Protecting Our Children – BBC 2 Documentary

Posted on February 16, 2012 by CFAB

It was fantastic to see the BBC’s documentary “Protecting our Children” following the day to day work of social workers in Bristol. Such a documentary is long overdue. This blog has argued before that Social Work in the UK needs the equivalent of “ER” in order that the public understand what we do and the issues we face. School, hospital and police dramas are commonplace but social work lacks a dramatic voice.

Interestingly the most common reaction I’ve heard from people outside the profession is “Why are any of these children still with those families” I think that a majority of the population had no true conception that people live in the circumstances shown and that children are bought up in those circumstances. For this alone the documentary was worthwhile.

It was also good that many of the cases were not clear cut, most showed the pervasive and difficult nature of neglect. Issues of parental mental health, substance misuse and learning difficulty were examined. These are common and the difficult task social workers are faced with is judging the capacity and likelihood of parents being able to change and, with support, adapt their lifestyle and approach to parenting so that the child can safely remain with them.

The program also highlighted issue of evidence gathering and achieving legal threshold to convince the court that the child should be removed. It was good that legal planning meetings and the work of CAFCASS Guardian’s were shown though a shame that the cameras did not show the court process.

One of the most significant social work practice dilemmas highlighted was the conflict between the child absolutely being the focus of the work and the needs of parents conflicting with this. The child is the social workers client; it is the child’s best interest that must always come first. However parents can be demanding, vulnerable, damaged and in need of care, support and understanding. Balancing these needs against the best interests of the child is a daily challenge.

Another issue highlighted, though unexplored, was what happens to parents after the child is removed. Many of the parents will go on to have more children but receive little or no support to address the issues that led to the first child being removed. This is a catastrophic failure of the system. All social workers will have, or know of, cases where three, four or sometimes more children are removed from the same Mother or couple. It is vital that programs of intensive support are offered to parents losing their children in care proceedings. Failure to do so just stores up problems for the future. Such intervention can include contraceptive advice whilst work addressing the issues that led to the child being removed is ongoing. Too many times the next pregnancy begins before the care proceedings end.

Social work is a much maligned and much misunderstood profession. One of the jobs of the new College of Social Work and the mood Chief Social Worker is to address this. Social work remains a challenging, stressful, difficult yet wonderful and rewarding profession – it is time that the profession stood up and explained itself and its work to the general public

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Neglect and Early Intervention

Posted on February 3, 2012 by CFAB

Today’s Action for Children report http://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/neglectreview gives an excellent insight into the difficult issue of working with families where neglect is the primary issue.

The key issues highlighted are:

  • Social workers and other professional feel powerless to help:
    Half of social workers (51%), and a third of police officers (36%) reported feeling “powerless” to intervene in suspected cases of child neglect
  • The public are increasingly worried about neglect but do not always report it: 52% of members of the public (an increase of 8% since 2009) said they have been worried about the welfare or safety of a child they know or who is living in their area, but a third (38%) of those didn’t feel worried enough to tell anyone
  • Neither government nor local authorities know exactly how many children are being neglected:
    Of 47 local authorities surveyed we found only 21 collect data about the prevalence of neglect other than required data on child protection plans
  • Too many children are recognised but not helped:
    Front line practitioners have told us that there are not enough services for neglected children and 80% of social workers think that cuts to services will make it more difficult to intervene in cases of child neglect

These cases are the most difficult for social workers to deal with. In cases where this is demonstrable physical or sexual abuse it is often more straightforward to put in place plans of protection, issue care proceedings and even remove children from their parents/carers. In neglect cases the issues are never as clear.

In families where neglect is the issue it is not one or more clear incidences of child abuse rather it is the steady drip of a lack of care and control, an inability of eth parents to prioritise the child’s needs above their own, a poverty of care, aspiration and environment for the child, deficiencies in diet, housing, health and basic care.

Taken on their own it may not seem that any of these are serious enough to warrant social workers intervention, however taken together they can have a significant impact upon a child and can severely disadvantage their development.

Much has been said recently about the adoption system and its failure to lead to more adoptions. These neglect cases are the primary cause of this. It is precisely these children who would benefit from adoption at an early age but social workers lack the skills, resources and support to progress these cases sufficiently whilst the children are young enough to realistically benefit from adoption.

We need a rapid expansion of parenting intervention projects for families where neglect is an issue and the children are under 3. Intensive work with the family in the family home, ideally provided by an NGO, over 6 months will allow the family dynamic to change and so improve the outlook for these children or give social workers the evidence needed to progress these cases into care proceedings.

At present the trajectory of children born into families where persistent low level neglect (emotional, physical, educational, and environmental) is very predictable but intervention comes too late to make any appreciable difference to the child’s life chances.

Current cuts and raising of intervention thresholds will mean more of these children are not given access to services and we will again store up problems that will emerge in the children’s teen age years where school exclusion, low attainment, offending, substance misuse and entry into the care system will be their lot.

The cost of this to the UK is enormous, targeted early intervention works; it is time we invested fully in it.

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Promoting adoption

Posted on August 31, 2011 by CFAB

It is again encouraging to see adoption given high profile coverage. The Times this morning states that it will take “political nerves of steel” to address current social work practice that works to keep families together in neglect cases by offering family support rather than seeking to remove children and place them for adoption more quickly.

It will take far more than this. Current evidence thresholds may it almost impossible to remove a child from a neglectful household prior to their third birthday (when they are statistically more adoptable) Social work professionals may be able to accurately predict the child’s life story if they remain in the birth family (neglect, lack of care and control, exclusion from school, low level offending, substance misuse, entry into care as a teenager) but without a single serious episode of abuse, legal threshold to obtain a court order to remove the child cannot be easily met. Many social workers know that the levels of support they are able to offer will make no appreciable difference in at least 30% of their cases. However as threshold is not reached, and there is no appetite to increase the care population if that can be avoided, these children remain at home in families that sit on the borderline of “good enough.”

Many of these children will enter care at some point before they are 16, often it is after secondary transfer when they disengage with or are excluded from school and the parents find their children are beyond their control (often the product of  years of poor parenting typified by a  lack of structure, routine and boundaries) At this stage care may offer a refuge of stability and routine but it often far too late to effect a major change in the child’s life and they are almost certainly unadoptable.

The answer is to invest in family support projects run by charities as families will not generally engage with local authority staff .  These projects will deploy family support staff into the family home for up to six months in the child’s very early years. The staff could seek to change the core dynamics of how the family operate and how the children are parented.

After six months either the family dynamic will be changed and the child can remain successfully in the family unit (though with ongoing support, such programs are not an  inoculation) or enough evidence will be gathered to meet a legal threshold to remove the child whilst the child is still adoptable.

It is not only Politicians who will need nerves of steel to make this change; civil society must engage with and consent to such an approach. It will involve children being removed from families where there has not been a major incident of child abuse, rather it will be families where the child’s needs are never prioritised over the parents and stability, routine, boundaries and love are in short supply. This is wholly different to the present approach.

In terms of numbers these are David Cameron’s 120,000 broken families http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a0070284/focus-on-families-new-drive-to-help-troubled-families

Often these are the families where children are in care short term or on the edges of care, the difference is intervening in the first year of the child’s life and not waiting for the significant incident of child abuse. The costs will be high, maybe £25,000 per family however   £50 million would allow the project to be piloted with 2000 families The potential reduction in SEN spending, exclusion spending, youth justice spending, social work intervention spending and benefits spending will more than quadruple any investment made.   

The reward is breaking generational cycles of neglect and transforming the life chances of society’s most neglected children.

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Book Review by Cristina Tango “Family Mediation – Appropriate Dispute Resolution in a new family justice system” by Lisa Parkinson, Jordans Publishing (UK) 2011

Posted on August 30, 2011 by CFAB

Introduction 

Lisa Parkinson’s second edition of her innovative book “Family Mediation, Appropriate Dispute Resolution in a new family justice system” comes out at a crucial time when family mediation in England and Wales is being given fresh prominence as a major (albeit independent) component of a new and evolving system of family justice. The new Family Procedure Rules (April 2011) and the Family Justice Review are promoting a participative family justice system that empowers individuals and encourages them to maintain autonomy in reaching their own agreements, with the court as the last resort, rather than the first recourse in any family conflict[1].

Dedicated to mediators, researchers and professionals everywhere who are involved in what the author defines as Appropriate (rather than Alternative) Dispute Resolution, the book focuses mainly on the role that mediation can play in easing communications between family members and helping them to resolve interpersonal conflicts, now and for the future.

*       Plot Structure and Core Ideas

In the course of fourteen chapters, Lisa Parkinson draws from her multidisciplinary experience and approach to the development of family mediation over more than thirty years in a brilliant analysis of different models of family mediation, with a primary focus on promoting the well being of separating and separated families – children as well as parents.

Furthermore, she stresses the paramount importance of language, communication and interculturality in the management of family conflict resolution, advancing the idea that a mediation process should be a kind of  “choreography of communications”[2].

The core ideas of this kaleidoscopic book contain a wide variety of references to literature, philosophy and music, paving the way for interdisciplinary reflections that may be summarised as: the notion of the family as a whole and of families in transition; the central place given to emotions; mediation as a multidisciplinary process of “becoming and being”, and finally the primary role of interculturality.

*       The family as a whole

In considering the family as a whole, the author puts a special emphasis on children as individuals who have feelings and needs of their own, rather than being extensions of each parent. As subjects of rights and family members, children “need to be listened to, rather than [being considered as] objects of welfare with no voice of their own”[3].

In a family mediation process, Lisa therefore encourages careful consideration of children’s perspectives and stresses the need to provide ways of communicating with children, in order to help parents reach agreements that incorporate the voice of the child.

*       Families in transition

The notion of families in transition from one family structure to another raises the idea that families continue, despite separation and divorce.  A separated family is still a family because “the family may be changing but it still exists”[4], asserts the author. Hence, the fluid notion of family that she puts forward highlights the importance of parental responsibility as well as the necessity of nurturing relationships between parents and their children once a marriage or cohabitation comes to an end. In addition, she stresses the importance of the management of the dynamics of change in situations of family conflict, considering the fluid structure of separated families as an opportunity for growth and ending negative cycles of communication and behaviour.

*       The central role of emotions in the management and resolution of family conflicts

All human beings comprehend and experience reality in a subjective way through their senses and perceptions: we are what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste and touch. Emotions, therefore, play a central role in the way we construct the world and react to life’s constant changes. In situations of family conflict the author therefore puts a primary focus on emotions and the way they influence the management and resolution of conflict. Negative as well as positive emotions, she believes, are deeply involved in the renegotiation of new relationships, the reconstruction of different and flexible family structures and of all the selves who take part in these transformations.

*       Mediation as a multidisciplinary process of becoming

A mediation process takes place within interrelated cultural, social and legal contexts. Mediators are used to working at the interface between these interwoven contexts and should be able, the author suggests, to bring interdisciplinary knowledge and multidisciplinary understanding. This multidisciplinary approach to any family mediation process offers, in the author’s view, the best way of helping people, especially parents, to communicate and listen to each other and, in doing so, to reach their own agreed decisions.

*       The primary role of interculturality

Recognising the limitations of a mono-cultural perspective in the management and resolution of family conflicts, the author highlights the importance of taking into consideration the role that cultural diversity plays in a family mediation process.

As different cultural factors and norms deeply influence the couple’s ability to negotiate and reach agreements, she is firmly convinced that any mediation process should respect cultural diversity and be open to the understanding of different cultural and ethnic traditions. As a result, she advocates an intercultural model of family mediation not dominated by mono-cultural and hegemonic social traditions and values.

*       Conclusions: future directions and concrete needs

Lisa Parkinson ends the book with wider reflections on the European context and international cross-border mediation, describing some current initiatives (including ISS projects), future directions and concrete needs.

Firstly, as regards the European context, she sees family mediation in Europe in terms of a “changing patchwork quilt or mosaic whose pieces have recurring patterns and colours, but they are not woven uniformly to a single design and some pieces are missing”[5]. On this basis, she considers that “a variegated patchwork that recognises cultural differences is preferable to uniformity”[6].

Secondly, with respect to international cross-border mediation, she emphasises that it needs “to be readily available, quickly accessible and used more widely”[7].

Finally, in a future-oriented perspective, she highlights the need to increase public awareness and acceptance of mediation, as well as finding ways of working together across frontiers – locally, professionally and globally.

[1] See the new Family Procedure Rules in force in April 2011.

[2] J. Melamed in Lisa Parkinson, Family Mediation, Appropriate Dispute Resolution in a new family justice system, 2nd edition, Jordan Publishing Limited, Bristol, 2011, p. 373.

[3] Lisa Parkinson, 2011, p. 221.

[4] Lisa Parkinson, 2011, p. 152.

[5] Lisa Parkinson, 2011, p. 346.

[6] Ibid. 

[7] Ibid., p. 363.

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WON’T COUNT, DON’T COUNT

Posted on July 15, 2011 by CFAB

The Home Office are about to publish its new strategy to address the issue of human trafficking, it is unlikely to sufficiently address the issues.

CFAB works to promote better outcomes for victims of child trafficking.

The first issue is that the UK has absolutely no cogent idea about the scale of this problem. Put simply:

  • we are not looking for victims of child trafficking
  •  we are not spotting them when they become known to statutory services
  •  we are failing to protect them even when we do accept they were trafficked
  • we are not doing anything coherent about the 3 points above   

Because we won’t count these children then they don’t count when it comes to designing specialist services to protect them. We have no idea how many children are in the UK from overseas as many arrive on six month visitor visa and never leave. This is not policed or enforced. CFAB suspects that there are at least 10,000 children who are overstayers on visitor visas in the UK today. Many are in our schools, our GP surgeries and our hospitals. Some of them are in care. The Home Office and DfE have no concrete plans to try and grasp the scale of this problem

The main failings in the UK’s current system are:

  • Social workers are not trained in any pre or post qualifying courses about child trafficking so they do not know what they are dealing with
  • There is very limited training for Police and so, again, they are not trained to spot the signs that a child has been trafficked
  • 90% of social workers have never heard of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). This means even if trafficking is suspected children are not afforded official trafficked status http://www.soca.gov.uk/about-soca/about-the-ukhtc/national-referral-mechanism
  • The NRM has too great an asylum component in its decision making and needs to be wholly child welfare focussed
  • There is a near absence of suitable placements to take trafficked children. Trafficked children are more likely to go missing as their traffickers may find and take them or they return to their traffickers out of fear of the consequences for themselves or their families back home if they do not (Barnardos is starting a very welcome pilot specialised foster care scheme, this needs to be adopted and rolled out UK wide ASAP)
  • The changes to Policing structures have diluted trafficking expertise and capacity. CEOP should remain fully independent, be answerable to DfE and Home Office jointly and take full responsibility for trafficking

What can be done to address our current failings I hear you ask?

Well I would recommend the following steps are taken immediately, sadly I doubt any of them will be in the new strategy.

  • Extend Operation Paladin Model to UK Border entry points and in UK High Commissions at Source Countries This to include children’s social care staff to work airside at airports to ensure child centred approach to victims of trafficking and ensure best evidence is obtained
  • Extend multi-agency approach to identification of potential victims of trafficking through development of genuinely multi-agency teams both in UK and in source countries at UK posts as part of visa issuing process.
  • Instigate embarkation checks at UK borders and link child and adult visas so the UK is aware when adults bring children to the UK and leave without them. Home Office and DfE to research how many child overstayers on visitor visas there are in the UK 
  • Utilise experiences of trafficked children (who have been safeguarded) to raise awareness and educate new arrivals of unaccompanied minors into the UK. Through this develop and implement awareness raising campaigns in source countries
  • Mandatory multi-agency training on identifying and supporting trafficked children. Ensure training on human trafficking is included in all professional social work courses Improve training on interview techniques with trafficked children and direct work with children who have been trafficked (Multi-agency)
  • Separate NRM process and decision making from asylum process and place NRM panel in DfE
  • Ensure each local authority has a designated social worker with expertise on human trafficking (as recommended in the LSCB Safeguarding Trafficked Children Toolkit)
  • Mandatory Section 47 investigation when a child has been identified as suspected of being trafficked.
  • Presumption that LA should seek full care order (Section 31 CA 1989) for trafficked children rather than Section 20 as is current practice. Ensure safe accommodation for trafficked children in line with statutory guidance. Refrain from use of Bed and Breakfast accommodation for child victims of trafficking or those suspected of being trafficked
  • Extend provision of specialist secure foster placements for victims of trafficking. Ensure specialist training for foster carers working with trafficked children. Early roll out of Barnardos pilot foster care scheme. Ensure local authorities offer specialist therapeutic support to child victims of trafficking
  • Provide clearer guidance to local authorities and Police regarding response to missing children (missing trafficked children are likely to have been re-trafficked/kidnapped)
  • Non prosecution of victims of trafficking (Training for CPS, Magistrates and Police) should be universal
  • Consider system of ‘Guardianship’ for trafficked children. This will be advocacy not statutory role so will not be Guardian ad litem.
  • Ensure that referral to NRM is made by first responders where trafficking is suspected. However first responders must acknowledge that NRM decision is not definitive in terms of provision of services to children suspected of being trafficked. Services must be provided to children under basis of need not immigration or NRM status
  • If children who are suspected of being trafficked return to country of origin the local authority must ensure that they are linked to specialist re-integration projects in the country of origin whether governmental or non-governmental. Prior to return to country of origin, voluntary or involuntary, local authorities must ensure that social work assessments are carried out in the country of origin to determine the risk of the child being re-trafficked
  • Separated children must not be returned to their family without determining the validity of the relationship
  • Ensure cross border cooperation between all agencies UKBA, Police and Children’s Social Care. Information sharing between countries must be improved
  • Ensure that children’s voices are heard and recorded to ensure informed response by all agencies coming into contact with the child

None of these proposals require legislative change; we can enact them as soon as Government agrees to do so. It is vital that trafficked children are better served and that they are counted so that they do count.

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Stolen on BBC1

Posted on July 7, 2011 by CFAB

It was good to see the BBC tackle child trafficking in a prime time drama and always good to see Damian Lewis on our screens.

The 3 interwoven stories effectively highlighted some of the issues in our failure as a country to identify and protect trafficked children.

  • The ease with which a child can leave an aeroplane and destroy her documents before reaching passport control, we know of cases where children have passed unchecked and unnoticed through passport control and into the arrivals hall.
  • The fact that our foster placements and care placements are not geared up to protect trafficked children. The pilot project of specialised foster care for trafficked children that Barnardos’ are running is very welcome but needs to be rolled out countrywide quickly
  • The criminalisation of victim’s especially young people forced to work in cannabis factories. Children cannot consent to their own exploitation so should not be prosecuted for criminal offences they were coerced into undertaking yet many are still prosecuted and imprisoned.
  •  The ease with which children can be bought into the UK from the EU and then sold or forced into exploitative situations.

 There were the usual issues with dramatic licence, the stabbing of the eastern European boy was superfluous to the story and traffickers do not let go of their children so easily. In reality the boy would be beaten and terrified but would be forced to continue working to earn his trafficker money.

However the drama was well done, it is unfortunate that more such dramas are not screened. The sad fact is that too much current affairs programming insists on gaining access to distressed and traumatised children and families, pointing cameras at them and making them cry. There seems to be an assumption by program makers that the British public will not engage with programs that explain the issues and use dramatic reconstructions rather than actual victims. Victims can be traumatised, terrified and extremely nervous of being filmed. This does not mean that their stories should not be heard.

Child trafficking is a real and growing problem in the UK, we have no idea how many trafficked children are here as we are not looking for them, we are not counting them and we are not protecting them.

His subject needs far more media coverage that engages with the core issues that lead to the UK failing these vulnerable children.

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The reputation of Social Work

Posted on June 9, 2011 by CFAB

The latest sorry chapter in the case of Peter Connolly has now been played out.

Sharon Shoesmith has rightly won her case for unfair dismissal but unfortunately chose to do the media rounds to talk about this.

The fact that she won her case does not mean that she should not have been dismissed; it means the manner of the process of her dismissal was wrong. This was clear from the moment in happened. Ed Balls need to demonstrate some macho posturing and Haringey’s failure to point out to him he wasn’t in a position to sack the DCS at any local authority has led to this decision. Had Haringey followed proper employment procedures they could have dismissed Sharon Shoesmith legitimately and it is highly unlikely that she could have successfully challenged this.

Baby Peter was well known to Haringey children and families department, he died a horrible death at the hands of his carers. Police, health and social services staff all missed chances to save him. Ofsted are also culpable as their first inspection of Haringey was demonstrably not good enough, they are clearly not up to the task of inspecting children’s social services.   As DCS of Haringey at the time Sharon Shoesmith was ultimately responsible for the failures of her department. She was not to blame for Peter’s death but she was responsible for her department’s actions and decisions.

The obvious course of action open to her was to resign as soon as it was clear that Haringey had failed to protect Peter, this would have been clear long before she was dismissed. Unfortunately an increasing number of people in the public and private sector seem ready to take the rewards of highly paid jobs but then will not accept the responsibility when something goes tragically wrong on their watch. The last public figure I can recall who resigned in such a way was Lord Carrington after the Falklands war. It seems the modern way is to try and bluster your way out of any situation, no matter how calamitous the failure over which you have presided. If you take the financial rewards you must also take the responsibility whether you are a cabinet minister, a banker or a DCS.

This latest media feeding frenzy has yet again dragged social work through the mud.

Hopefully the Munro review and the new college of social work will begin to make some positive headway in promoting social work as a vital, skilled and rewarding profession. We desperately need to attract committed, intelligent and passionate staff into social work. It would be fantastic to have a series like ER about social work, the human drama is all there in the profession, Tim Roth will shortly be directing a film about a children’s social worker in New York, if this is successful maybe the BBC or Channel 4 will commission a serial drama.

The college of social work has plans to use a panel of social workers to promote the profession to the media; this is a good idea which could make a difference.

Social work is a fantastic profession; it is also vital but can be exhausting, thankless and stressful. The circus that has surrounded every step of the Sharon Shoesmith affair has hugely damaged the profession. Almost all of this could have been avoided had she taken responsibility at the outset and resigned.

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Amnesties, bogus asylum seekers and other myths

Posted on June 3, 2011 by CFAB

As we endure yet another round of media stories characterised by the idea that immigration is somehow a burden on the UK and a drain on our nations precious resources CFAB offer another viewpoint.

There is no such thing as a bogus asylum seeker. There are only asylum seekers, they are all genuinely claiming asylum, some will have this claim granted, others will not.

Immigration is not a drain on the nations resources, the majority of costs related to asylum and immigration are self-inflicted. Not allowing asylum seekers to work whilst their claim is being processed is insane. Surely it is better for the UK if they are paying taxes and contributing. They are also then in a position where if they are not allowed to stay they have some resources to return to their home country with. The usual tired voices will claim this would encourage more people to come here, as if travelling thousands of miles to a strange country were somehow a spur of the moment decision. People come here because they are desperate and want a better life; most of us in the situations asylum seekers come from would do the same.

These are the people who have got on Norman Tebbit’s bike or Ian Duncan Smith’s bus and travelled to seek work and a better life for them and their families. They are exactly the sort of people an economy needs to thrive and grow. Immigration has been in a major factor in the long term prosperity and success of the UK and we need them now more than ever.

The overwhelming majority of the costs of the UK welfare state are on health, education, social care and criminal justice services for the indigenous UK population. Alcohol abuse costs us more than asylum seekers as do smoking and road traffic accidents. However changing these issues requires that we all change our behaviour, far easier to blame asylum seekers. 

The Home Office is to be congratulated for ending years of waiting for the 160,000 who have been allowed to stay; UKBA has not been able to and will not be able to run our asylum system effectively as the system is unworkable. The new sponsored work based visa system is a farce and is impeding the ability of businesses to operate and help us dig the UK out of the downturn. This is one small example of UKBA being given yet another impossible task.

Meanwhile the real border issues – trafficking of children and adults, parental child abduction, FGM, and visa abuse- are allowed to thrive due to a lack of resource to tackle them as UKBA are overwhelmed by operating a system that can never work 

UKBA should be freed up to protect those whose migration is forced and target the criminals who create daily misery for thousands of children and adults in the UK in the modern slave trade that is trafficking

It is time for an asylum and immigration system based on evidence not prejudice, the UK is a tolerant, fair and free country, we should be proud of this and accept that it makes us an attractive country to claim asylum in. Immigration is an integral part of all our histories and should be celebrated rather than always characterised as a problem.

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CFAB’s Child Protection Lecture on Child Trafficking

Posted on April 12, 2011 by CFAB

The evening of April 4th saw the second annual CFAB child protection lecture at Governors House in the City Of London.

This lecture series was established last year and the inaugural address was given in 2010 by Lord Laming, a patron of CFAB. The idea is that social work as a profession lacks high profile lecture series of a kind common in medicine, science and law. It is important that social work raises its profile as a serious profession; hopefully the proposed Royal College will assist in this process.

This year we were delighted to have Baroness Butler-Sloss and Jim Gamble as our speakers on the subject of Child Trafficking. Our audience of over 100 included representatives from 18 local authorities, UKBA, Home Office, FCO, Official Solicitors, CEOP, Metropolitan Police, ECPAT, Afruca, Barnardo’s and others from the fields of law and child protection.

The lectures centred on the underlying issues behind child trafficking, the reality of child trafficking in the UK today and the current response of UK authorities to this issue.

There was a lively plenary session after the lecture and the following issues and suggestions emerged:

  • Child trafficking is an issue that needs to be on all pre and post qualifying social work curricula
  • The UK needs a strong central agency to cover child trafficking and other national and international child protection issues. This agency would have a strong child welfare focus with an enforcement element. It is vital that such an agency has strong and independent governance and that its staff are ring fenced and dedicated to child protection
  • The response of all frontline professionals to victims of child trafficking needs to improve
  • It is vital that UK professionals engage with issues in the trafficked young person’s country of origin. There is no sense in protecting a child in the UK only to send them back to further trafficking or exploitation in their country of origin.
  • Social workers should challenge decisions made about trafficked young people that they disagree with, a vital role for the social worker is to be an advocate for the child or young person

   CFAB will continue with its lecture series next year and details will be on our website from next January.

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Neil Morrissey – Care Home Kid

Posted on April 4, 2011 by CFAB

The recent BBC documentary about Neil Morrissey’s childhood in care should be compulsory viewing for all social workers, those training to be social workers and all teachers involved in teaching children and young people in care.

This fantastic program very movingly highlighted the appalling practice that used to exist in terms of separating siblings, not sharing information with children and the abysmal circumstances that some children were placed in.

It is beholden on all those of us involved in the child protection and care system to work to make outcomes for children better.

The right to family life must be respected, all extended family options should be properly explored, siblings should not be separated except under exceptional circumstances, the reasons children cannot live with their parents should be properly explained to children in an age appropriate way and these conversations should be re-visited as often as necessary.

The best schools should welcome children in care and place the highest priority at ensuring that they benefit from the best education possible. School can provide stability and a place where the child can feel successful in academia, sports or the arts. Universities should offer tailored support to children in care to enable them to successfully apply to and attend our top universities.

Multiple placements are not acceptable, putting children through a series of foster and residential placements can destroy their life chances. The first placement breakdown should lead to a proper multi agency assessment of the needs of that child and a suitable placement be identified that will hold and care for that child until they leave care.

Finally leaving care services needs to be completely overhauled. Young people leaving care should be able to access ongoing support for 10 years after leaving care. How many 20 something’s in the general population either do not leave home or return there in their 20’s having had a “wobble” in the outside world. It is unconscionable that the most vulnerable young people are sent out into the outside world and cast off from support by the age of 21. These are the young adults who need the most support. Foster care and support should be available to these young adults as a safety net through their 20’s as should ongoing counselling, support in job hunting and household management skills.

At a time of cuts to public services the above may seem fanciful and unaffordable. However the financial costs of not doing this in terms of the mental health issues, offending, substance misuse and homelessness that is too often the outcome for children in care is far higher.

Neil Morrissey had a successful career in spite of, not because of, the service he received from the care system. However the ongoing emotional issues for him were evident in the program.

Unless we can offer children something better by removing them from abusive or neglectful families then the children can legitimately ask why are we doing it?

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