Child Protection. Freda Briggs

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СКАЧАТЬ were ripped. The subsequent neck injury that affected his breathing was probably the fatal blow.

      Although Baby Peter was on a child protection register, social workers, doctors and police failed to take action to stop the abuse despite seeing him at least 60 times over eight months⁵⁹. Newspapers printed front-page photographs of the child with disturbing details of his injuries, triggering yet another urgent review of child protection policies⁶⁰. It was later revealed that Peter’s mother and Barker had been tried in secret in May 2009, for the rape of a 2-year-old girl⁶¹. Barker was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and received a 12-year sentence for his role in the death of Peter, the sentences to run concurrently. His brother, aged 37, who slept in the same filthy house with a 15-year old girl, was also jailed with a minimum sentence of three years^62,63.

      The Children, Schools and Families Commons Committee (2009) argued that the threshold for admitting children into state care was too high. Not only should Baby Peter have been removed long before his death but, worse, his situation was not perceived as unusual64.

       ^{* A suppression order was in place throughout the court hearing and the dead child was referred to only as Baby P.}

      It should have been clear to social workers that “family support” could never have been effective in this household. Barker was a 95kg sadist who allegedly enjoyed torturing animals. He lived with three dogs, including a Rottweiler which he used to terrify the baby. He collected knives and Nazi memorabilia, while the mother spent her days on the internet, drinking alcohol and watching pornography. When he was not abusing the toddler, Barker, who had a pet snake, would skin live frogs and break their back legs to see if they could still jump. Dead mice, chicks and dismembered rabbits were left lying around the house, along with pornography. The Barker brothers had a long history of violence and were previously charged with assaulting their grandmother, Hilda Barker, aged 82 (1995), locking her in a wardrobe to make her change her will in their favour. The case was dropped when she died⁶⁵.

      Newspapers carried sensational headlines such as “Blunder Scandal of Baby Battered to Death” (Daily Mirror, 12 November). “Blood on Their Hands” (The Sun, 12 November), “50 Injuries, 60 Visits – failures that led to the Death of Baby P” (The Guardian, 12 November), while the largest seIling daily tabloid newspaper, The Sun, ran a campaign to have the professionals sacked, creating the “Beautiful Baby P: Campaign for Justice” (The Sun, 15 November). This mirrored earlier media campaigns directed at galvanising the government into action. Two weeks later the newspaper delivered a petition to the Prime Minister containing over 1.3 miIlion signatures, claiming this to be the largest and most successful campaign of its kind. Facebook groups, comprising over 1.6 miIlion members, were set up seeking harsh punishment for Peter’s kiIlers. This weight of expressed opinion put major pressure on the government to be seen to be acting and in control of the situation⁶⁶.

      The Secretary of State⁶⁷ responded to the furore by:

       establishing a “Social Work Task Force” to identify barriers that social workers face and make recommendations for the long-term reform of social work

       ordering an urgent Joint Area Review (JAR) of safeguarding children by the responsible authority. On receipt of the report (which he described as “devastating”), the Secretary of State announced that he was using his powers under the Education Act 1996 to direct Haringey to remove the Director of Children’s Services. The Council also dismissed four other employees involved in the case

       ordering the preparation of a new and independent Serious Case Review

       appointing Lord Laming to carry out yet another urgent national review of child protection and report within three months

      The central principles of the legislation encouraged negotiation with families and their involvement in agreed plans. The regulations required professionals to work in partnership with parents although quite clearly some parents are unwilling or unable to change their parenting or life-styles. For that reason, some demanded a return to the adoption of children born to seriously dysfunctional parents.

      Lord Laming’s (2002) report, Child Protection: Messages from Research68 summarised key findings from government commissioned research⁶⁹. It showed that only about onein-seven children known to be at risk of abuse was subject to a child protection plan and placed on the register (as was required) and fewer than one in 25 was removed from home. The report claimed that the traditional, investigatory child protection system was least successful in cases of emotional neglect and damaging parenting styles, leaving many families alienated and angry. The key recommendation was for policy and practice to prioritise family support rather than concentrate on investigating incidents of abuse in a narrow way. IronicaIly it was failure to investigate and respond to abuse that led to so many horrendous deaths.

      Subsequent government research showed that overloaded child protection services found it impossible to provide family support and, of course, deaths occurred because services focussed on the needs of parents and ignored children⁷⁰. The document identified the characteristics of “at risk” children as including:

       low income and parental unemployment

       homelessness

       poor parenting

       poor schooling

       postnatal depression among mothers

       low birth weight

       substance abuse

       individual characteristics, such as levels of intelligence

       community factors, such as living in a disadvantaged community71

      The more risk factors a child experienced, the more likely that there would be “negative outcomes” with damaging parenting practices playing the key role. Identifying risk factors and providing early intervention were identified as the major strategies for overcoming social exclusion. Health, social care, education and criminal justice would be integrated to ensure that traditional, organisational and professional barriers were overcome.

      The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report and the government’s response were framed in terms of child safety whilst previous policies and practice focussed on supporting parents. The government confirmed that it introduced Every Child Matters: Change for Children after Victoria Climbié’s death to ensure that it never happened again. Thus the case of Baby Peter raised more embarrassing questions and undermined the proposed reforms at the very time when they were supposed to be introduced. The government made it clear that for improvements in child protection, there had to be a well-trained, respected and highly professionalised social work service that understood and could cater for the needs of children. While improving systems and interagency communications was important, improving the service was dependent on supporting and investing in a knowledgeable professional social work workforce. And that involved universities which have been slow to change.

      In 2011, there were media reports that social workers had become overzealous and in the two years after the furore about Baby P, the number of children being removed from parents into state care had soared by almost 50% to an all-time record level of nearly 10,000 a year⁷².

      Australian policies and practice have followed the British model, paying lip-service to the importance of family support and early intervention (with insufficient resources) while only investigating “serious cases” of abuse. Unless the balance is right, children will continue to СКАЧАТЬ