Union claims children at risk given `fictitious` social workers

Union members in Devon have claimed some children at risk are
being allocated fictitious social workers as evidence of a crisis
in the council’s children’s services, by David
Callaghan
.

They claim that pseudonyms have been created for social workers
who do not exist because there is not enough staff to cope with the
number of child care cases.

Bernie Crean, senior Unison shop steward, warned that a child
could die unless the service was better resourced. He said social
workers in the child care teams would be balloted on strike action
unless the council provided more investment in the service.

“We genuinely believe that the environment exists for a tragedy
to happen, and we don’t believe this is fair on our staff,” he
said.

“They have been placing cases under fictitious names when they
should have a named social worker,” said Crean. He said one example
of a false name was ‘Mr T. Child’.

He also said there has been a dramatic increase in stress
suffered by staff battling with huge caseloads.

But David Padfield, the council’s deputy social services
director, said no children on the child protection register had
been allocated a fictitious social worker.

He said under the IT system currently used by the council each
case had to be allocated to a name, and sometimes it is necessary
to create a false one. A new system was being planned, he said.

“It is simply an administrative exercise. It is just that the
system needs a name for it to be recorded.

“There is no policy to use fictitious names for children who are
under child protection,” Padfield said.

 

 

 

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.