January 2012 Archives

Toby is three. He does not talk, he still wears nappies and he has frequent violent tantrums. He lives in a cramped flat in Bristol with parents who love him but are failing to meet even his most basic needs.

Dad Mike is utterly bewildered by fatherhood, yet convinced of his right to parent. Mum Tiffany is loving, but depressed and overwhelmed. Their relationship is volatile. Bruises and two large fingerprint marks have recently appeared on Toby's skin.

So what would you do if you were a newly qualified social worker and this was your first case? That was the unenviable predicament facing Susanne (pictured right) during the first episode of the much-anticipated BBC documentary series Protecting Our Children.

A huge buzz has been building about the series and, as expected, the programme provoked debate and excitement. For a profession dogged by criticism and misunderstanding, this was a rare chance to see a more accurate picture of social work in the national media.

Around 1,000 viewers participated in a live Community Care debate during last night's film, while supportive messages - and inevitably, some less so - flashed up on social media sites.

Here's a round-up of some of your views and reactions:

Dgorky (via CareSpace): "A powerful documentary. It will be the basis for training in child protection. The programme is a reminder of the ethical dilemmas of social work: protecting the vulnerable people like Toby and respecting the the parents' wishes."

BASW_UK (via Twitter): "Well done to Bristol children's services for opening their doors."

@jb_barrister (via Twitter): "My analysis was that it was quite balanced and showed a reality in Britain seldom seen on TV"

@Linda1892 (via Twitter): "Good insight into the dilemmas faced by social workers of ensuring child's needs are met....and the pain for everyone"

@hopeandbelieve (via Twitter): "Love is NOT enough #protectingourchildren such a difficult case for all" 

Natalie Wyatt, social worker (via Community Care debate): "I'm pleased it features neglect - not as 'sensational' as the other forms of abuse, difficult to evidence but a huge part of the job... Excellent to see more experienced staff supporting Bristol's NQSWs."

Yvalia Febrer, social worker (via Community Care debate): "Putting oneself in this child's shoes is very upsetting, but very illuminating."

RP (via Community Care debate): "It was very good to show that Social Workers cannot remove children by themselves."

And if you want to see all the comments from our live debate for yourself - you can replay the whole event using the box below.   

by Dr Lucy Rai, senior social work lecturer at the Open University

The first episode of the BBC social work series Protecting our Children, screened last night, vividly confronted viewers with some of the classic challenges of child protection.

Mike and Tiffany's care of three-year-old Toby was in question due to bruises found on his arm. But, more significantly, we saw signs of generalised neglect and developmental delay. Newly qualified social worker Susanne, with the support of her manager and team, had to assess the harm posed by the chaotic and emotionally volatile environment in which Toby lived.

As professionals, we can take valuable lessons and insight from the cases, methods and outcomes shown in this episode, Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don't.

Assessing and acting upon neglect:
Assessing and acting on neglect has always been challenging. It involves not only appraising parental capacity and willingness to change, but also judgements about the degree of harm caused by the physical and emotional care provided to a child. The complexity of teasing out environmental, genetic and generational parenting capacity will be familiar to many childcare professionals, as will the agony of waiting for evidence to emerge while a child fails to thrive. In last night's episode we saw that, as in many neglect cases, gathering information for a fair assessment takes time and can be complicated by crises or changes in events.

Poor generational parenting capacity:
The painful consequences of poor generational parenting capacity were portrayed particularly well in this programme. Tiffany and Mike were not cruel or uncaring parents, but neither grew up with the emotional care and cognitive stimulation that would have enabled them to meet Toby's needs. But although their unhappy childhoods explained the source of their incapacity as parents, this did not enable them to provide safely for Toby.

Building relationships with families:
The process of assessment and separation - when Toby is taken into foster care - did, however, lead Tiffany to the agonising decision that both Toby and his newborn sister should be adopted. Tiffany's actions are not typical but highlight the importance of building relationships with parents to enable them, where possible, to act in the best interests of their children, even if this ultimately means separation.

Collaborative working and supervision:
Social work is so often portrayed through parents and practitioners in conflict over children's welfare. Last night's episode was a rare opportunity to see the benefits of genuine collaborative working, but achieving this was by no means easy. Mike was confrontational and evasive, Tiffany demonstrated empty compliance and Susanne was initially anxious and inexperienced. However, the programme illustrates the strength of effective professional supervision and teamwork which supported Susanne through the anxious months of initial assessment and, eventually, legal intervention. Such supervisory and team discussions are vital for social workers to reach safe judgements which are appropriately guided by a complex mix of professional knowledge, emotion and moral sensibilities.

Moral dilemmas:
Moral dilemmas are clear when confronted with chaotic homes such as Mike and Tiffany's. We saw the social workers involved reacting with different degrees of concern to the unsanitary conditions. Through shared observation, discussion and a clear focus on the child's welfare, the decision was made that not only were conditions unacceptably poor, but change was unlikely .

• The Open University co-produced Protecting Our Children, in partnership with the BBC. Dr Rai provided expert input into the development of the series.

BBC documentary Protecting Our Children followed a team of Bristol child protection social workers for two years. Despite the obvious risk the series has a crucial role to play in raising public awareness, writes Annie Hudson, the council's director of children's services

Find out more about the programme and take part in a live debate about the issues raised

It would be strange indeed if I said I never had an anxious moment about the prospect of Bristol's social workers appearing on national TV.

But although there were obvious risks involved, we believed the series would help to raise public awareness of the intrinsically invisible and private activity of social workers.

It offered the chance to show some of the daunting situations faced by social workers and their managers, as well as the wide repertoire of skills and the fine judgements needed to make difficult decisions.

I also believe we have a duty to be more open about what we are doing, thus encouraging more informed debate about the issues which social workers grapple with on a daily basis. 

It helped that Bristol had already worked with the BBC on a similar series seven years ago, called 'Someone to Watch Over Me'.

Critical to our agreement to participate was our confidence that the programme makers were not looking to make 'quick fire' documentaries about 'shocking' stories, but instead were committed to following events and relationships unfold over a longer period.

Establishing the 'rules' for consent was crucial and included some groundbreaking work with local courts. Our overriding concern has been that filming should not undermine children's' interests or get in the way of the work needing to be done. 

I have huge admiration for the courage of social workers, families and other professionals in agreeing to be filmed. The experience to date has been largely positive and there is a real emerging sense of pride in having participated amongst staff, both those filmed and others. 

The programmes cannot and do not show child care social work in its entirety; nor do I expect public or professional consensus about the practice issues shown.  What I hope is that they give the general public a flavour of both the challenges of child protection work and professional integrity of practitioners.

The litmus test will be whether the films contribute to a better public understanding of the realities of childcare social work, thereby undermining the dire stereotypes that are often the currency of public debate. 

Social work play Shallow Slumber is disturbing, ugly and unmissable writes Drew Clode

Community Care has three pairs of free tickets to Shallow Slumber up for grabs - enter now

Social work is a complicated beast constantly questioning its identity, its place in the hierarchies (witness the birth struggles of The College of Social Work), and sometimes its very existence. Since it abandoned the use of `client' it has failed even to come up with a term to define the people it works with and alongside (`customer'? `user'? `citizen'?). Sometimes it fails to make it absolutely clear that it wants to exist as a separate, independent profession at all.

The extraordinary amount of good that it does, and has done, has persistently been either ignored by the wider world, or patronised by politicians who, even while praising the `caring professions' for their work have been sharpening knives to reduce their influence, their number, their pay, or all three. The last 20 years has seen it retrench, retrench, retrench until it barely seems a shadow of its former self.

Social work centre stage

The profession has hung like a ghost around many of social worker/playwright Chris Lee's earlier plays. Notably in the Water Harvest and the more complicated The Ash Boy, he has drawn from client and profession alike to explore the darkest side of human relationships, the manipulation of identity and personality through some of the crudest power games that comprise social work's daily bread and butter.

Now, in Shallow Slumber* he has brought social work centre stage for the first time in all its nervous, self-conscious, awkward uncertainties - an earlier manifestation in The Humming Bird (1996) was more peripheral. However unmissable the play is - and it is unmissable - it is an ugly, disturbing experience.

Metronomic precision

Through social worker Moira and `crack whore' Dawn he tells, in his customary flashback style, the story of the death of Baby Amy (as the media would no doubt `dub' the victim), as well as the story of the relationship between professional and client. It ebbs and flows with near metronomic precision. First Dawn implores, Moira controls: then Moira falters, a harsher Dawn manipulates.

Mora tries to explain what drew her to social work, and is then ruthlessly taken apart by a Dawn who, despite her harshness, slips amid her invective to reveal the softer, `loster' child within. Even the author can't help sending Moira up in the scene where she `presents' for her first social work job.

What turns out to be her last one is summed up in Dawn's accusation hurled at Moira that all her training and listening and reflecting and empowerment are nothing more than devices "to stop you caring beyond five o'clock. None of it is real." All Moira can answer is: "It can never be the same as friendship." So what's it all about? Finally: "They knew I was scum. They wanted me to be scum. And here I am, scum."
Moira: "You'll get tired of thinking like this."
Dawn: "So are you trying to redeem me?"

Unravelling intentions

We know from the outset that the case has destroyed both of them. Only towards the end is the full horror of the child's death laid bare, while in between is a starkly staged, intensely worded, bleakly lit, unravelling of all those good intentions that make up the profession. That, and the dark, ambiguous uncertainties that haunt relationships with the people the profession serves.

Is Moira sometimes more caricature than character? Slightly, but sometimes it's hard to tell that from an authorial tongue-in-cheek. Is Dawn a bit more articulate than your average `crack whore'? You'll never know until you've met one. Those are finer details which arise only after the full impact of the drama has been fully ingested.

The author, Chris Lee, was once rung by a friend making a boring call to arrange something mundane - a tennis match; an evening in a pub. Picking up the phone he said in a characteristic flat monotone: "I'm sorry. One of my clients has just been murdered. Can I call you back?". That same tone of a raging calm stuck inside a controlled despair reverberates through every phrase in this play.

Superbly acted by Alexandra Gilbreath (Moira) and Amy Cudden - two actors who, like the author, deserve and will almost certainly achieve greater success - it's for everyone who's ever thought deeply about social work, its origins, its present and its future. If you can't see it once, see it twice!

* Shallow Slumber by Chris Lee, directed by Mary Nighy, is showing until February 18 at the Soho Theatre, box office 020 7478 0100

Drew Clode is policy/press adviser for the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and is writing in a personal capacity

The Welsh government has opened a consultation on practice guidance to support the new child practice reviews framework, due to replace Wales' serious case review procedures.

It follows last year's announcement from Gwenda Thomas, deputy minister for children and social services, that the Welsh government planned to develop a new national programme for reviewing and learning from cases involving the serious abuse or neglect of children.

You might also be interested in this helpful CC Inform guide to serious case reviews.

Here's another chance to hear Bristol's director of children's services Annie Hudson, social worker Annie Semphill and Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas discussing the BBC documentary series Protecting Our Children on Woman's Hour this morning.

The broadcast also includes an extract from the second episode, screened next week. Don't forget to watch the first episode tonight (BBC2, 9pm) and let us know what you think.

Most people would shudder at the thought of being filmed at work by a TV crew, but not Sallyanne Jones, a team manager at Bristol council's children's services. She and her colleagues bravely agreed to be filmed for a three-part BBC series about frontline child protection work. Here Sallyanne (pictured) tells Community Care how it felt to be filmed and why she has no regrets.

"It's quite daunting to think the documentary is about to be shown to the public after more than two years of filming. I'm excited, but also nervous because you just can't predict how it's going to be received. I hope it will raise awareness about the realities of social work - I don't think the public has a visual image of what we do day-to-day.

"We're all aware of the negative press coverage social work has had in the past, and because it's succinct you get the beginning and the end of the story, but never the middle. You don't see the process - all the discussions, meetings, visits and agonising over decisions about children's lives. So I saw the series as an opportunity to show the job, not in a shining or glamourous light, but as it really is, as it really happens.

"In the early days of filming I was cautious about what I did and said in front of the cameras. You're very aware that it isn't a private space. But after months of filming you do get more comfortable, even with a boom and huge camera in the room. We got to know the film crew really well and eventually they became part of our furniture.

"They were learning about our jobs and we were learning about theirs. It took them a while to know what footage they'd need to illustrate the different stories and we learnt to keep them informed about which meetings and visits they'd need to film. We'd call and say, 'there's been a development in this case so we're doing an emergency visit - can you come?"

"It was hard being filmed during emotional times - such as a confrontation with a father whose three-year-old son we were very worried about - but trust played a huge part. I trusted the crew. They went to great effort to understand complex issues and cover them sensitively. They put children's interests first and I always felt they were trying to get the best out of us. It never felt like we, or the families, were being stitched up.

"It was quite overwhelming to watch the documentary at a screening in central London last week, surrounded by filmmakers and colleagues from social care. I'd seen it before but I connected with it differently this time. Instead of scrutinising my own words and practice, I watched it as a viewer and saw the story play out on screen. I found it really moving, and I feel it's a very honest portrayal of social work.

"I'm proud of what I do and I'm so glad our team decided to be a part of this project. I just hope viewers are left with a better understanding of what social work is all about. You can't ask more than that."

• Protecting Our Children begins on January 30, BBC2, 9pm.

Check out Community Care's special Protecting Our Children page and see how you can get involved in our live discussion

If you missed the Today programme this morning, have a listen here for an interesting discussion about the recent news on vitamin D deficiency - now accepted as a growing problem in Britain and, doctors say, a possible contributing factor to Sudden Infant Deaths. 

Doctors and solicitors describe to the programme how vitamin D deficiency and the child bone disease rickets could lead to miscarriages of justice involving allegations of child abuse. And two senior pathologists tell the BBC historic cases should be reviewed to examine whether the condition played a role.

Picture credit: ZoeLouisePhotography

Good to see our exclusive report on the recent Essex abuse case settlement picked up widely, including coverage by the Guardian and the BBC.

Here's ComCare editor Ruth Smith discussing the case on BBC Essex's breakfast show on Friday. (She's at about 1:06:10 in I think.)

England's children's homes faced some tough times in 2011, with a number of councils announcing closures and many providers struggling to fill beds. These five improvements could make a positive difference, says Jonathan Stanley.

by Jonathan Stanley, Independent Children's Homes Association, policy and practice consultant

Good residential child care thrives in an effective and supportive context. In recent years the sector has been meeting its objectives. These five challenges will help to ensure that every young person growing up in a children's home has stability, security and continuity.

1. Challenge people with Ofsted evidence on the quality of care and lobby for a change in inspections

The number of good and outstanding children's homes has been sustained and the key to improving the very small number of failing homes is precise and robust advice. We should lobby for the return of Ofsted's 'improvement function', where inspectors advise on practice rather than just evaluate.

2. Challenge talk of children's homes as 'institutional'

Most homes are now 'family sized' so we must bust the myth that children's homes are 'institutional'. Ofsted's new inspection framework focuses more on the quality of children's lives and outcomes. This means that inspection reports will allow children's voices to be heard and should boost providers' self-esteem.

3. Challenge every move that places cash over care

We need child-centred commissioning. Ofsted diplomatically notes powerful financial pressures on providers. It looks for transformational difference, yet many councils now focus on the bottom line rather than visionary development or even investing to save money over the long term.

4. Challenge inappropriate placements for young people

Every placement should be the most 'appropriate placement' if care planning guidance is to be meaningful. The most appropriate placement should never be trumped by the 'best value' one.

5. Challenge multiple placement moves for young people

We need to cut the number of young people with five or more serial placements.

Foster carers should be paid annual fees and under-performing councils should have their fostering services taken over, according to a report published today.

The wide-ranging report, by the think-tank Policy Exchange, recommended "radical reform" of English and Welsh fostering services to address the national shortage of foster carers.

Annual fees should be paid to foster carers, based on their skills and experience, the report recommended. A top tier of the most experienced and highly trained foster carers should be created and the carers paid a formal salary.

Foster carers should be commissioned via anonymous bids from local authority placement teams and independent providers when a child enters care. This will ensure children's needs are prioritised above placement costs, the think-tank said.

It also recommended the government should intervene if councils are failing to commission suitable foster care placements. This could involve local authorities handing over their fostering services to independent providers.

Matthew Oakley, co-author of the report, said: "We desperately need to reform the current foster care system. We can start by overhauling a system that can put cost considerations before a child's needs and does not encourage enough families to become carers."

Robert Tapsfield, chief executive of the Fostering Network, said: "The report correctly identifies a number of the difficulties with the current arrangements for commissioning foster care but very careful thought needs to be given to how best to solve this.

"We would urge caution before adopting a number of the recommendations."

Picture credit: Images_of_Money

I'm sure by now you'll have heard about Shallow Slumber, a "heart-rending" new play about social work opening in London this week. If not, all the details are here.

Written in the wake of the Baby P case by social worker and award-winning writer Chris Lee, Shallow slumber promises to be a must-see, especially for those working in social care.

So we've teamed up with the producers to offer three lucky readers a pair of tickets to the 8pm show on February 4 at London's Soho theatre.

Tickets are already selling out fast, I hear, so to be in with a chance of winning free tickets click here. Good luck! 

by Ray Jones, professor of social work at Kingston University and St George's, University of London and independent chair of Bristol's Safeguarding Children Board

I am proud. Proud to be a registered social worker. Proud to have been a social services manager. And proud to be the independent chair of Bristol's safeguarding children board. Why? Because in all these roles I have been allowed and able to make a contribution to the welfare and safety of children. What I never did though was to willingly expose my practice to media and public scrutiny. That did not stop the Mail on Sunday and other tabloids taking a view about whether or not I was any good at my job as a director of social services (the tabloid view was that I wasn't very good!) whenever they could sniff a story which they could re-write as damming and damaging for social work.

All the more credible and important, therefore, that there are social workers and managers willing to have their practice in protecting children and helping families observed by the media and shown to the public. On Monday 30 January and on the following two Mondays social workers in Bristol will be shown doing what social workers do every day in the documentary Protecting Our Children. What the public will see are caring and committed practitioners and managers facing the dilemmas of whether a child is safe to remain with their carers and whether it is possible to help parents to improve their care.

The pain within families, and the pain and distress for workers, will be shared with others who choose usually to be overly-judgemental.  They understandably turn away from the complexities within the decisions that have to be made by social workers and others who spend their professional lives immersed day after day in what will probably be enough for most people after an hour of a television documentary. As the TV team said, they regularly returned to their office upset by their filming that day within one family, and then remembered that the social workers they had been filming had then gone on to see other families where the distress was just as great.

As we watch our colleagues at work no doubt there will be quibbles about whether or not everything was best practice and whether we would have acted similarly. But here are workers and a council who were willing to open themselves up to critical comment. What I have seen of these television documentaries, and what I know of social workers and their managers in Bristol, should mean that any quibbles are overwhelmed by a view of practice of which I would be very pleased and proud. They have bottle in Bristol, and they also have much care, compassion and competence.

Check out Community Care's special Protecting Our Children page and see how you can get involved in our live discussion

She has an impressive CV which includes a number of senior positions within government.

Cafcass chief executive, Anthony Douglas, praised her "great track record and professional, political and personal credibility and nous".

Baroness Tyler said: "[Cafcass's] vitally important work brings together two areas that are very dear to my heart - protecting children from the negative impact of family breakdown and improving the outcomes for children in care."

Campaigners are one step closer to a government u-turn on welfare reform today after peers and bishops revealed they will press for changes to the proposed cap on benefits.

It's estimated the £500-a-week limit on benefits, due to be debated in the House of Lords today, will affect 50,000 households, all losing around £93 per week.

Charities have warned the moves could plunge children and families into poverty and pile pressure on already-struggling social services departments.

Enver Solomon, director of policy at The Children's Society, told the Observer: "Child benefit which is paid to parents but provided specifically for children must be excluded from the cap. Peers must now make a stand to protect the plight of the country's disadvantaged children."

This useful analysis by The Children's Society found the cap - designed to incentivise people into work and promote fairness between those working and those claiming benefits - will disproportionately affect children who could pay the ultimate price for their parents' choices.

More than 80,000 children could end up homeless, the charity found, while a government memo leaked to the Observer yesterday suggested 100,000 children would be pushed below the poverty line as a result of the cap.

Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has, however, rejected all claims that the cap could push children and families into poverty. But is he right? Click here for an interesting analysis.

Picture credit: Images_of_Money 

The NSPCC is to investigate how well England's primary schools deal with child protection concerns. The research, commissioned by the Office of the Children's commissioner, will form part of best practice guidance for schools, Local Safeguarding Children's Boards and other children's professionals. The guidance will be published by autumn 2012.

Children's commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, said: "The policy agenda on child protection is focused on early identification of need and help for children.

"But research shows there are a number of barriers to the development of good practice models in schools, including confusion and concern about information sharing and understanding the law on data.

"It is our intention to support teachers and school staff so that they are well placed to identify signs of abuse and neglect and to offer support for children."

Interesting interview in today's guardian with Sallyanne Jones, a social worker from Bristol who has recently become a mother and will soon be appearing on our TV screens in the BBC2 documentary Protecting Our Children.

It follows Bristol's child protection teams, with "unprecedented access" to social workers and their clients and begins on January 30, BBC2, 9pm. Let me know your thoughts if you watch, or get involved with the CareSpace debate already going here.

Here's an extract from the guardian's interview with Sallyanne Jones today:

Sallyanne has only ever initiated court proceedings when she was convinced that removing the child was the right thing to do and now that she has a child of her own, far from regretting any of the actions she's taken, she thinks that children need more protection than she might have realised in the past. "Removing a child is terrible, and however long you do this job you never get used to it. On one occasion, I had to peel a four-year-old child's hands from her mother's, and that's not something I'll ever forget, or want to ever repeat.

"But appalling though those incidents are, they are not the worst thing about my job. The worst thing is when you know a child is at risk but you can't do anything about it. For example, those occasions when a judge doesn't grant your petition to remove a child from his parents, and you have to go home thinking, what's going to happen to that child tonight? This isn't the sort of job you can switch off from - you take your worries home with you."

Check out Community Care's special Protecting Our Children page and see how you can get involved in our live discussion

Picture credit: AndyRobertsPhotos

Morning all. Here's another quick round-up of today's news, views and interesting things, starting with good news for Essex council's children's services department which has been released from two years' of government supervision after making improvements.

The latest court statistics, published today by the Ministry of Justice, have revealed care proceedings took 55 weeks, on average, to complete between July and September 2011.

Mothers of disabled children have opened up about their experiences of family life, describing to the Daily Mail how they felt when they learnt their children would have different futures to the ones they had expected. Fiona Wilson, 41, recalls her father-in-law telling her to leave her newborn son, who has Down's Syndrome, in the hospital, warning "he'll ruin your life".

Although Wilson adores her son, who was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy and autism too, life has been far from easy. She describes the exhaustion of having to "fight for your child at every step", something parents of disabled children will undoubtedly relate to.

In more positive news for disabled children and their families, a number of charities, including Mencap and Scope, have backed Ambitious about Autism's Finished at School campaign - lobbying for a clear legal right to educational support for young disabled people aged up to 25.

Third Sector reports that a Wolverhamptom charity supporting young offenders is to close after an investigation found its activities were likely to mislead potential donors.

Another day, another Facebook scandal - this time involving a 24-year-old man who attacked a 13-year-old girl he groomed online after she logged onto the social networking site during a difficult time at school. (Changes in a child's online behaviour could indicate they are being exploited. For more details of this warning sign, and others, see our online tool.)

Picture credit: ZoeLouisePhotography

If you work with any young carers who are worried about drug or alcohol misuse they might like to participate in a free and confidential online chat hosted by the charity Swanswell.

It's organised with The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and will be offering advice and information to any young person up to 19-years-old who has a caring responsibility. The chat will take place here on Monday 16 January from 4.15pm-5.30pm.

Picture credit: kodomut

More than half (52%) of children in the borough are living in poverty, according to a UK-wide 'child poverty map' and report, published today by the End Child Poverty campaign.

Tower Hamlets is closely followed by the London borough of Islington, where 43% of children live in poverty and Manchester council, where 40% live in poverty.

The government expects local areas to have child poverty levels of 10% or lower by 2020, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned poverty levels could soar by 400,000 children by 2015 unless a more progressive approach is taken.

Alison Garnham, executive director of the campaign, said the map paints a "stark picture of a socially segregated Britain where the life chances of millions of children are damaged by poverty and inequality".

"Child poverty costs us billions picking up the pieces of damaged lives and unrealised potential, so it's a false economy if we don't prioritise looking after children today," she said.

But the news is not all bleak, she added, pointing out that the child poverty target has been met in Witney, the prime minister's constituency, and nearly one hundred others.

Picture credit: dullhunk

Ok, so no prizes for guessing which MP said the above. It was, of course, the colourful John Hemming who, according to an interview in The Independent today, has also set up his own record company and drummed for several bands including a Sex Pistols cover act (?!).

As well as random Hemming-trivia, the interview also contains some of the Birmingham Yardley MP's typically provocative views. Here's an extract:

Hemming is concerned by a lack of oversight applied to the care system - which he believes leads to miscarriages of justice in the family courts. He receives pleas to help with about two or three care cases every day, and while he accepts that some have no basis, he is driven by a desire to make the system more accountable.

"Things that happen without scrutiny happen wrongly. Concealing things is not in the benefit of the children; it only benefits those who run the system who can't be held to account. I've seen the injustices. It is an unevidence-based justice system, relying on twaddle and psychobabble and they get away with because the people it happens to are economically and politically weak."

And here's an interview we ran with Hemming last year, based on his view that ministers are pushing adoption as the primary permanent option for children, without due regard to the perceived high rate of breakdowns. (A view which some in the sector, including the British Association of Social Workers, have agreed with.) He will be pleased to read this news. 

Picture credit: johnhemming

Morning all. Here's a quick round-up of interesting social care news I've spotted today, starting with a story in the Yorkshire Post that reports campaigners have called for tighter deadlines to publish serious case reviews in full. 

The Post reports that just seven of the 40 inquries into child deaths or serious abuse cases completed in the last 18 months have been published in full. 

Serious case reviews yet to be published in full, it reports, include the inquiries into the abduction of schoolgirl Shannon Matthews and the attacks on two boys in Edlington.

Cornwall Council says its social work department was not to blame for the suicide of a vulnerable schoolgirl, despite commissioning a report costing £100,000 which revealed serious failings by at least six care agencies, according to the Western Morning News.

The Daily Mail reports that 218 young people went missing from care in Ireland last year (although, if our investigation is anything to go by the true figure could be far higher).

And some more positive news: Cafcass' specialist child protection team, based at the organisation's National Business Centre in Coventry, has been rated 'good' by Ofsted.

Picture credit: comedy_nose

There's been much in the news this week about the threat that online networking poses to adoption after two leading charities warned sites such as Facebook enable abusive parents to contact children after they've been adopted.

In some of the worst cases cited, children who have been living with their adopted parents for more than a decade have seen the relationship break down because of sudden, and unexpected, contact from their birth parents.

Speaking to The Times this week, Jonathan Pearce, chief executive of Adoption UK, said unplanned and unsupported contact between adoptive and birth families via social networking sites has had a dramatic effect on adoption.

"This will only increase in the future and will mean a radical rethink of how we arrange and support adoptions from care. First and foremost, we need to be more open and honest with adopted children about the reasons for their adoption and reality of the abuse and neglect they experienced within their birth families," he said. 

He said being more honest with adopted children would better protect and prepare them for the destabilising effects of unplanned contact, pointing out that this often happens at a key stage in their adolescence. "Similarly, better support, in the form of counselling and therapeutic services, need to be available to adoptive families," he added.

It's an interesting issue and one that's likely to worsen in an ever more connected virtual world. Have you had any experience of this in your work? If so, do get in touch with us or have your say on CareSpace. Click here for a feature about keeping children safe online.

Meanwhile, the first study into the nature and scale of adoption breakdowns has been commissioned by the Department for Education and will be carried out by Bristol University.

Picture credit: benstein

A children's guardian formerly employed by family courts body Cafcass has been awarded an MBE in the New Year honours list.

Stephanie Martin, a qualified social worker and foster carer who has fostered more than 100 children, was honoured for her services to children and families.

She began her career in child care aged 17, training as a nursery nurse before working in residential child care and later qualifiying as a social worker at Sheffield University. Martin, who has now moved to New Zealand, spent more than 20 years working for Cafcass in Leeds.

Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas described her as "an outstanding practitioner who also combined this tough work with being a foster carer for many years".

"She was a brilliant team player and a great source of support and advice to her colleagues. This honour is recognition of Stephanie's lifetime achievement and is also a great honour for Cafcass," Douglas said.

Martin said her career as a guardian was, "very interesting and affirming". "There was never a day when I didn't want to go into work," she said. "What I enjoyed most was the relationships with service managers and colleagues; the way everyone was willing to 'go the extra mile' to help out to make sure that we did the best job possible..."

On being a foster carer, Martin said: "We have met some wonderful brave children and had a great deal of pleasure caring for them as well as many sadnesses...The best [outcomes have] been when parents can successfully resume care of their children. One of 'my' mums has now, as well as being a good mother to her children, attained a degree in social work!"

Jim Bond, president of the Fostering Network, and nine foster carers are also among those honoured in the New Year list. Browse the full list of honours here.

Picture credit: Creativity103