The appalling Maria Colwell tragedy case of 1974 was supposed to have introduced sweeping changes socially and legally in the way parents who neglect or inflict cruelty on their children would be dealt with by social services and the court.
In retrospect nothing really seems to have been achieved and the Baby P case proved that.
Since when has our free media pursuing a story of national importance like this been so easily labelled a witchhunt. Isn't that what the management said about folks pursuing the deaths at North Staffs Hospital. Dangerous territory when institutions of the state (including BBC) can just dismiss gross incompetence in this way.
As for not removing BabyP. Whoever made that decision will have to live with it for the rest of their lives. The telling fact is that we don't know who took that decision. No child should be left with family in same circumstances today.
I said in an earlier post that I didn't think a 'family friend' would be objective, and as it says there, the SW thought the friend believed social services were overreacting.
Account of who decided to place Peter with a family friend instead of in foster care.
The social worker on the case believed the family friend would provide adequate accommodation for the child, but her team manager said Peter should be taken into care. They took the disagreement to the senior team manager, who supported the social worker.
Cameron was in opposition and did not have the full facts. He raised a critical issue at the top of public agenda. If Cameron had his facts wrong it was up to the Govt of the day to provide the right ones in response to his question.
If a similar situation happened today Milliband would be asking exactly the same questions. No doubt cheered on by BBC. Pure politics that part of the programme.
Cameron pretty much used the "facts" as reported by the Sun. No one knew the full facts at the time, so there was no way for Balls to refute the charge immediately.
Why are you grinding an anti-Labour axe in all this? What happened to BabyP has nothing to do with party politics, so lets try and keep the tribaslism out of it, shall we?
I found the sight of Sharon Shoesmith whingeing and trying to put the blame on everyone but herself infuriating (let's not forget she got a payout for 600K). Ordinary people lose their jobs every day through no fault of their own and walk away with nothing. Same goes for the doctor - ok maybe he didn't have a broken back, but there were plenty of other signs of abuse she failed to recognise - she didn't even bother to examine him because he was crying and irritable. God forbid that overpaid professionals would have to take responsiblity for their failings - whenever I've asked why some manager is paid a ludicrously high salary the answer is always - because they have so much responsibility. However in the real world it seems that the higher people are the more eager they are to pass the buck.
A piece of propaganda masquerading as informative TV.>:(
How is it propaganda? Shoesmith appeared on the programme and put her case, but it wasn't at all convincing. She certainly wasn't vindicated, she's still responsible for what her department did. The documentary revealed other aspects of the case which have been glossed over, such as Health Service and Police actions. But the way Harringey ran its child protection is still at the centre of it.
If the full facts don't match the public reaction at the time that should not be hidden. It would be utterly wrong to try and maintain the same position when new facts emerge.
Police wanted to withdraw child from family but was overruled by social worker. It really is as simple as why the hell was the child still in family care?. Diatribes and 90 min documentaries cannot explain away this simple issue. That is what press and public latched onto. Still no satisfactory explanation just blame game.
Yes that seems to me to be the crux of the matter. Ultimately it was the failure to remove the child from the home environment that was the tragic error leading to the child's death. And that was the decision to be made by social services not the police or medical professionals. A fact that I feel was shamefully ignored in the heavily biased piece of television.
I've read the book on Baby P and really I didn't think there was enough new information to really shed any different light on the matter or justify a TV documentary. So his back might not have been broken when the doctor failed to examine him? - that makes her situation worse not better as there were other signs of abuse and he might have recovered to have a reasonable quality of life if she had done her job properly. So she was under-qualified and inexperienced? - so what - she was still happy to take the job and the salary that went with it. So the media and the public exploded in outrage? - it would be a pretty dreadful society that didn't react in this way to the cruel and needless death of a tot, at the hands of the people who were supposed to care for him. So the police put the blame on the social workers? - if it's true (and no-one has yet refuted it) that they wanted to take him out of the home and SW overruled this, maybe they were right to point the finger of blame. As for the social worker on the case, if she could be fooled by the chocolate on the face, by someone with the IQ of a tadpole she's clearly in the wrong job!
Since when has our free media pursuing a story of national importance like this been so easily labelled a witchhunt. Isn't that what the management said about folks pursuing the deaths at North Staffs Hospital. Dangerous territory when institutions of the state (including BBC) can just dismiss gross incompetence in this way.
As for not removing BabyP. Whoever made that decision will have to live with it for the rest of their lives. The telling fact is that we don't know who took that decision. No child should be left with family in same circumstances today.
Because they weren't presenting the full story and were presenting it before the investigation was even completed. They essentially racked up public furore by campaigns and demanding people's jobs.
I have NO problem with the media presenting a case as long as it is fair and balanced, which this was not. It essentially led to certain people involved having death threats sent to their daughters, being sent to a psychiatric unit, being suicidal and having to be relocated. Do you really think these professionals don't live with that on their conscience every day? Of course they do. You'd have to be inhuman not to.
The thing that the public, media and politicians seemed to be missing out was that these people did not deliberately set out to allow a child to die, they were trying to help, but for whatever reason they made mistakes that lead to Peter's death. I'm not saying that's OK, but what I am saying is that the reaction was as if they set out to kill him. His mother and the men in her life killed him. At the time I remember them receiving less furore than the professionals! Some of the professionals made mistakes, yes and some of them did their best within their power to help, but they were all witchunted.
That is down to Ed Balls - nobody else. I was in a national meeting with Unison (as it happens) the day that her dismissal broke. I walked back in to pick up on the national reps talking about it. I said if we (ie: FTSE 100 company) had acted in this way you would going ballistic and taking us to industrial tribunal. They said Unions were going to have to represent Sharon Shoesmith and demand substantial sum as a Govt Minister acting in breach of their own laws just couldn't be allowed to happen. Stupid man it was clear the moment he did it that it was going to cost the Govt mega bucks. She should have been suspended immediately on full pay. They had had a year and investigations so there was no reason why the process couldn't happen fairly quickly and she would have gone and cost the taxpayer only a few weeks wages.
He messed up, but he didn't actually sack her, the council did that. He announced on TV the council would remove her. The tribunal criticised his intervention, but they also criticised the council's dismissal procedure. She would have got compensation for either.
Cameron pretty much used the "facts" as reported by the Sun. No one knew the full facts at the time, so there was no way for Balls to refute the charge immediately.
Why are you grinding an anti-Labour axe in all this? What happened to BabyP has nothing to do with party politics, so lets try and keep the tribaslism out of it, shall we?
Sharon Shoesmith said herself that they had been working hand in glove with the Govt over the full year since the incident. It wasn't a new event it was a death that been fully investigated / gone to court / individuals convicted. Cameron may have used the Sun information to ask a question as that was what was in the public domain. All newspapers were reporting it so why you identify the Sun as his source rather than Telegraph / Independent / Guardian / Mirror I can only summise. Govt should have been fully prepared with the full facts which they had to answer any questions put to them by Cameron. If they didn't then they allowed media reporting to become the 'stated' fact of the case at that point.
As for political agenda that was set by the programme last night. There was no need for BBC to do it but they can't help themselves. You might not like it that folks can see their agenda but an agenda there was. Folks care(d) about BabyP and the documentary could have been done without any of this stuff. Problem was it was about blame shifting and media (Murdoch) and Cameron (Tory) had to be in their firing line as usual alongwith Met Police who they enjoy firing at as well.
All the public want is for no child to be left with a family in these circumstances again.
He messed up, but he didn't actually sack her, the council did that. He announced on TV the council would remove her. The tribunal criticised his intervention, but they also criticised the council's dismissal procedure. She would have got compensation for either.
No one, in any of this, is solely to blame.
Oh come on you are defending the indefensible. It was Balls decision he admitted as much last night that he did it to shut the story down. To try and move the decision to the council who had been stalling on taking any action in terms of staff performance is blame shifting akin to Shoesmith herself. I know why he did it but he should have known (probably did) that he was opening up Govt to mega payout.
The problem is the public expect the impossible. Even with the absolute best will in the world, children will slip through the system. In the same way a doctor can do everything they should do and a patient will still die. That sounds callous, but it is the reality.
I think the public think health and social professionals are not human. There are way too many scumbags with children in this world and there is never and never will be enough money, staff and resources to protect all of them 100%.
Cases have to be prioritised and you cannot save everybody. On top of that these professionals are human, they will make mistakes and bad calls. Difference between them and most of the working world is that just one mistake, one foot wrong can result in a death.
Fact is 9 times out of 10, these humans make the right call and children get saved, but no one gives a shit about that.
IMO, the people most at fault here (and I honestly don't think any one person was to blame) were the upper levels of Social Services not acting on Maria Ward's escalation of concerns, the management of St Ann's hospital not listening to and then trying to buy off staff who raised concerns. Shoesmith should have taken more responsibility, but she also wasn't solely to blame. Actually scrap that, I do think some people are to solely blame and that would be the 3 caregivers in Peter's life who, you know, actually killed him.
Yes that seems to me to be the crux of the matter. Ultimately it was the failure to remove the child from the home environment that was the tragic error leading to the child's death. And that was the decision to be made by social services not the police or medical professionals. A fact that I feel was shamefully ignored in the heavily biased piece of television.
I've read the book on Baby P and really I didn't think there was enough new information to really shed any different light on the matter or justify a TV documentary. So his back might not have been broken when the doctor failed to examine him? - that makes her situation worse not better as there were other signs of abuse and he might have recovered to have a reasonable quality of life if she had done her job properly. So she was under-qualified and inexperienced? - so what - she was still happy to take the job and the salary that went with it. So the media and the public exploded in outrage? - it would be a pretty dreadful society that didn't react in this way to the cruel and needless death of a tot, at the hands of the people who were supposed to care for him. So the police put the blame on the social workers? - if it's true (and no-one has yet refuted it) that they wanted to take him out of the home and SW overruled this, maybe they were right to point the finger of blame. As for the social worker on the case, if she could be fooled by the chocolate on the face, by someone with the IQ of a tadpole she's clearly in the wrong job!
BIB: The locum did examine him and recorded his injuries. She had no case notes to refer to. She didn't realise what his injuries indicated in terms of child abuse and that she should act on the results of the examination. The outcry was because she supposedly missed the broken back.
Are you seriously suggesting she should not have accepted a job she applied for? It was up to Great Ormond St to realise she was not properly qualified to hold that post. But they were under pressure to fill posts that no one else was applying for. She probably assumed they thought she was capable of the job or they wouldn't have offered it to her.
The social worker pushed as hard as she could to get the boy in a place of safety but was overruled by her management.
Because they weren't presenting the full story and were presenting it before the investigation was even completed. They essentially racked up public furore by campaigns and demanding people's jobs.
I have NO problem with the media presenting a case as long as it is fair and balanced, which this was not. It essentially led to certain people involved having death threats sent to their daughters, being sent to a psychiatric unit, being suicidal and having to be relocated. Do you really think these professionals don't live with that on their conscience every day? Of course they do. You'd have to be inhuman not to.
The thing that the public, media and politicians seemed to be missing out was that these people did not deliberately set out to allow a child to die, they were trying to help, but for whatever reason they made mistakes that lead to Peter's death. I'm not saying that's OK, but what I am saying is that the reaction was as if they set out to kill him. His mother and the men in her life killed him. At the time I remember them receiving less furore than the professionals! Some of the professionals made mistakes, yes and some of them did their best within their power to help, but they were all witchunted.
Oh lets ban reporting of incidents like this so that the poor people who were grossly incompetent are not known. We must make sure that they are all fine and dandy. Never mind the poor mite who died in horrific circumstances. The public must not be allowed to be enraged and demand to know what happened. Demand that something is done to make sure no other child suffered as BabyP did.
The public knew it was a multi agency failure it was fully reported at the time. The media honed in on the fact that it was social services who made the decision to not remove him from family care. That was confirmed last night but glossed over in the clamour to throw blame across the spectrum. Fact is it was that key decision that was ultimately responsible for his death.
IMO there are far too many overpaid managers in the public sector who seem to serve no useful purposes at all. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. I've seen it all in my 20 + years of working in the public sector. Cuts start at the bottom, cleaning services etc. outsourced, hard working mid-level staff replaced by low paid temps, while more and more useless managers are appointed, who create a whole new bureaucracy to justifiy their existence.
Exactly my experience in the NHS. All started by Margaret Thatcher soooo many years ago and continued by every successive government since.
Oh lets ban reporting of incidents like this so that the poor people were grossly incompetent are not known. We must make sure that they are all fine and dandy. Never mind the poor mite who died in horrific circumstances. The public must not be allowed to be enraged and demand to know what happened. Demand that something is done to make sure no other child suffered as BabyP did.
The public knew it was a multi agency failure it was fully reported at the time. The media honed in on the fact that it was social services who made the decision to not remove him from family care. That was confirmed last night but glossed over in the clamour to throw blame across the spectrum. Fact is it was that key decision that was ultimately responsible for his death.
Yes, because that is exactly what I said.
Whether you like it or agree or not, the fact of the matter is the media incorrectly reported facts and placed blame on some people, that actually weren't really to blame.
All I ask is FAIR and FACTUAL reporting.
How would you feel if you were publicly blamed and your name dragged through the mud, when you had done everything you were supposed to and then as a result of the public responding to this, you were fired and lost your registration and could never work with children again and in all honesty probably wouldn't be hired by anyone in any job if they recognised you? Because that is exactly what happened to some of the people, who when you weigh up their involvement and what they did, really didn't deserve that.
Granted, some of the people who were blamed absolutely held a fair chunk of the blame, such as the senior management in Social Services.
Oh come on you are defending the indefensible. It was Balls decision he admitted as much last night that he did it to shut the story down. To try and move the decision to the council who had been stalling on taking any action in terms of staff performance is blame shifting akin to Shoesmith herself. I know why he did it but he should have known (probably did) that he was opening up Govt to mega payout.
BIB is a ridiculous and inflammatory thing to say. I'm not shifting blame just correcting what you said. Look at the video of what he actually announced. It's on iPlayer.
Also you said he was solely responsible for it. The tribunal report doesn't say that, so you are not correct. He messed up, acting precipitately, and was rightly criticised for that by the tribunal. But he didn't actually sack her, he couldn't. Only the council could do that. The council also screwed up the dismissal. They could have kept to the correct procedure, suspended her and allowed her to defend herself. That would have prevented the compensation claim.
He certainly wasn't blameless. He messed up the announcement. I very much doubt he did so in the knowledge it would open the way for compensation. No politician would make such a mistake knowingly.
On another note, do you really think that if a thorough investigation was carried out and everyone involved did exactly what they were supposed to and Peter still died, do you really think the public would accept that? Of course they wouldn't.
On another note, do you really think that if a thorough investigation was carried out and everyone involved did exactly what they were supposed to and Peter still died, do you really think the public would accept that? Of course they wouldn't.
In that case there would be no one to blame (apart from the people who actually tortured and killed him of course). The public would have to accept that. However those in authority (such as Shoesmith and the management at Great Ormond St) should seriously consider their highly paid positions. If the system they were responsible for, not the people in it, failed then they should take responsibility for that failure and resign.
........... And what about the 260 odd children who have met their deaths (either as badly as Peter did or worse), since? Are you going to blame each individual person in social services etc for that as well?........... .
I remember every one of them, and here we are FORTY years later and still with a system which is ill-equipped to deal with the removal of vulnerable children from abusive homes.
With hindsight social work practice at this time throughout the
United Kingdom appears somewhat naïve in its approach to such a
serious issue. However, a series of events were quickly to change the
understanding, the prevailing attitude and the response over the
succeeding years. These were in connection with public enquiries
mainly into the deaths of children, all of them in England. While the
first of these was a report in 1973 on the death of a child, Graham
Bagnall, aged 2, it was the second in 1974 which made the most
major impact. The report on the death of Maria Colwell in 1974
evoked a reaction by both Parliament and the public. These led to
changes in policy and practice together with the development of
directions and guidance on dealing with referrals and investigations
of child abuse cases.
And even if we do remove children from abusive homes - where are we going to put them? Sixty years ago Barnardo's had villages with houses, each with its own house mother, to look after children. Now what do we have? Care Homes? Mmmmm! How many wonderful foster homes are there? Not enough, I fear.
No wonder the system is pitted against removing them from their own parents.
I'm still amazed at what Maria Ward was saying about Peter going to his mother for comfort as some kind of indicator that things were OK. If that's how she gauges if abuse is happening in a home, then that's scary.
There is vast research about how children respond to abusive parents and observation of interactions is a valid method. The mother perhaps did not become involved directly in the abuse so Peter would have seen her as a source of safety when surrounded by the other males in the home who were abusive.
Also, just because a parent turns up at meetings/ classes or takes the child to hospital doesn't mean they're not abusing their kids. Abusers are excellent manipulators and SWs should be able to see past that.
So if we rule out all these methods of understanding what is going on in a home....what have we left? A crystal ball?
In that case there would be no one to blame (apart from the people who actually tortured and killed him of course). The public would have to accept that. However those in authority (such as Shoesmith and the management at Great Ormond St) should seriously consider their highly paid positions. If the system they were responsible for, not the people in it, failed then they should take responsibility for that failure and resign.
I agree that accepting responsibility comes with the position of power, but I'm not sure resigning is unless there are frequent failures (which in Shoesmith's case there is argument for). Realistically a service manager cannot have all their fingers in all the pies and give each case 100% attention, that's not possible. That is why the managers below her would (or should) be responsible for a smaller group of cases and so forth who then report any serious concerns back to her and she should have he power to act on it. The question is whether this procedure was followed and if it was, did she have cases that she had to prioritise above Peter's? If she was aware of the full extent of Peter's case and either did not act on escalations then, yes the buck stops with her.
However if this case was managed by people below her and she never really got to hear the full extent of the case or what she acted on was in tun not acted on by other people, then maybe she isn't totally to blame.
Ultimately as head of her service she will have to take responsibility whether it was her fault or not. but I think she should only resign if it can be shown that she knew the full extent of the case and failed to act with incompetence.
Police wanted to withdraw child from family but was overruled by social worker. It really is as simple as why the hell was the child still in family care?. Diatribes and 90 min documentaries cannot explain away this simple issue. That is what press and public latched onto. Still no satisfactory explanation just blame game.
The police cannot be overruled by a social worker....decisions are made at child protection conferences which are chaired by the safeguarding board, not the social worker. According to the programme last night the police became very adept at feeding the press with misinformation.....and editing condemning information out of reports.
I found it interesting that Maria Ward was disciplined by the chap who decided Baby P did not need to go into care. I wonder if he is still working in post.
All the public want is for no child to be left with a family in these circumstances again.
Well the public are just going to have to accept that child protection work is not an exact science and children will die. One child every ten days will die at the hands of their parents and only one in ten of those will be known to child protection services (known not necessarily an open case).
Child protection social work is desperately understaffed....not just because of resources but because who in their right mind would want to do the work. They burn out in a few years and find less risky work to do leaving less experienced staff to pick up their cases.
I'm astonished that there are so many armchair social workers on here....considering the high levels of unemployment surely it would be better to study, join the profession and do the job that so many feel they can do better. Good luck is all I can say.
Well the public are just going to have to accept that child protection work is not an exact science and children will die. One child every ten days will die at the hands of their parents and only one in ten of those will be known to child protection services (known not necessarily an open case).
Child protection social work is desperately understaffed....not just because of resources but because who in their right mind would want to do the work. They burn out in a few years and find less risky work to do leaving less experienced staff to pick up their cases.
I'm astonished that there are so many armchair social workers on here....considering the high levels of unemployment surely it would be better to study, join the profession and do the job that so many feel they can do better. Good luck is all I can say.
This is what I've been trying to say but apparently health and social professionals are supposed to be perfect, working in a flaw-free system and have all the powers in the world at the click of their fingers.. It's very easy to sit in an ivory tower and pass judgement when you (not you!) do a job that doesn't mean a child might die if you make just one mistake and sometimes even when you don't!
Comments
In retrospect nothing really seems to have been achieved and the Baby P case proved that.
Account of who decided to place Peter with a family friend instead of in foster care.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2010/10/26/scr-placing-baby-p-with-friend-gave-wrong-message/
The social worker on the case believed the family friend would provide adequate accommodation for the child, but her team manager said Peter should be taken into care. They took the disagreement to the senior team manager, who supported the social worker.
More info
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/3470999/Police-warnings-on-Baby-P-rejected-by-Haringey-social-care-worker.html
Why are you grinding an anti-Labour axe in all this? What happened to BabyP has nothing to do with party politics, so lets try and keep the tribaslism out of it, shall we?
If the full facts don't match the public reaction at the time that should not be hidden. It would be utterly wrong to try and maintain the same position when new facts emerge.
Yes that seems to me to be the crux of the matter. Ultimately it was the failure to remove the child from the home environment that was the tragic error leading to the child's death. And that was the decision to be made by social services not the police or medical professionals. A fact that I feel was shamefully ignored in the heavily biased piece of television.
I've read the book on Baby P and really I didn't think there was enough new information to really shed any different light on the matter or justify a TV documentary. So his back might not have been broken when the doctor failed to examine him? - that makes her situation worse not better as there were other signs of abuse and he might have recovered to have a reasonable quality of life if she had done her job properly. So she was under-qualified and inexperienced? - so what - she was still happy to take the job and the salary that went with it. So the media and the public exploded in outrage? - it would be a pretty dreadful society that didn't react in this way to the cruel and needless death of a tot, at the hands of the people who were supposed to care for him. So the police put the blame on the social workers? - if it's true (and no-one has yet refuted it) that they wanted to take him out of the home and SW overruled this, maybe they were right to point the finger of blame. As for the social worker on the case, if she could be fooled by the chocolate on the face, by someone with the IQ of a tadpole she's clearly in the wrong job!
Because they weren't presenting the full story and were presenting it before the investigation was even completed. They essentially racked up public furore by campaigns and demanding people's jobs.
I have NO problem with the media presenting a case as long as it is fair and balanced, which this was not. It essentially led to certain people involved having death threats sent to their daughters, being sent to a psychiatric unit, being suicidal and having to be relocated. Do you really think these professionals don't live with that on their conscience every day? Of course they do. You'd have to be inhuman not to.
The thing that the public, media and politicians seemed to be missing out was that these people did not deliberately set out to allow a child to die, they were trying to help, but for whatever reason they made mistakes that lead to Peter's death. I'm not saying that's OK, but what I am saying is that the reaction was as if they set out to kill him. His mother and the men in her life killed him. At the time I remember them receiving less furore than the professionals! Some of the professionals made mistakes, yes and some of them did their best within their power to help, but they were all witchunted.
No one, in any of this, is solely to blame.
Sharon Shoesmith said herself that they had been working hand in glove with the Govt over the full year since the incident. It wasn't a new event it was a death that been fully investigated / gone to court / individuals convicted. Cameron may have used the Sun information to ask a question as that was what was in the public domain. All newspapers were reporting it so why you identify the Sun as his source rather than Telegraph / Independent / Guardian / Mirror I can only summise. Govt should have been fully prepared with the full facts which they had to answer any questions put to them by Cameron. If they didn't then they allowed media reporting to become the 'stated' fact of the case at that point.
As for political agenda that was set by the programme last night. There was no need for BBC to do it but they can't help themselves. You might not like it that folks can see their agenda but an agenda there was. Folks care(d) about BabyP and the documentary could have been done without any of this stuff. Problem was it was about blame shifting and media (Murdoch) and Cameron (Tory) had to be in their firing line as usual alongwith Met Police who they enjoy firing at as well.
All the public want is for no child to be left with a family in these circumstances again.
Oh come on you are defending the indefensible. It was Balls decision he admitted as much last night that he did it to shut the story down. To try and move the decision to the council who had been stalling on taking any action in terms of staff performance is blame shifting akin to Shoesmith herself. I know why he did it but he should have known (probably did) that he was opening up Govt to mega payout.
I think the public think health and social professionals are not human. There are way too many scumbags with children in this world and there is never and never will be enough money, staff and resources to protect all of them 100%.
Cases have to be prioritised and you cannot save everybody. On top of that these professionals are human, they will make mistakes and bad calls. Difference between them and most of the working world is that just one mistake, one foot wrong can result in a death.
Fact is 9 times out of 10, these humans make the right call and children get saved, but no one gives a shit about that.
IMO, the people most at fault here (and I honestly don't think any one person was to blame) were the upper levels of Social Services not acting on Maria Ward's escalation of concerns, the management of St Ann's hospital not listening to and then trying to buy off staff who raised concerns. Shoesmith should have taken more responsibility, but she also wasn't solely to blame. Actually scrap that, I do think some people are to solely blame and that would be the 3 caregivers in Peter's life who, you know, actually killed him.
Are you seriously suggesting she should not have accepted a job she applied for? It was up to Great Ormond St to realise she was not properly qualified to hold that post. But they were under pressure to fill posts that no one else was applying for. She probably assumed they thought she was capable of the job or they wouldn't have offered it to her.
The social worker pushed as hard as she could to get the boy in a place of safety but was overruled by her management.
Oh lets ban reporting of incidents like this so that the poor people who were grossly incompetent are not known. We must make sure that they are all fine and dandy. Never mind the poor mite who died in horrific circumstances. The public must not be allowed to be enraged and demand to know what happened. Demand that something is done to make sure no other child suffered as BabyP did.
The public knew it was a multi agency failure it was fully reported at the time. The media honed in on the fact that it was social services who made the decision to not remove him from family care. That was confirmed last night but glossed over in the clamour to throw blame across the spectrum. Fact is it was that key decision that was ultimately responsible for his death.
Exactly my experience in the NHS. All started by Margaret Thatcher soooo many years ago and continued by every successive government since.
Yes, because that is exactly what I said.
Whether you like it or agree or not, the fact of the matter is the media incorrectly reported facts and placed blame on some people, that actually weren't really to blame.
All I ask is FAIR and FACTUAL reporting.
How would you feel if you were publicly blamed and your name dragged through the mud, when you had done everything you were supposed to and then as a result of the public responding to this, you were fired and lost your registration and could never work with children again and in all honesty probably wouldn't be hired by anyone in any job if they recognised you? Because that is exactly what happened to some of the people, who when you weigh up their involvement and what they did, really didn't deserve that.
Granted, some of the people who were blamed absolutely held a fair chunk of the blame, such as the senior management in Social Services.
Also you said he was solely responsible for it. The tribunal report doesn't say that, so you are not correct. He messed up, acting precipitately, and was rightly criticised for that by the tribunal. But he didn't actually sack her, he couldn't. Only the council could do that. The council also screwed up the dismissal. They could have kept to the correct procedure, suspended her and allowed her to defend herself. That would have prevented the compensation claim.
He certainly wasn't blameless. He messed up the announcement. I very much doubt he did so in the knowledge it would open the way for compensation. No politician would make such a mistake knowingly.
What about all the children since the first official Inquiry report, in 1973! (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/graham_bagnall_inquiry - notice how difficult it is even now to find out the full details)
I remember every one of them, and here we are FORTY years later and still with a system which is ill-equipped to deal with the removal of vulnerable children from abusive homes.
From: http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/childcare-50years.pdf published in 2000:
With hindsight social work practice at this time throughout the
United Kingdom appears somewhat naïve in its approach to such a
serious issue. However, a series of events were quickly to change the
understanding, the prevailing attitude and the response over the
succeeding years. These were in connection with public enquiries
mainly into the deaths of children, all of them in England. While the
first of these was a report in 1973 on the death of a child, Graham
Bagnall, aged 2, it was the second in 1974 which made the most
major impact. The report on the death of Maria Colwell in 1974
evoked a reaction by both Parliament and the public. These led to
changes in policy and practice together with the development of
directions and guidance on dealing with referrals and investigations
of child abuse cases.
And even if we do remove children from abusive homes - where are we going to put them? Sixty years ago Barnardo's had villages with houses, each with its own house mother, to look after children. Now what do we have? Care Homes? Mmmmm! How many wonderful foster homes are there? Not enough, I fear.
No wonder the system is pitted against removing them from their own parents.
There is vast research about how children respond to abusive parents and observation of interactions is a valid method. The mother perhaps did not become involved directly in the abuse so Peter would have seen her as a source of safety when surrounded by the other males in the home who were abusive.
So if we rule out all these methods of understanding what is going on in a home....what have we left? A crystal ball?
I agree that accepting responsibility comes with the position of power, but I'm not sure resigning is unless there are frequent failures (which in Shoesmith's case there is argument for). Realistically a service manager cannot have all their fingers in all the pies and give each case 100% attention, that's not possible. That is why the managers below her would (or should) be responsible for a smaller group of cases and so forth who then report any serious concerns back to her and she should have he power to act on it. The question is whether this procedure was followed and if it was, did she have cases that she had to prioritise above Peter's? If she was aware of the full extent of Peter's case and either did not act on escalations then, yes the buck stops with her.
However if this case was managed by people below her and she never really got to hear the full extent of the case or what she acted on was in tun not acted on by other people, then maybe she isn't totally to blame.
Ultimately as head of her service she will have to take responsibility whether it was her fault or not. but I think she should only resign if it can be shown that she knew the full extent of the case and failed to act with incompetence.
The police cannot be overruled by a social worker....decisions are made at child protection conferences which are chaired by the safeguarding board, not the social worker. According to the programme last night the police became very adept at feeding the press with misinformation.....and editing condemning information out of reports.
Well the public are just going to have to accept that child protection work is not an exact science and children will die. One child every ten days will die at the hands of their parents and only one in ten of those will be known to child protection services (known not necessarily an open case).
Child protection social work is desperately understaffed....not just because of resources but because who in their right mind would want to do the work. They burn out in a few years and find less risky work to do leaving less experienced staff to pick up their cases.
I'm astonished that there are so many armchair social workers on here....considering the high levels of unemployment surely it would be better to study, join the profession and do the job that so many feel they can do better. Good luck is all I can say.
This is what I've been trying to say but apparently health and social professionals are supposed to be perfect, working in a flaw-free system and have all the powers in the world at the click of their fingers.. It's very easy to sit in an ivory tower and pass judgement when you (not you!) do a job that doesn't mean a child might die if you make just one mistake and sometimes even when you don't!