June 2011 Archives

Couldn't resist sharing these images of campaigners outside parliament today. Wearing Ken Clarke masks, the group - which included campaigners from Sound Off For Justice, members of the public and MPs - held a symbolic 'Let Them Eat Cake' protest to show their concern about the justice secretary's impending cuts to UK legal aid.

The enterprising bunch even presented Clarke with a Magna Carta cake "to remind him of his duties and obligations to protect the ancient document's promises to the British people". They then cut the cake to symbolise the cutting of access to justice...

Linda Lee, president of The Law Society, said: "The principles set out by Ken Clarke and the coalition government are set to go back on all that we have fought for in this country and creates a two-tiered justice system, that favours the rich and leaves the vulnerable and needy with nowhere to turn, when they need it the most."

"Over the past few decades, the reliance on government guidance has made a lot of places quite passive," she said. "But the biggest lesson I've learned from these pilots is that there is enthusiasm and confidence in some areas to take control and redesign the way they work.

"If you give people more bureaucratic freedom, they really do rather intelligent things."

This is all very heartening, but one can't help but wonder what would happen if the programme went national. The NSPCC was quoted at this morning's meeting as expressing concern that the pilots weren't being officially assessed, with Munro instead relying on documentation supplied by the LAs themselves as proof of how things were going. Munro, quite logically I think, responded by saying that an official assessment wouldn't be appropriate, as the point of the system was that each local authority did its own thing -- how could you assess them all based on a certain benchmark when the point of the trial was that there were no benchmarks?

Which is fair enough. But really, if every local authority did its own thing, surely there would be a higher risk of children falling through the cracks? Take ICS. With absolutely no standards or requirements, how will children moving from one local authority to another stay in the system and on professionals' radar?

I'm not saying it isn't possible, but it's something to consider carefully in our eagerness to de-bureacratise social work.

So the government has announced the national roll-out of community budgets to help support families with multiple problems which I can't decide is cause for celebration or cause for more frustration.

Community budgets are an excellent idea and based on the conference I chaired yesterday on early intervention, possibly the only way to really address early intervention for children's services. But given the problems the pilots have encountered so far with departments signing up in principle but then not releasing cash, I wonder if they will turn into another white elephant.

But then these are the problems with trying to fund early intervention while also balancing front-loaded budget cuts.

Speaking at the Community Care conference yesterday Kim Bromley-Derry, chief exec at Newham Council, and Dave Hill, now DCS at Essex, both talked about these difficulties. KBD pointed out that early intervention projects funded now would need to produce some results at least within two years as well as those expected in say 15 years. Hill went further and said early intervention needed to be focused on those who are on the cusp of going onto child protection plans.

"The money you will save from avoiding taking two children into care will fund an early intervention project. That is the only way you are going to be able to make enough savings to be able to fund early intervention on a wider scale."

It makes for an interesting point- while the Allen review is focusing on "bomb-proof" early intervention projects aimed at your under-5s perhaps councils should be focused at the other end of intensive support to avoid taking children into care with the hope that if both are successful then eventually they will meet in the middle??

An important point made by Dave Hill was that councils need to be brave enough to try new approaches but they also need to make sure they build in the costs of evaluating it and evidencing outcomes as they go along. They also need to be brave enough to ditch those projects that show no signs of improving outcomes.

Otherwise such scarce resources might be wasted even further.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre is to publish its thematic assessment into child sexual exploitation and on-street grooming tomorrow.

According to reports, it will criticise agencies, including social services and the police, for failing to investigate cases properly. It is also expected to reveal more detail about offending patterns, the profile of offenders, prosecution rates and the number of victims - though to be far higher than the 2,000 young people known to have been affected.

Given the high profile of this complex, and often hidden, form of abuse - last month the government announced that ministers will do more to tackle child sexual exploitation - the report is timely and should make interesting, if rather harrowing, reading. 

Keep an eye on our news pages for more tomorrow morning.

A mental health ward at Lancaster Farms young offender institution is set to close, the guardian reports, putting around 20 jobs at risk.

It is not yet clear how the move will affect the vulnerable young prisoners the ward serves, including those with mental health issues or at risk of suicide.

The death of 15-year-old Liam McManus - who was found hanged in his cell at Lancaster Farms in 2007 - highlights just how vulnerable young people in custody can be. The teenager (pictured) was serving a short sentence for breaching the terms of his licence when he took his own life.

An inquest criticised social services, the Youth Justice Board and the prison service for a catalogue of failures that contributed to McManus' death.  

In this current unpredictable world it's useful to know there are some things you can always rely upon. You can always rely on John Hemmings, Christopher Booker and now Tory MP Phil Davies has added himself to the list.

Not content with his comments about learning disabled people a week ago, he has now decided that the age of criminal responsibility for children should be lowered...yes, that's right lower than the age of 10, already the lowest in Europe. In Mr Davies' opinion if they're old enough to do the crime they're old enough to do the time. He cites figures showing children as young as three involved in "crimes" such as sexual assaults upon another child.

Mr Davies, if you are three years old or even six years old you do not wake up one day and decide you want to sexually assault another child for the hell of it. At that age it is usually a big, flashing, red, warning signal that this child has been the victim of sexual abuse. Such comments show a profound lack of understanding of any of the research around this behaviour, child development and child protection. Such comments are not only misguided but incredibly ignorant. Instead of trying to send more children to jail why don't you spend your efforts trying to stop them being abused by adults in the first place, which would in turn prevent children abusing other children.

It backs up a conversation I had with my Hungarian nursery provider who is in despair when trying to recruit staff because in Europe all those working with children need a degree with an understanding of child development. Yet in the UK not even child protection social workers need to know about child development. We need to be a society that values an evidence base when it comes to a children, not rely on assumptions. Personally I think that should be the case for all those working with children AND MPs.

Now for a dose of interesting and well-thought out blogs to purge the nasty taste left by Mr Davies. Fighting Monsters who has done an interesting post about how being a foster carer has influenced her as a social worker. Malcolm Payne has also written a thought provoking piece about the future of religious fostering and social work agencies and equality laws.

Ahh...the red mist has cleared.

(pic credit:morebyless Flickr)

Children's minister Tim Loughton has been speaking out on child sexual exploitation again, this time telling the BBC that a combination of political correctness and racial sensitivities have kept many cases of child sex grooming "under the radar".

Loughton told the BBC Politics Show in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire that closed communities in some cultures have hampered investigations into child abuse and grooming.

"In many cases we are dealing with some closed communities. Closed in terms of things being able to go on under the radar and away from the public glare," Loughton said, adding that he thought "political correctness and racial sensitivities have in the past been an issue".

His comments - which have by now been picked up by numerous others news sources - will no doubt frustrate some campaigners who insist child sexual exploitation cannot, and should not, be pinned to any one racial group.

Very unpleasant story splashed across the newspapers today: A council caretaker trafficked young girls into Britain to work as prostitutes after they had been put under a voodoo spell.

Woolwich Crown Court also heard that Anthony Harrison, 32, allegedly raped two girls after they had been subjected to horrific abuse during a black magic ritual by a people-smuggling gang.

The details of this story are particularly nasty so I won't repeat them all here, but the case highlights the huge challenges that magic and witchcraft in certain African cultures - believed to have been a feature in the Victoria Climbie case - can pose to child protection in the UK. We explored this in a recent feature; well worth a read.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, the latest report from the chief inspector of prisons reveals effective resettlement planning for young people leaving custody is still, well, not very effective.

It found just one third of young offenders had accommodation, education, training or an employment placement on their release, despite 84% having an identified accommodation, education, training or employment need.

The research also revealed that the attendance of social workers at training planning meetings for looked after children was poor, despite their key role.

All in all this research - once again - highlights how vital it is that professionals in custody and the community work together to ensure young people are housed appropriately and kept busy and supported upon their release - and that this process begins early and involves the young person at every stage. 

Whenever I have spoken to young people in custody, they have all expressed very real fears that the progress they have made, and the support they have had, while in prison will not be available to them in the community. And we wonder why one in six reoffend. 

Just thought I'd flag up an interesting looking documentary tonight: Kids Behind Bars on BBC3 at 9pm. It's a new three-part series following children detained at Vinney Green secure children's home in Gloucestershire. It tells their stories and examines their progress.

As I've already said here, it's brave of these units to allow cameras in, and important that they do - it's the only way the public can begin to understand how vulnerable children are cared for under lock and key. There's already a CareSpace discussion going so do join in if you watch.

Unlike young offender institutions, secure children's homes are generally used to hold younger offenders, those aged 12 to 14, girls up to the age of 16, and 15 to 16-year-old boys who are assessed as particularly vulnerable.

Picture credit: BBC/Lambent productions

According to BBC reports this morning, eight men have been arrested in Greater Manchester, as part of a major investigation into child sexual exploitation.

Officers at Greater Manchester Police's major incident team are reported to have spoken to more than 30 girls - some victims, some witnesses - in connection with the large scale inquiry.

The victims, some of whom are believed to have been in care, were reportedly plied with drugs and alcohol and taken to parties where they were abused.

The arrests follow a number of high profile child sexual exploitation investigations in other parts of the country, including Derby and Torbay.

The findings of an inquest into the death of a teenager found dead after sniffing aerosols are due to be made public later, the BBC reports.

Darlene Bell, 15, was found in a park in Northern Ireland last June. The teenager, who had been in care for many years, had signed herself out of her children's home late at night.

The BBC London investigation revealed that the following key findings and criticisms were left out of the SCR:

• the head of the unit Dr Sukanta Banerjee considered it a "clinically risky situation"
• the arrangements for seeing child protection cases there caused "grave concern"
• there was a "clearly unacceptable" four-month delay in Peter's appointment
• the doctor who examined Peter should not have been appointed by Gosh because she had "little experience and training in child protection"
• there were "significant concerns" in two of only four previous child protection cases she had seen there

Care order applications to Cafcass are continuing to soar, according to the family courts body's latest figures which reveal applications last month reached a record high.

There were 816 care applications in May - the most ever recorded for May - and 674 in April. In total, Cafcass received 9,165 new applications during 2010-11, up 3.8% on last year.

Following the recent announcement from care services minister Paul Burstow that responsibility for commissioning health services for young people in secure settings is to transfer to the NHS, Barnardo's Carlene Firmin has explained why this is such great news.

And this sad story highlights exactly why we need better health services for vulnerable young people in secure settings. 

As John Goldup, Ofsted's social care director, revealed exclusively to Community Care last month, the watchdog is hoping to make changes to its framework for inspecting adoption and fostering services - and has today launched a consultation for practitioners to respond to.

Among the changes being considered by Ofsted: cutting notice periods for inspections from two months to just 10 working days and developing a more proportionate approach to inspections, which could involve inspecting outstanding-rated services less frequently.

Inspectors will also be asked to devote more attention to inspecting the quality of services and the outcomes actually achieved for children and young people.

The consultation is open from today and runs until 31 August, with key findings published at the end of the year. The new inspection frameworks will come into force in April 2012, shaped by the consultation results and a series of pilot inspections. Read our full story here.

She said: "I think it's what members of the public expect and what social workers expect. They feel like they're being asked to carry the can on this when all evidence shows they were working well beyond their hours, were understaffed, not being managed properly and with an inadequate IT system.

"I think they have a right to know what was happening at a higher level."

Other reports have said, meanwhile, that the backlog within Kent's children's services (one of the failings Ofsted identified) will be cleared "within weeks".

Councillor Jenny Whittle said the figure for the number of children who haven't been allocated a social worker within 28 days was now down to 71.

With the ongoing family justice review looking to recommend big changes in the autumn, it's good to see the review panel haven't forgotten the voice of those most affected by their many recommendations - children and young people. 

Published today is the Young People's Guide to the family justice review, drawn up by Roger Morgan, the children's rights director for England. The guide explains the issues in bitesize, child-friendly chunks (useful for busy journalists and practitioners too..) and seeks children's views about how the system should be reformed.

Review chair David Norgrove (pictured) said it is "vital" that children have a voice in shaping the future of the family justice system. "The Young People's Guide gives them this opportunity and the panel will carefully consider what they say," he said.

He added: "Our recommendations aim to bring children to the forefront by creating greater coherence through organisational change and better management, making the system more able to cope with current and future pressures and diverting more issues away from court where appropriate."

The guide accompanies the family justice review's interim report, published in March. Its final report is due in the autumn.

Picture credit: Vectorportal