By Natalie Valios
Children are more at risk of being killed by their stepfather or mother's boyfriend than they are by their birthfather. Most of the UK's most infamous child deaths have been at their hands.
Often, social workers don't know the true picture of a child's home circumstances - Baby P is a case in point. But without this knowledge a child cannot be kept safe. What needs to be learned from the Baby P case and the many that preceeded it, is that social workers must have this picture. This means routinely asking questions of mothers to find out who they, and their child, are involved with. If the mother is uncooperative then could professionals find out from, say, a neighbour who goes in and out? We can't keep saying "lessons will be learned" when, clearly, they are not.
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