December 2009 Archives

A serious case review by the Calderdale Safeguarding Children Board has found that all agencies involved with the case of an abused six-week-old girl "significantly underestimated the risks to the child", according to reports.

The child, now 2 years old, is deaf, blind and has cerebral palsy.

The director of children's services in Leeds has decided to take early retirement a week after her department was rated "poor" by Ofsted and the NHS sent in a troubleshooter to improve things.

Rosemary Archer was the council's first DCS, appointed as part of the response to the death of Victoria Climbie.

The BBC reported this morning that the Northern Irish Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) has written to the chief executive of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust voicing concerns about the impact of budget cuts on child protection services.

According to the report, members of the union are worried about staff shortages and administrative gaps.

Cafcass management and trade unions have now issued a joint statement on workloads, in which the family courts body acknowledged it is "not in control of the peaks and troughs in demand for services", and that staff are overworked at a time of "acute pressure".

A 12-point negotiated procedure for workload management has been drawn up by all parties. 

Cafcass, the family courts body, and Napo, the family courts union, have come to an agreement over the soaring caseloads and alleged staff bullying which led Napo to threaten industrial action.

If only British Airways and Unite could follow suit... 

Who wouldn't feel better with these guys on their side? Rising awareness about the detention of asylum-seeking children has resulted in an odd combination of advocates for the rights of these young people.

An Anglican expert on Saint Nicholas recently dressed as Santa Claus and took gifts to the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre, hoping to spread some cheer to the children detained there. The jolly old soul was turned away at the gate, however -- see a video of the security Scrooges in action.

It's happened to everyone at one point or another -- right at the crucial moment, technology fails us. Your phone battery dies, the internet goes down, printers fail to connect... But most of us don't have to explain these office hiccups to a high court judge in a courtroom packed with reporters, as Ofsted did on Friday.

Sharon Shoesmith will be returning to court this afternoon, along with representatives from Ofsted, Haringey Council and the Secretary of State, for a hearing called by the judge overseeing her legal action against the three parties.

Administrative immigration detention harms the physical and mental health of children, according to the Royal Colleges of Paediactrics and Child Health.

The colleges have issued a joint statement urging the government to take immediate action to minimise the number of children and young people detained and reduce the physical and psychological harm caused by detention.

The director of children's services in Salford has been sacked for gross misconduct following the murder of two-year-old Demi Leigh Mahon.

An independent review of the case revealed concerns about the child's welfare were not followed up properly by social workers.

Jill Baker was Salford's chief of children's when Mahon was beaten to death by her baby-sitter in July 2008. She had been suspended since September, when a bad Ofsted report was published, and has now been disimissed following a four-day hearing on the Mahon case.

Social services should provide extra support for kinship carers looking after teenagers, and develop drug prevention programs targeting adolescents and their families, according to a review into kinship care.

Commissioned as part of the EU Kinship Carers Project, the review also found kinship carers assuming full-time parenting responsibilities were at an increased risk of experiencing psychological distress.

The latest annual survey of young offenders' experiences in - and before entering - prison has revealed "marked differences" between YOIs across England and Wales and slow or "reversed" progress in many key areas.

Particularly disappointingly, the heavily criticised use of restraint, has risen.

According to a recent survey from Capita Children's Services, 67% of social workers believe that with limited notice for inspections under the new Ofsted inspection framework, they would be nervous about the quality of their children's services data.

Proposals under the new Children, Schools and Families Bill which would see legislation relaxed to allow media reporting of family courts have been controversial and widely debated.

Despite a blanket ban on identifying children involved in family court proceedings, a Family Policy Briefing Paper, published by The Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy claims this will not stop children and families from being identified.

 The Evening Standard has reported a connection between Paul Otieno, the man being held on suspicion for killing his four-year-old son last week, and a religious group with a shady past in child trafficking.

Headlines have been splashed this morning about a Derbyshire couple who had their 2-year-old son taken into foster because they refused to feed him junk food.

The Howard League for Penal Reform's "ground breaking" youth justice project, U R Boss, is well underway and has received support from shadow Justice Minister Dominic Grieve.

The project gives young offenders a say in the legal service that the Howard League offers young people in custody, and those released back into the community. A video, made by the Howard League, reflects young offenders' views and feelings.

Ofsted inspectors were told to delete emails relating to Baby P or Haringey, according to a handwritten note found among evidence handed in by the watchdog, the Guardian has reported.

The note was found among evidence previously overlook by Ofsted and presented to the court just days before a ruling on the judicial review hearing for Sharon Shoesmith was due.

Mr Justice Foskett has demanded an urgent explanation of the note, describing Ofsted's tardy presentation of evidence as "very unsatisfactory".