Can I point out that there are social services around the country the do manage to cope without such terrible failures? It seems people are very much generalising with this. AIUI it's the local council's responsibility to manage social services, care and many other services. There's so many issues from recruitment issues to where councils invest their money. Indeed how much a council gets is different.
Large council staff with smaller populations like Cumbria has real issues relating to low income. Smaller, populous councils or boroughs can be relatively rich. Leeds is able to fund a social services that has less recruitment issues and that has sector leading performance from what I've heard. Whether that's because they're a richer council or just have better priorities I do not know.
I know of training provisions in Leeds where there's money for courses to train up teachers, teaching assistants and ultimately social workers. You can go from one career to another with fully funded diplomas in social services indeed a fully funded degree level qualification that allows you to go straight into the sector as a fully qualified social worker. Leeds funds a lot of these every year not all go to Leeds social services.
I think we need to recognise that there's good and bad in social services sector. There's councils struggling with their services and others that are not. There's a phrase bandied around after every serious incident with social services failures. That's "learn the lessons". However the lessons are there to be learnt without these heart breaking examples of failure. There's good out there that could be applied around the country. Lessons could be learnt from Leeds and other services. We should learn from the best and apply the lessons so there's never a Lambeth to learn lessons from. Learn from the positive so the negative never happens.
For every baby P there's many more positive cases where children are helped. Where families are helped to stay together for the good of all.
As to social workers not talking. That's not been my experience. If you've got family or friends in the social services sector they are often happy to talk about what they do just that they do not give details, certainly nothing that's every identifiable. They do give the good and bad of what they do. The good stories include the likes of young children taken into foster care and the mother being helped to get clean, settled, ready and prepared to take their child(ren) back successfully. Then there's the bad where there's kids and parent(s) living in dire situation and they know that child is going to be taken away for for. They know early on cases where they can help and can't. The good social services have good people doing really excellent jobs within the legal framework they have to work within. Hard work but also rewarding at times.
BTW I'm probably looking through rose tinted glasses because I know a bit about a good social services. I know Good people doing the job well.
While the electorate is lead to believe that the fault lies with individuals rather than inadequate funding, and that everything can be done without spending more money, it doesn’t matter whether lessons have been learned or not.
Nothing more can be done
Dove, I take your point that Child Care is underfunded. But so are lots of things - and as for working long hours without overtime, that isn't just a public sector thing. I was never paid overtime in my life - I left home at <6:30 each morning to get to an office for 8'ish, worked til >6pm, never had lunch (well maybe the odd one or two down the pub on a Friday) or tea breaks, then drove home. Worked when I got home and at weekends. That's not me banging my own drum - as there were loads of people doing that - virtually everyone I knew did the same. I bet there still are people out there doing exactly the same. I enjoyed my job. I'd do it again tomorrow.
And the Lambeth case isn't about a family situation (per se - although it obviously started out as thet as the kids had to be taken into care in the first place) - this was systematic abuse of multiple children over decades. Decades. Hundreds of kids - but only over two or three locations. Now me being stupid - if I was underfunded - where do I get the biggest bang for my buck? - dealing with a heatrbreaking case in a family - or where multiple kids are being put through a conveyor belt of abuse? Which would you investigate/tackle first? Surely, a corrupted care system is the same as a corrupted police system - you have to sort that out as a top priority don't you?
I don't think the people on the front line were the issue here - I haven't read the report so that is an assumption - but for the problem to have persisted until the victims undertook the investigation themselves implies to me that someone sat on this. Maybe you could excuse 10 cases not being processed, 20 maybe.. but 100s?
I swear it comes down to image and embarrassment. With the crap software at the Post Office - how does someone admit their flagship software package is seriously flawed? Ditto here. What local gov officer would have wanted to admit the child care system, instead of caring was subjecting the kids to abuse? And the higher it was reported up the chain, I bet it became less and less likely that anyone would want to admit to it. The 'not on my watch' syndrome.
I’d agree Steve, You only have to look at the big cover up and corruption that went on in the BBC and Esther Ranzen breaking down in tears saying they knew but couldn’t say, even though she’d founded the Child Line, newspapers threatened to be closed down if they printed anything, all swept under the carpet at the time. Definitely the not on my watch syndrome. Not the same as local social services, but a cover up just the same.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Far too many people in positions of authority seem to be more interested in protecting their own image, or that of the organisation they are working in, than they are in actually trying to do some good or correct deficiencies.
Far too many people in positions of authority seem to be more interested in protecting their own image, or that of the organisation they are working in, than they are in actually trying to do some good or correct deficiencies.
Especially Bojo and his chums in government. Leading by example.
I think that there's been a change in attitudes in officialdom and general population. Kids were never listened to when I was a kid.
For example, I witnessed an armed robbery of a supermarket as a kid, well the getaway. As a kid my memory was amazingly good. I remembered everything. Right down to the logo on the blue overalls they wore. My parents went to the police station to give their statement? I was in with my mum who remembered very little. I kept trying to give my description. Both the police and my mum told be to be quiet because I couldn't possibly remember anything important. Later on I read the local newspaper report the evidence collected after they were caught and prosecuted. The overalls matched what I tried to tell the police. IIRC the logo was where one of them worked or a relative worked.
My point being that in the past kids could tell anyone they wanted what was happening and chances are they'd get told not to make things up and making up stories like that could ruin a person's career and reputation. I bet a lot of those cases simply got written off as kids' imaginations.
The other factor was personal interests. I heard on the news that one investigation that could have blown it all into the open was handled by an officer or ex officer with an investment in a management company with one perpetrator or home.
I think this is partly corruption but more than a little about adults' writing off evidence when it's from children. I think the saville scandal and even the #metoo campaign have made the chances of victims of abuse being listened to first then investigated. Above all that the initial response is to approach the investigation openly so they look for evidence and properly investigate, check patterns, look for further victims that evidence a pattern of behaviour, etc.
I doubt we're where we need to be but I think things are better now. My supporting evidence for this is the cases being found. Catholic residential schools in Canada, Lambeth, Saville, Rotherham, kids taken to Australia to live in quite brutal homes that were little more than kids workhouses I think. Then there's the Hollywood metoo campaign leading to big name prosecutions like Weinstein.
Kids now are treated completely different from when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, right from primary school too. They get taught social and health matters right from reception class too. That's awareness of abuse and who to talk to plus many other interpersonal relationship matters. They're taught how to interact with others better.
The more I think about the use of words like corruption and coverup the more I think they're excuse words. What I mean by that is putting down what happened to kids in the past to the wrongdoings of individuals by using those excuse words let's off the general public.
Ever heard the phrase "kids should be seen and not heard" by any chance? Is that completely innocent or the start of keeping kids quiet?
The society kids lived in back then was not healthy for kids. Those of you who were adults when these abuses were happening were also kids under possibly an even worse regime. It operated like abuse operated. Those who were abused often became abusers?
How many of you older generation argue that giving a kid a slap is ok, "did me no harm..." comments abound. If it's not ok for me to give you a slap it's not ok for you to give your kids a slap. It's assault!! Assault isn't the same as discipline it's just assault.
Full declaration, I got smacked a lot in my early years of school for daydreaming. I am biased! I have since come to believe that this daydreaming was something beyond my ability to control due to what I and my GP believe to be ADHD. It's my history that makes me passionate that society in the past was toxic for kids. We can all be described as survivors to a lesser or greater extent.
Far too many people in positions of authority seem to be more interested in protecting their own image, or that of the organisation they are working in, than they are in actually trying to do some good or correct deficiencies.
Especially Bojo and his chums in government. Leading by example.
That's just the current set. It's been going on for decades to my knowledge, and I have no reason to think things were any different over the ages. The situation with Jimmy Savile is a prime example. BBC staff had their concerns and either kept quiet to protect themselves from the repercussions or were told to keep quiet because of the damage it could do to the BBC. Stoke Mandeville were alleged to have kept quiet about him because they didn't want to lose the money that came in from his charity work. The list goes on.
Posts
Large council staff with smaller populations like Cumbria has real issues relating to low income. Smaller, populous councils or boroughs can be relatively rich. Leeds is able to fund a social services that has less recruitment issues and that has sector leading performance from what I've heard. Whether that's because they're a richer council or just have better priorities I do not know.
I know of training provisions in Leeds where there's money for courses to train up teachers, teaching assistants and ultimately social workers. You can go from one career to another with fully funded diplomas in social services indeed a fully funded degree level qualification that allows you to go straight into the sector as a fully qualified social worker. Leeds funds a lot of these every year not all go to Leeds social services.
I think we need to recognise that there's good and bad in social services sector. There's councils struggling with their services and others that are not. There's a phrase bandied around after every serious incident with social services failures. That's "learn the lessons". However the lessons are there to be learnt without these heart breaking examples of failure. There's good out there that could be applied around the country. Lessons could be learnt from Leeds and other services. We should learn from the best and apply the lessons so there's never a Lambeth to learn lessons from. Learn from the positive so the negative never happens.
For every baby P there's many more positive cases where children are helped. Where families are helped to stay together for the good of all.
As to social workers not talking. That's not been my experience. If you've got family or friends in the social services sector they are often happy to talk about what they do just that they do not give details, certainly nothing that's every identifiable. They do give the good and bad of what they do. The good stories include the likes of young children taken into foster care and the mother being helped to get clean, settled, ready and prepared to take their child(ren) back successfully. Then there's the bad where there's kids and parent(s) living in dire situation and they know that child is going to be taken away for for. They know early on cases where they can help and can't. The good social services have good people doing really excellent jobs within the legal framework they have to work within. Hard work but also rewarding at times.
BTW I'm probably looking through rose tinted glasses because I know a bit about a good social services. I know Good people doing the job well.
Definitely the not on my watch syndrome.
Not the same as local social services, but a cover up just the same.
Leading by example.
For example, I witnessed an armed robbery of a supermarket as a kid, well the getaway. As a kid my memory was amazingly good. I remembered everything. Right down to the logo on the blue overalls they wore. My parents went to the police station to give their statement? I was in with my mum who remembered very little. I kept trying to give my description. Both the police and my mum told be to be quiet because I couldn't possibly remember anything important. Later on I read the local newspaper report the evidence collected after they were caught and prosecuted. The overalls matched what I tried to tell the police. IIRC the logo was where one of them worked or a relative worked.
My point being that in the past kids could tell anyone they wanted what was happening and chances are they'd get told not to make things up and making up stories like that could ruin a person's career and reputation. I bet a lot of those cases simply got written off as kids' imaginations.
The other factor was personal interests. I heard on the news that one investigation that could have blown it all into the open was handled by an officer or ex officer with an investment in a management company with one perpetrator or home.
I think this is partly corruption but more than a little about adults' writing off evidence when it's from children. I think the saville scandal and even the #metoo campaign have made the chances of victims of abuse being listened to first then investigated. Above all that the initial response is to approach the investigation openly so they look for evidence and properly investigate, check patterns, look for further victims that evidence a pattern of behaviour, etc.
I doubt we're where we need to be but I think things are better now. My supporting evidence for this is the cases being found. Catholic residential schools in Canada, Lambeth, Saville, Rotherham, kids taken to Australia to live in quite brutal homes that were little more than kids workhouses I think. Then there's the Hollywood metoo campaign leading to big name prosecutions like Weinstein.
Kids now are treated completely different from when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, right from primary school too. They get taught social and health matters right from reception class too. That's awareness of abuse and who to talk to plus many other interpersonal relationship matters. They're taught how to interact with others better.
Ever heard the phrase "kids should be seen and not heard" by any chance? Is that completely innocent or the start of keeping kids quiet?
The society kids lived in back then was not healthy for kids. Those of you who were adults when these abuses were happening were also kids under possibly an even worse regime. It operated like abuse operated. Those who were abused often became abusers?
How many of you older generation argue that giving a kid a slap is ok, "did me no harm..." comments abound. If it's not ok for me to give you a slap it's not ok for you to give your kids a slap. It's assault!! Assault isn't the same as discipline it's just assault.
Full declaration, I got smacked a lot in my early years of school for daydreaming. I am biased! I have since come to believe that this daydreaming was something beyond my ability to control due to what I and my GP believe to be ADHD. It's my history that makes me passionate that society in the past was toxic for kids. We can all be described as survivors to a lesser or greater extent.
That's just the current set. It's been going on for decades to my knowledge, and I have no reason to think things were any different over the ages. The situation with Jimmy Savile is a prime example. BBC staff had their concerns and either kept quiet to protect themselves from the repercussions or were told to keep quiet because of the damage it could do to the BBC. Stoke Mandeville were alleged to have kept quiet about him because they didn't want to lose the money that came in from his charity work. The list goes on.