In gaining an understanding of how legislation, policies and social work practise work to safeguard children we have to look at what the net is. The net that is described in the quote is the children’s protection safety net. The net is a collection of safety measures in which children in need are defined. “Within services professionals have a duty to decide whether or not to intervene when assessing a child and the circumstances that surround them, to do this they must draw a threshold; this involves deciding both the point beyond which a behaviour (or parenting style) can be considered maltreatment and the point which it becomes necessary for the state to take action. Therefore decisions about what is abuse are interlinked with both when the state should become involved and to what degree” (1995, DoH). This then can determine the level of support that is needed in ensuring that a child who is suffering any form of abuse can be helped and the abuse stopped.
Current practices of child protection come from the Children Act 1989 and the Department of Health (DoH) publication Working Together to safeguard children (1999). The Children Act 1989 was implemented on the 14th October 1991, the Act brought together private and public law concerning children, and it replaced the complex and fragmented legislation within a single statute. The Act has five key principles in built throughout they are 1) the child’s welfare is paramount. 2) Children are best cared for by both parents wherever possible. 3) The state and courts should only intervene where it will result in improvements for the child. 4) Delay is not generally in the best interests of the child. 5) Laws and procedures should be unified. Part three of the Act, (section 17(1)), places a duty upon local authorities to provide services for children who are deemed to be in need, this is where a child is seen to be unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development. The Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interest of the child. (DoH, 1999:7). Section 47 places a duty on the local authority to make enquiries or cause enquiries to be made where there is reasonable cause to believe that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. All children who are recognised as being in need of safeguarding are also children in need.
Victoria’s abuse was more of physical and emotional abuse. Legislation when used in the way in which it has been set out works to safeguard children and protect children who are at risk. Unfortunately there have been cases where children have slipped through the net of protection. In the Victoria Climbie inquiry there were recognised to be 12 key occasions where relevant services had the opportunity to successfully intervene in the life of Victoria, 12 times where the security of the net failed her, when she could have been rescued. Victoria was viewed as a child in need and was subject to a section 47.
Why Aliyah did not get caught by the safety net. Aliyah’s abuse was more on sexual abuse. Perpetrators who use children to satisfy their own wants exploited Aliyah. Aliyah was found dead by her 17-year-old heroin boyfriend Anthony Hughes’s. Dr Stephen Chan concluded that Aliyah had taken a massive overdose of methadone of her own violation. He refused to blame anyone. He said that social services were too late, in putting into effect a compulsory care order on Aliyah that they had previously a month earlier decided upon. There was nothing to indicate foul play and he was doubtful that the outcome would have been any different. Death was by misadventure. Aliyah was a young girl who had become mixed up with an older crowd who had got her addicted to drugs and had then announced that she would have to pay for any further supplies. Aliyah was introduced to prostitution. Aliyah was found at the Northwick Park Hospital genito-urinary clinic to have become infected with a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, which included herpes, candida, chlamydia and hepatitis B. In the UK it is illegal for anybody under the age of sixteen to have sex and here was a thirteen-year-old girl whom men were willing to pay for it. Aliyah according to the Children Act 1989 was both a child in need and of safeguarding. The people responsible for her death have still not been brought to justice.
There are many children who have and continue to fall through the net such as children who witness domestic violence, trafficked children, children who do not attend school, young children who do not attend any pre school facilities for example; health centres and GP surgeries, child carers for example; children of mental health patients, and children who are left home alone.
Professional competence is one of the major factors to be taken into account in the matter of safeguarding children. The Laming report explained a lot as to the sources of failure to protect Victoria are put down to a combination of events and ‘woefully incompetent practice. Misdiagnosis by professionals was seen to be one of the many occasions when Victoria Climbie’s suffering could have been recognised as child abuse. Victoria was taken to hospital by her childminder Mrs Cameron Victoria was examined by a paediatric registrar who raised concerns that Victoria’s injuries were not all accidental, and she was placed under police protection. Later on that evening another doctor overturned this opinion and said that the child was suffering from scabies, she was then released in to her aunts care again. Although the social worker agreed that Victoria be released back to her aunt’s care we have to look at the power dynamics at play here. A doctor is at the top of the medical profession and a social worker would think twice before second-guessing another professional’s opinion. As much as it wouldn’t be expected for a doctor to challenge a social workers professional judgement; because health and social care professionals need to at times work in close collaboration with each other. However the professional did not review Victoria’s case and no planned outcome was put in place for her.
Extremely poor administrative systems existed for tracking referrals and case information and also lack of appropriate training and or supervision given to social workers in the field by the institutions that they are employed by, for example in the case of Victoria Climbie her social worker Lisa Arthurworrey, was new to the profession had more cases than is recommended in the field of child protection and supervision was very erratic. Ms Arthurworry undertook the section 47 and yet had received no training in child protection, and although it was known that she was new to the profession there was very little guidance given in how to undertake this enormous task.
There was poor inter-agency communication and a consistent failure to engage with the child in a meaningful form to assess the child’s need, coupled with a focus throughout on Kouao, Victoria’s carer, as the client in the case (Laming, 2003).
The new Children Act 2004 (4) places upon us both an obligation to share information and an obligation to co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Framework for Assessment of children in need and their families published by the DoH 2000; was developed as a response to recent developments within child protection concern, this outlined a systematic way of working through guidance in the policy for frontline staff. The document is issued under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, which requires local authorities in their social service functions to act under the general guidance of the Secretary of State. The framework shows an interconnected system of critical areas that should be taken into consideration when undertaking an initial assessment and a core assessment. The three dimensions are a child’s developmental needs such as social presentation, health and education. Family and environmental factors such as, housing, family history and functioning and family and social integration. And the third and final dimension is parenting capacity these are issues such as, ensuring safety, stability and provision of guidance and boundaries. The London Child Protection Procedures is a multi agency manual that set out policies that have been agreed by Chairs of Area Child Protection Committees, Metropolitan police service, representatives of probation, education, youth and leisure services and representatives of primary care and other health trusts. It outlines how all agencies are to work together to protect vulnerable children.
The new Children Act 2004 will see the beginning of a new way of working within child protection. It has not replaced the Children Act 1989 but has been built to amend what is seen to be deficiencies in it. There is to be implemented a national database, which will replace the Child Protection Register (CPR), the CPR has not had the ability to work in the way it was built to for as long as they have introduced the star ratings system for social services in local authorities. There were star ratings incentives not to place children on the CPR register and further incentives not to place a child back on the register once it has been removed. Children are removed when it is decided that a child is no longer in need of safeguarding. These incentives however put pressure on management who have targets to meet; who then in turn pressurise their frontline staff to help them achieve these targets. The new database will work using a flagging system, all children in the UK will have their basic details on the database and professionals will be able to raise a flag when there is concern for a child for example, a teacher or health visitor will raise any concerns they have for a child for things such as bruising and absenteeism from school. I hope this database will not be used as a tool to refuse some children entry to school. There are concerns on how this system will be policed and whether it will completely overload social services.
The new philosophy of the Children Act 2004 is that of prevention is better than cure. Protection is better than none yet prevention is better than cure. The new Act seems to imply that only under privileged families have children who do not reach their full potentials. This is not the case as we saw from Aliyah she came from a wealthy upbringing and still slipped through the net. Abuse seems to occur and not take into account status, religion, colour or ethnic background.
The whole notion of ‘working together’ and ‘joined up thinking’ is now embedded in social work and social care discourses in the United Kingdom (DOH 1998, Payne 2000).
Times change law changes what is regarded today as acceptable may not be tomorrow, but is realistic to expect all children in need to be caught by the child protection net? In looking at the evidence in this essay we can see that Davis states that “social workers will find it difficult to improve on their recent record in prevention: even with regular visiting and close knowledge of a delicate situation, deaths and child abuse will continue to occur. And, however the sequence of events can be thought to have been predictable with the benefits of hindsight, it is foresight that matters. No social worker will ever be able to claim a hundred per cent in that.” (1995:42).
Working together and prevention have come up time and time again in the Children Act 2004. It is now time to take it forward and see how we can operationalise it in child abuse enquiries.
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REFERENCE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cobley, C, (1995) Child Abuse and the Law London, Cavendish Publishing.
Children now, July 28-August 3. 2004.
Davis, M, (1995) The Essential Social Worker Aldershot, Arena. 3rd Edition.
Department of Health (2003) Every child matter. The stationery office. London
Department of Health (1995) Child Protection Messages from research HMSO.
Department of Health (2000) Framework for Children in Need and their Families. HMSO.
Department of Health (1999) Working Together to Safeguard Children. HMSO.
Doyle, C (1997) Working With Abused Children Basingstoke, Macmillian
Ferguson, H (2004) Protecting Children in time: Child abuse, child protection and the consequences of modernity, Palgrave, Basingstoke
London Child Protection Committee.
Laming, H (2003) The Victoria Climbie Inquiry, the stationery office. London
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Reder, P, Duncan, S& Gray, M (1993) Beyond blame: Child abuse tragedies revisited, Routledge, London
Stanley, J& Goddard, C (2002) In the firing line:Power and Violence in child protection work, Wiley, London