Platt warns agencies are still failing in their responsibilities to children

Six years after the death of Victoria Climbie, some agencies are still not taking full responsibility for children, the chair of the Commission for Social Care Inspection has warned.

Denise Platt said the police, GPs and other health professionals still believed they had “discharged their responsibility” by making a referral to social services.

Services had improved since the eight-year-old’s death but children were being “demonised” in other ways, she said during the Question Time debate at the conference, chaired by the BBC’s Jeremy Vine.

Allan Bowman, chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, said there was “no evidence” to support the automatic removal of children from substance-misusing parents.

He said: “In some places substance misuse is almost normal behaviour but it does not follow that children are not cared for or are unloved.”




 

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