A little more than five years passed since the publication of Lord Laming Report and I was wondering if practitioners from children's services feel any change? Did the report findings resulted in changes in their day to day practice?

 

Are other professionals making better referrals, or sharing information as appropriate?

 

Did local authorities getting better at sharing information when a child moves from one to another? I still struggle with one local authority to get information about a child that was in their care and now lives in my area and he is in need for support? Anybody else had similar experiences?

Hi Daci

Welcome to CareSpace. This is an interesting question. I would have hoped with so many recommendations and the full inquiry into Victoria's death that lessons would have been learned. i look forward to hearing any responses.

 

 I also would be interested to hear what people think. There was a feature in Com Care which looked at progress on the Laming Report which is worth checking out

First, let me say thank you Ed for welcoming me.

That feature in com care is quite interesting. Is quite funny that every time a government wants to build a national IT system, it ends up with a huge expense and a system that crashes every other ....After the episode with the lost CDs, the press will look for any problems with the ContactPoint.

I heard a remark not too long about from a person that just realised what is ContactPoint. That person was surprised that because of the opposition the ID cards are delayed but a similar system for children goes ahead. Just as a curiosity did the government asked for children and young people's 'wishing and feelings' about the ContactPoint?

Sorry, I missed a word. I could not decide ...crashes every other second or day.

Hi Daci,

Yes, they did to some extent garner the views of children and young people...and promptly ignored them. You may find the following illuminating:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23375298-details/4%20million%20children%20at%20risk%20of%20being%20stigmatised%20by%20nationwide%20'problem%20child'%20database/article.do

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/fipr_report_protecting_childrens_personal_information.pdf

I, too, have wondered about contactpoint vis a vis identity cards.  I must say that I feel very uncomfortable about both.  I very much doubt that the person in the street will be/w  as asked about either.  It concerns me that a child who has never had any attention drawn to it by any agency will now have its details on a data base.  Given the recent publicity about 'lost' information I can only hope that the government can assure us all that any data will be stored securely.  What are other people's views I wonder?

The database will never be secure as there are too many variables.

Was anything learned from Victoria's case ? I believe there is now a tendency to overreact by agencies incase they 'miss' something, we have gone from proof of abuse to trying to predict which children 'may' be at risk in the future.

The truth is everyone is capable of harming another human being given the right set of circumstances, on that premise all children are at risk everyday of their lives, no one can go through life being a 'suspect' of intent.

I believe the family courts have not helped the situation by asking Social Services to complete section 7 reports for contact cases, how many hours are their in a day?

 Social work needs to get back to basics and the guidelines for 'significant harm' need to be changed, let's face it under the new guidelines basically anything can be classed as 'significant harm', the dental association says if your child has good hygene you only need to visit the dentist 12/18 monthly, under the guidelines it says every 6 months, it's getting ridiculous.

 

I think that Lord Laming just wanted the glory and never thought about how any of it would work. Try writing to him he's far from encouraging. I've had more encouragement in my endeavours from the editor of the daily express which says a lot really.

Have you ever read the Laming report in full or at least scanned it. I have a copy and what's glaring about it is the lack of common sense of everyone involved.

A child of that age should have been at school so why did no one ask why she wasn't

In 1988 when I started in social work if I hadn't known which school the children that I had on my case load and at duty stage and the views of the school I would have had the referral chucked back at me and yet there is very little about school in the Laming Report.

I've advised my son to apply to find out through data protection what contactpoint has about him and will advise other children to do likewise.

My daughter is currently playing O'Brien in '1984' in her youth theatre production she likes being the baddy but Orwells predictions are chillingly accurate.

Perhaps 1984 should be top of new social workers reading list if they trully want to remain human with human values then they should read it or do they want to submit to Big Brother what are social workers room 101 fears I wonder?

 

Hi Justme,

Your second paragraph is so telling. I was talking to someone at an ISA briefing meeting and we both agreed that there is a lot of 'Common Sense' missing from society at the moment. I get the impression that politicians and their friendly legal bods are more concerned with litigation issues and covering backs than protecting (oops sorry - Safeguarding) children.

WRT the database for children I despair. Of course we need to communicate better but do we really need a national database with my grandchildren's names on it 'just in case' something happens? There must be an easier way!

Hi Justme,

 I would have to say that Social Workers room 101 fears would have to be their children or grandchildren being caught up in this government 's wave of ' everyone is guilty of something because we say they are ' approach, more a damning insight to the Labour party the the rest of the country I fear.

Fortunately the rest of the Labour party stronghold ie; teachers, doctors, nurses, the police etc have all cottoned onto this government, I wonder if SW's will follow suit.

It's almost a certainty that the Conservatives will take the next election as people are fearful of how '1984' we have become, this will certainly end the reign of CAFCASS as they have said they are to be disbanded, what of Social Services?

i have learnt that ICS means i spend more time infront of a computer screen....and ironically for Laming, less time knocking on doors.

Justme , Did you never ever read the 200 page document availble in the OU for Socal Care written by Margaret Thatcher called simply Margert Thatcher's Children ?Let's face it the Labour Party took her ideology from this document written well over over 20 years ago . The gudelines given by the IRON LADY herself ? The SW are only a pawn in the game also can be seen to be part of the problem too . I can not think it is justifable to blame the SW's for everything .Why should they blamed for all of this CHAOS it comes from these so called leaders. I would like to think that in the theory what if we just do not have any party leaders would we manage or would we come to a standstill ! Tony Blair was hated outside Whitehall on a demo we heard enough from the General Public how they felt . Tony Benn was 1 of the best in his day I heard said enough aslo I had to agree with some on this .

I read every page of the document and I still have a copy. It is a reminder to me that if you dont do your job nobody else will.