Social worker struck off social care register

Social worker Tricia Forbes has been removed from the social care register by the General Social Care Council.

The conduct committee decided to strike her off after hearing how she had failed to follow child protection procedures, placing a teenage girl at risk.

Forbes, then a deputy team manager at Waltham Forest Council, admitted she had not followed instructions given by a manager in her handling of a case involving a 13-year-old girl who had disclosed physical abuse by her father.

She had left the girl, known as A, who had been “adamant” she did not want to go home, after she asked if she could return a jacket to a friend.

She later went missing for four days before being admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning.

The girl, who along with two siblings had previously been on the child protection register, had presented at the department on 5 May 2005 with a head injury, which she said had been inflicted by her father.

Forbes also admitted failing to disclose her involvement with the case at a strategy meeting she chaired, which was convened following A’s admission to hospital.

During the four-day hearing, Forbes told the committee that she had been “embarrassed” because she did not have all the information about the case and so decided to keep quiet about her part in A’s case.

The General Social Care Council will publish further details about its decision later today.

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