time a child dies and a Social Worker is implicated would the university they went to become a positive aspect of the media reporting (and lets be clear, much of what the general public think of us is led by the media)? Essentially we are being asked to accept that there would not be as many child deaths if a higher proportion of Social Workers came from a Russell University. A bold claim and one that I would say Josh's paper does not make a good enough (nice Social Work term there) argument for. 

 

So what do I think Frontline may achieve? Well, there are 18 mentions of 'leadership' in the paper, here's a sample;

• 'clear progression routes into leadership roles'

• 'linking a trainee role with progression routes into leadership positions'

• 'provide employers with a cohort of staff that could be nurtured to take on middle and senior leadership positions'

   

So I believe a widespread adoption of Frontline will eventually achieve Social Work being  controlled by Russell University graduates, who will have been backed by a social enterprise with links to the corporate world. A perfect recipe for privatisation and the service we provide being turned into a business. 

 

 But I didn't go to a Russell University, so what do I know?

Painting by numbers ...

I did this before the summer, its a look at how referrals I dealt with broke down into 'types'. I don't think there were any major surprises.

I intend to do this again post 'Saville' it will be interesting to see if the spike in referrals relating to sexual abuse that the NSPCC reported is represented in our team.

This represents 153 separate referrals and 293 children.

Parental/Carer neglect of child       13.1%

Parental Mental Health Problems   10.5%

Parental Substance Abuse   9.2%

Domestic Violence     9.8%

Physical abuse at hands of parent/carer   7.2%

Request from court for letter or assessment.        7.2%

Relationship Problems between child & parent    5.9%

Other  5.2%

Child Homeless          4.6%

Parent Having Inapproriate Relationship  4.6%

Child's Sexualised behaviour          3.3%

Sexual abuse of child by non family member       2.6%

Sexual Abuse Allegation By Child Against Parent/Carer  2.6%

parent homeless       2.6%

Parental relationship breakdown   2.0%

Child's Mental Health           2.0%

Physical abuse at hands of sibling  1.3%

Request from Prisoner to see child 1.3%

Young Carer's            1.3%

Sexual abuse by parent against someone other than their own child   0.7%

Sexual abuse sibling on sibling       0.7%

Emotional Harm        0.7%

CP Transfer in from other LA          0.7%

LAC Having Child Themselves         0.7%

No recourse to public funds            0.7%

I have detail of the number of children that each referral related to, no surprises there either. For example 'neglect' referrals frequently come from larger families. 

Comments welcome!

A day in the life of a Child Protection Team

-->

No particular rant today, just a little insight to what’s been coming in and what we are doing with it. Not particularly busy really, a pretty ‘average’ day.

A mother of an unborn child who has had a number of children removed in the past has gone missing. There was an assessment underway and indications were that we would be seeking to remove this child at birth. The lady in question called in and claimed to be on another continent (seems unlikely given the advanced stage of her pregnancy), she refused to say exactly where she was and promptly ended the call. The Police were informed and she was reported as missing. However, she is not considered to be missing by the Police as she has called and said where she is (albeit very unlikely she has made it to the other side of the world). As she has committed no crime there is nothing more the Police will do.

We are now left to wait for her to resurface, as she is not officially missing and the unborn child has ‘no legal personality’ we are fairly powerless. ***Update, the Police have agreed to accompany us to her address to check on her welfare.***

A potentially homeless family, we have NFA’ed this as they are not homeless, maybe in an ideal world we could do some preventive work?

Assault on a teenager by stepfather, also NFA’ed as teenager has now gone to live with their father (we hope permanently). Teenager does not wish to make a statement about the assault and the Police are therefore taking no action. Should teenager return to mother we will reopen.

Emotional Harm caused to children by extremely acrimonious marriage breakdown and possible mental health issues for dad. The most recent in a number of referrals for this family. We are going to pick this up, but private law case is imminent so the court will probably request a Section 37.

Young child allegedly groomed by stepfather, interviewed by Police and Children’s Services, confirmed allegation in video interview. Siblings will now be interviewed. This was reported by mother and the children are now safe with her, stepfather out of the house.

Domestic Abuse whilst children being ‘exchanged’ for contact, slightly unusual as it was mother abusing father. NFA’ed but Parents warned that further incidents will mean that Children’s Services will get involved.

Teenager assaulted by mother, assault confirmed in interview but teenager has ‘issues’ which mean we will remain working with family in long term in attempt to resolve problems. Teenager will remain in the home during this work.

Domestic Abuse between mother and her partner (not children’s father). The children were not present as they live with dad, however concerns about mother’s mental health and how this may effect the children when she has contact. Further concerns then received re father as he apparently has convictions of a sexual nature. Police check requested to confirm this, this will inform our future involvement.

Domestic Abuse between mum and partner, she has left him now, but requesting assistance. The feeling is she is afraid of him and may take him back if he pressurises her.

Request for a Section 7 from court on 2 children.

ICS isn't integrated enough

We have a number of families that are transient in our area (and then we don’t because they’ve moved!). We regularly have families known to other Local Authorities move in. There is a process for dealing with this if there is a Child Protection Plan in place. Not so easy when it is Child in Need, we have no formal process to deal with that. But the one thing both situations share is that there is no way to move electronic records between Local Authorities.

I’m no expert in Data Protection, but I assume that this is part of the reason information cannot be easily exchanged. But even if it could be easily exchanged our systems do not integrate, we cannot exchange information electronically. Surely this is a massive disadvantage to working with families that have a long involvement with Children’s Services? It potentially disadvantages them as we seek to reassess and evaluate what services are required and in issues of Safeguarding it disadvantages us as we can end up with almost a ‘clean slate approach’, which is well documented as dangerous.

Local Authorities routinely expect Social Workers to travel to them to view records and I have been refused use of a photocopier and been forced to take notes. I do not ever recall being allowed to print from ICS and have heard of people being chaperoned as they examine records. What exactly is being protected here?

Even at the most basic level if a family moves from another area I am forced to take to Google to find the phone number for the Local Authority they have moved from. Then begins the lengthy process of ringing the main number of that Authority and attempting to convince them of who I am and that I have good reason to enquire about a child.

Surely the integration in our systems needs to extend to the integration of Children’s Services? Why are Local Authorities so bad at talking to each other? Couldn’t all Local Authorities have a dedicated professionals line, could their be a directory of these?

A child’s records should be THEIR records, not the Local Authorities and should that child relocate, then their records should relocate with them.    

That's not right... its not even wrong!

Apparently 'One in five foster carers can't decide if a child they're caring for can get a hair cut', really? I mean REALLY? The piece on the Community Care website goes on to say that 30% of foster carers  cannot give permission for a child to stay over with a friend and 17% cannot allow a child to go on a school trip. There are a host of other example's (including 3 weeks to replace a pair of glasses, 16 weeks to 'ok' a school trip) which are frankly at best embarrassing, and at worse disgraceful. 

Interesting that today BASW's acting chief executive Bridget Robb argued for Corporate Parenting to be a job for life. I agree with this sentiment entirely, I have never understood how we dare to call ourselves 'parents' when officially support ends so early in the life of a Looked After Child. However, you have to wonder how many Looked After Children would want us involved when decision making is deferred for the smallest thing.

Have to say I have always hated the term 'Corporate Parent' it makes us sounds like Coca-Cola or Adidas sponsoring a child. But the Local Authority which insists on making decisions about hair cuts and school trips is indeed acting like a major corporation and truly is a 'Corporate Parent'. 

Do we really need to micro manage a child's life in this way? Foster Carers are well trained and often very experienced people (not mention quite well reimbursed). Surely they need to get on and do the 'job' of being a parent without fear of being reprimanded for making decisions around the child(ren) they care for.  What chance does any child have of feeling like their foster home is just their 'home' if they know every request they make will need to be rubber stamped by the Local Authority. 

We need to trust our foster carers to do their job, whilst we get on and do ours. My job is not to decide whether a child would be best suited to having their hair spikey or smart (I like spikey by the way), I may coordinate care, but I do not coordinate sleepovers.