SUBSTANTIVE
The welfare of children in the United Kingdom is one of the most important items for the government in terms of social policy. (Ellison & Pierson, 1998) The Children Act 1989 sets out legislation to provide for numerous circumstances which could occur in a child’s life and cause a detrimental effect on his or her well-being. Examples of the guidelines that are included in the act are briefly summarised here: The 1989 Act provides guidance for custody of children for issues such as the divorce of parents, neglect, sexual/physical and mental abuse or future risk. (Blakemore, 1998) The act encourages strongly that children are best cared for within the family. Many social services departments were established in 1971 to help keep children within the family environment. (Halmos, 1988) This may be done by aiding people to improve their parenting skills, or help in mediating access arrangements and also helping parents to avoid resorting to court orders when agreements cannot easily be made. In short, the Children Act is installed so that every child in the U.K has the chance to enjoy a happy and secure childhood.
However, not every child has the same opportunities in life and some children may experience disadvantages for a variety of reason’s which include, abuse of drugs or alcohol by parents, sexual or physical abuse by carers, financial deprivation or alternately, children may find themselves in care through crime or abandonment. (Donnison, 1975) Children’s welfare services are different groups of people whose aim is to seek out these unfortunate children and support and protect them. However, ascertaining which children are at risk is a difficult task for those concerned.
The focus for welfare services is to assist children who are troubled or in need of care and protection. Occasionally, welfare departments have to provide children with substitute care either in children’s homes, foster homes or through adoption. There are a variety of reasons, including abuse or neglect which welfare services deem serious enough to choose providing alternative care for a child. However, assessing if a child is at risk from harm is not as straight forward as it would seem. Many highly publicised cases in the past, such as the tragic death of Victoria Climbie bear testament to this. In short, this child was seen by twelve different welfare service departments, yet “gaps in the legislative framework and its implementation” let this child down tragically. (Laming, 2003, ) Responsibility, according to Laming, (2003) rests with managers and members of the organisations concerned, who ultimately had a responsibility to ensure that their services were properly financed, staffed and above all efficiently delivered. Recommendations were subsequently made in the Laming report, (2003) for a new National Agency for Children. This, according to the report, would serve to link all agencies to a minister of “Cabinet rank” who would be responsible for ensuring that policies, legislation and individual departmental plans, affecting families and children, were properly financed, considered and co-ordinated. (The Laming Report, 2003) However, it is worthwhile noting here that National Agencies co-ordinated at a local level in addition to this, could perhaps improve communication systems more quickly, and a speedier solution could be found.
Communication between local agencies has proved to be inefficient recently to the detriment of another child, namely: Kennedy McFarlane. This three-year-old child had suffered horrific injuries prior to her death by the hand of her Mother and stepfather. Again, key agencies were involved such as police, health and social workers and family services who all attended this child at some point in her short life. Yet communication between these agencies was inefficient. (Hammond, 2002)
An inquiry into Kennedy’s death, and subsequent report by Dr Hammond, (2002) found that the agencies who were concerned in this child’s life, had not communicated their concerns to one another and the result of this was, that a formal child protection investigation had not been triggered. Recommendations then made in the report included, new methods for all agencies working in this field to self assess the way in which they define and identify abuse. Arguably here, one person’s definition of the extent of a certain injury may be entirely different to the next person’s. Therefore exact checklists are a positive step forward in this respect.
Dr Hammond also goes on to note in her report that, all of the evidence added together from the key agencies, and other family members was sufficient, when looked at overall, to have approached a sheriff with reference to having the child taken into care. None of the agencies did this, and the child continued to suffer until death. However, highlighted is the fact that, responsibility for a child’s welfare by key agencies must be adhered to by each individual person in attendance and not left to the assumption that others will communicate the information gained so far. Information should be passed on so that a child, in need of help, can be taken to a place of safety for further assessment. (Hammond, 2002) It could be argued here that if human error such as this, is the catalyst for continued cruelty, a central computer for each local area, similar to that used by the police for criminal DNA, may serve to trigger alerts that human workers have omitted.
CONCLUSION
This essay has analysed the implications of current child policy for the welfare of children. To assist this, an overview of the Children Act 1989 was provided along with the type on impacts that this act has on the welfare service groups who work with children. It was noted from this that there are gaps in the legislative framework, which inadvertently assisted in the death of Victoria Climbie. This example was used because recommendations from Lord Laming’s report in this case, included a proposal for a National Agency for Children, which would be led by a Cabinet Minister. It was then argued that this proposal would be beneficial to the children of this Country, but it would be further enhanced if local area agencies, working under the National framework, were operational.
Following from this a further example of child cruelty contributing to change in social policy was described. The case of Kennedy McFarlane was used to highlight lack of communication between groups, with special reference to the definitions used about the extent of her injuries. Recommendations from Dr Hammond’s report on this case, included a self assessment of the way in which any agency, defined and identified “abuse”. It was argued from this, that different people’s perception of certain words or physical injury may not be as sever as the next person’s. It was then proposed that exact checklists are a constructive step forward, enhanced by computer software which would, eradicate human error.
In conclusion, it must be noted that these inquiries and reports have made positive headway in helping to eradicate child cruelty, however, it can never be overcome 100%, as human judgement is sometimes unreliable. Finally, it should be noted that, the object of enquiries such as these is not to apportion blame, but to learn lessons which will help protect children from abuse and neglect in the future.
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