Anyone for a reflective diary?

When I was a student and pretty much forced to keep a reflective diary I vowed I would carry it on once I qualified. I didn't keep it up, not only did I not keep it up, I didn't even start it. From the day I was no longer required to keep a reflective diary I stopped doing it.

Starting this bog (that was a typo, but I'm keeping it in as it amused me) has caused me to ponder on whether it constitutes a reflective diary of sorts. I'm only 4 posts in, but it does have the same feel about it as back in my student days. So far the main difference is that I am not confident enough to really say what I think. I did as a student, my diary was truly reflective, warts and all. If I was ever scared or worried I wrote it, if I didn't understand something I said so, it did me no harm and I actually received praise for my candor. I'm nowhere near achieving that level of confidence with this yet. I had a little interest in this blog and already I feel the slight weight of responsibility,  don't want to offend or say the wrong thing. I'm quite an outspoken chap, sometimes without much forethought, this can land me in trouble, but I normally manage to get myself out it. That's not so easy when what you say is in 'print', I can't claim to be misunderstood or misquoted. But I feel the 'real' me fighting its way to the surface, hence this post I guess. Also this post may serve as a slight warning to anyone who is reading my blog (is anyone reading this?) that I may, in the not too distant future,  start to stick my neck out a little. 

For now though I am playing it quite safe. But I want to say one thing, I'm not even sure if its controversial really. I want to say I'm sick of hearing that my profession is in crisis when something bad happens such as the recent Saville revelations. We work in a profession which by its very nature is dealing with risk every day. Every day we make decisions about children's lives which involve us balancing risk, inevitably we get it wrong sometimes, the results of this can be catastrophic. Let me make it clear I am not seeking to be an apologist for poor risk assessment, but what I am saying these mistakes which lead to tragic consequences are not themselves an indication that our profession is in crisis. The dangerous and simplistic attacks which follow tragedies do not end up making children safer. I believe they lead to defensive decision making which can have severely adverse effects on the outcomes for the vast majority of children we deal with who are not at risk of significant harm. Serious Case Reviews are essential following such tragedies as they allow us to learn from our mistakes, claiming we are in crisis is not essential. I do not believe for one moment that should some of the pressure heaped upon by the 'crisis tag' be removed, we would suddenly play fast and loose with safeguarding issues.     

Someone put a call out on the Batphone for Max Clifford

The weekend which just passed saw the Independent on Sunday lead with a piece which (somewhat tenuously) linked the 'problem' of raising standards in Social Work, the recruitment of elite graduates and Jimmy Saville. in what was frankly a poor piece of journalism the I.o.S used the name of Peter Connelly, Victoria Climbie, Khyra Ishaq, Harrison Garland and alleged satanic abuse in Rochdale & Orkney to illustrate the need to raise standards in Social Work by using elite graduates. The Jimmy Saville link didn't really make it past the front page, which for me was the telling part about this piece and revealed that it was only seeking to cash in on the endless round of Social Worker bashing the majority of the press enjoy so much. 

According to 'experts' (not named or referenced) the profession of Social Work is in a 'state of crisis'. That statement allows me to write a word which has long been my favourite, but I have never had the chance to actually use before... Verisimilitude*. Verisimilitude means 'having the appearance of being true', which is exactly what the 'experts' comment has, the appearance of being true. I do not wish to debate that matter though, what concerns me is the way we (Social Workers) are portrayed in the press. 

I can hardly be bothered to detail the popular concept created by the press, but I suppose I should mention 'child snatchers' and 'incompetent' just in case someone reading this is in any doubt. Who am I kidding? Everyone knows what people think of us.  

I have listened to countless phone-in's on the radio where parents are allowed to put their views across about the way their children were removed for reasons as seemingly trivial as 'they missed a bit of school when I was ill' or 'I'm epileptic'. They often go on to criticise Social Workers for their heavy handedness in dealing with them, without any fear of being challenged about their criticism of Children's Services. They know that we never have a right to reply, they never mention that we are backed by the courts and that we alone do not have the right to forcibly remove their children.

I do not believe this is a problem which can be resolved, we as a profession, will have to continue to 'suck it up'. We cannot, and should not, be dragged into debate in the media, our debates take place in court and that is the right place for this to happen.

So what about Max Clifford** you ask? Where does he come in? Firstly he clearly cannot manage the situation for every Local Authority in the country. But he can advise BASW/UNISON on how we might deal with our portrayal in the media. When he spoke at Comm Care Live in 2009 it seems his main thought was that we needed to get the good news out there. Award ceremonies and the such, to spread the word of the good work that is done. That would be possibly have some effect, but if you'll forgive me, it brings to mind the phrase 'pissing in the wind'. We need more help than this, we need to understand how the press works and to try and manage the relentless tide of bad news stories. Sadly a child's death will always make more news than an award ceremony, so we need to be able to react in a manner which shows respect to the tragedy, but does not see us laying on our back and exposing our underbellies like a scolded pet. I am not suggesting for one moment that we become defensive, important lessons could be lost if we were. But we do not need to be slaughtered in press in order to learn lessons from a tragedy. 

I do not know how to achieve this is, which is why I would suggest that a good use of the fees we pay each month to BASW and/or UNISON would be to find someone like Max Clifford to advise us. 

As a footnote, whenever I tell people what I do, they almost always respond positively. Now of course some of that is politeness, but not all, and even the polite ones seem to understand that we're not as portrayed in the media. Surely that's something we can build on?


*I got the word from a song title by the fantastic Teenage Fanclub.

**Other PR Guru's are available. 

A thought on equality of service

Last week I dealt with a complaint from a parent which had raised a number of issues, not least that they felt the other parent was favoured in the assessment we had undertaken. It was my first dealing with the case so I wasn't familiar with the detail but a quick look at the history showed referrals from both parents making allegations against the other and finally a referral from an agency raising concerns about the acrimony displayed by the parents and the behavior of the children as a result (conjecture on their part, but the point of the assessment I guess). Not surprisingly these were parents in the middle of a messy divorce. This started on Thursday, since then there have been a number of contacts to Children's Services regarding the case, ;

• Contacted by CAFCASS to raise concerns about the mental health of the parent, concerns I would add that came from the other parent and their solicitor (I'll save a CAFCASS rant for another day). 
• Contacted by complainant parent wanting to talk to me about the case, not sure how he got my name, but I refused to take the call on the grounds it was not an open case. As he had 'new' concerns I suggest to our call centre it should be a referral.
• Contacted by one of the children's school for a consultation on the emotional harm issue. 
• 4 more calls from the original complainant over the weekend raising concerns.
• Insistence from our complaints department that a referral which has already been made to another agency is made again so they can be sure it has actually be done.

Now in the last 5 days there has been a considerable amount of management time taken up with this case, which is essentially the fall out from a difficult relationship breakdown.  Yes there is emotional harm to the children, but then every parental relationship breakdown brings pain and I frequently knock back professionals attempting to make referrals for this type of thing, so what is different? The difference is both parents are highly qualified health professionals.

Generally (and this is purely empirical) we deal with people who are living in deprivation, typically what the Office of National Statistics would class as "9's" (Never worked and long-term unemployed), we don't get involved in their marriage breakdowns, we don't make referrals for their children because of emotional harm, we certainly do not spend as much time considering the issues.

I do not blame the parents of the case I mentioned for making a fuss, they are doing what they can to ensure they get the outcome they desire. I do blame them for bringing their intellect to bear on the situation and utterly failing to spot the damage they are doing to the very people they claim to be fighting for.

But where does this leave us as professionals? We have responded to the demands presented as best we can, but ultimately in doing this we create a 2 tier system in which the children of parents prepared to make a fuss receive a more thorough service from us.

Should all children who parents split and therefore experience emotional harm at least be assessed in order that services are provided where appropriate?  

And finally could my time today have been better spent concentrating on the 2 cases I processed which involved possible sexual abuse, the 2 'unborn assessments' requested and the child which went missing from care at the weekend? 

A Strategy Discussion with the Police

A parent reports that she found her under 5 child having its genitals licked by the family pet. When questioned by the parent the child said it was ok as the other parent would lay the child on the sofa and allow the pet to do this. The parents are divorced, so this was happening in a different home. I had a Strategy Discussion with the Police who accepted that there was potentially a serious issue here, but amazingly were not sure that any law was broken. Initially they decided that it would be a single agency (Children's Services) Section 47 Investigation. I believe that the DC I talked to was uneasy with the decision that was made by his DS and asked them to reconsider. They did then reverse the decision and a joint investigation was undertaken. 


I think this illustrates that whilst we often work with the Police their remit is clearly prosecution, which is the one of the main tools at their disposal for protecting children. However when they do not involve themselves in an issue, or do involve themselves but chose not to pursue a case, Children's Services are then left with a problem. The problem is the message sent to parents/carers (or other perpetrators when the situation arises). Many of us will have had somebody ask us 'the Police aren't going to be prosecuting so why are you still involved?'. Frequently it is difficult to explain the difference between the Police working to 'beyond reasonable doubt' versus Children's Services working to 'on the balance of probability'. 

I am not suggesting that the Police should prosecute more people to help us out, but I am suggesting that we need to work in joined up way so that clients and their parents/carers or perpetrators can understand there are two processes taking place when Children's Services and the Police investigate a case.