Casey: antisocial parents need to be tackled to reduce children at risk

Social workers could reduce the number of children at risk by tackling the behaviour of “antisocial” parents more effectively, Louise Casey, head of the government’s Respect Taskforce, told Community Care Live today.

She said protecting vulnerable children must “run in parallel” with more provision for parents with problems.

Casey said that current approaches to dealing with families were “not coherent enough” and called on social workers to confront problems “head on” and impose sanctions such as parenting orders where needed.

She pointed to the need for intensive work with families “as a whole” rather than just focussing on individual’s cases.

Casey called for a debate with social care professionals on how to tackle problem families.

“If some of our approaches don’t change we will continue to pass on generational disadvantage and generational antisocial behaviour,” she said.

“Without professionals on board it will be pretty tricky to deliver the Respect programme and help people in need who will benefit from it.”

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