Compulsory sterilisation?

nonu I think you have misunderstood what I was saying. No backtracking at all. I simply find gushing and emotional responses difficult to appreciate.

I have a long career working with young children, a significant number of whom had very difficult home circumstances. This made them angry and damaged young people. Being sentimental about them was not helpful to them or to me. That did not mean I did not care a great deal about them and work very hard to support them but sometimes being more matter of fact and practical is far more helpful to the child. That does not mean I did not show them affection and enjoy positive relationships with them & their families.

There were a number of successes where families benefited from the support I brokered for them via a wide range of agencies. Sadly despite a lot of hard work from many people some families did not respond to the help offered. It is a two way process always. In a very few cases I have had to be part of the process of children being placed into care. Tough to do when all the child wants is its mother.

Yes, it was. Thank you.

How long is the average work life of a childrens social worker? If they can survive long enough to harden into 'Rottweilers' the physical and mental stress must be enormous.

Thank you for your input Iam. Most informative.

Children are darlings to all of us. Gransnet provides that common bond for us to express just how much we care about all children, not just our own. We are lucky to have cherished, protected children in our families. Being on the social work frontline gives you an even keener appreciation of your children, as well as the responsibility for ensuring you don't go home to them until you've done your utmost for the children at risk on your caseload.

What you can't do is sit at your desk and submit to fear, tears, sentimental thoughts about these children at risk (although it does happen more often than not) and feeling paralysed and helpless to act. Those children don't want or need soft and woolly social workers pretending everything is just lovely, it's those tough Rottweilers that everyone hates for taking their kids away, who have to steel themselves because parents, kids, neighbours and relatives are all shouting at you, telling you you're wrong - the child is accident-prone, the parents wouldn't hurt a fly.

Head teachers aren't taught how to assess risk to children like social workers or doctors are. They see children with explained injuries every day. Many injuries occur in the playground. I've lost count of the accident notes I've collected at school home time over the years. It's having a social worker IN SCHOOL that makes a huge difference. I have a friend, ex-probation officer, who works in three schools, safeguarding children all day, every day. The work she does with families is harrowing, but effective. There are 800 children to look out for, with a school nurse and two nominated safeguarding senior teachers in each school. There are few education area that have this provision. She is a link to social services, police and probation, and ensures schools are fully briefed, get feedback about child protection, she attends case conferences and she disseminates helpful safeguarding information to all staff, including after-school assistants and dinner ladies.

She's absolutely exhausted and often offloads about certain children she is worried about. She goes back to see families at night when she is uneasy. Finding a child sleeping on the sofa because the bed she was shown at 2 o'clock that afternoon actually belongs to two other siblings, or turning up to find the children have not had a meal. The wheel hasn't come off in over three years, but it could break her. And the daughter she cherishes often takes a back seat when it comes to mum's time. How sad is that?

I've only just heard of this case [not sure what planet I've been on recently] and am sickened by what I've seen and heard thus far. It has occurred to me that we're thinking of a case of this poor child going to the sort of school that our grandchildren go to and no one doing something about the condition that he was in etc. But he probably goes to a school where there are lots and lots of children that are being watched by social services. Does anyone know when was the last time he went to school prior to his death? The S.O. told me how it said on the news that someone took a birthday cake into his school and he was so hungry he ate half of it. I can't get that image out of my head; it's heartbreaking. Don't we all just wish we could turn back the clock and bring him home with us and love him .

You appear to be back tracking .

?????????????

indeed you do nonu that is the reward of working with children isn't it.

I have worked with children and found them all darlings but then of course one gets back what one puts in ??

nonu of course you can call children 'poor darling children'.

I would find it hard to think of many children, amongst the thousand plus children I have worked with, that I have not found interesting, charming, clever and fun. Some have been cheeky little buggers too and some extremely badly behaved, rude and violent but I have cared for them all.

I repeat those "poor darling children" if that does not agree with your mindset nanaej , tough but as I said earlier I will say what I wish .

if you do not like me saying "Poor Darling Children" , who cares .

To me , all children are darlings .

As many posters have said, we have to wait for the serious case review before we'll have a clearer idea of the actions taken, or sadly not taken, by professionals involved with Daniel. My current work in a family centre indicates that social workers are overwhelmed, and that communication within the team around the child continues to be somewhat problematic.
Our family centre has survived the cuts,but many others haven't. Staff have been running nurture groups in schools in very deprived areas, with parenting skills courses alongside them. Working with hard to reach families is demanding and often scary. The money to pay for these courses and support groups has now been taken from family centres, and goes directly to schools. So, these groups that are evidenced to have helped the families, especially the children, may not continue to run if HT's use the money to plug educational gaps.
The increase in misuse and dependence on drugs and alcohol over the course of my working life has been huge. Drugs and alcohol lower inhibitions, and many people under the influence and intoxicated on substances/alcohol, will behave in aggressive or passive ways. Children living with dependent parents are often physically and emotionally neglected when their parents unavailable to them.
Schools in deprived areas have so many children whose care within their families falls below the "good enough parenting" expected in the Children Act 1989. It's my belief that teachers, doctors, social workers, mental health workers have all slowly but surely moved the accepted threshold for intervention. This isn't because they don't care, it's simply because they are working in a stressful environment, with raising expectations running alongside a decrease in cash available. The reality is that government expectations that CBT will sort out depression/anxiety in 6 weeks, and that local authorities are to get more money if they take less children into care or reduce their numbers of children formally identified as at risk.
The parents killed little Daniel, his mother and step father. According to today's news, his father evidently also drank heavily and there are indications he was physically abusive to Daniel's mother. He then went home to Poland, leaving his son in what he must have known was an unsafe environment where his son's needs would be at best neglected. I heard on radio 4 just now, Daniels maternal grandmother putting blame on the UK professionals. She doesn't believe her daughter did this, and adds that her daughter must have been influenced by the boyfriend. Just off for a glass of wine, and some deep breathing!

What nonu ? Not clear at all what you mean and which of nanaej's posts you think is "beastly" and why. If you want to be clear, you'll have to go a bit further to help us understand.
It is my perception that reporting procedures etc by schools have improved vastly. When I was a teacher 30 years ago we received no training of any kind on this issue (not in Uni, and not in-service). Now training is the norm, schools have clear policies about safeguarding, good practice is laid down and there are clear lines of responsibility - there is a senior member of staff who must be informed of any suspected abuse or neglect.
But the volume of work is huge. In the school where I was governor, a secondary in a deprived area, we employed a school nurse who was the key contact point (working with a more senior person but nurse was the expert). About a fifth of all our children were on her files as having been cause for concern at some stage in their school career. Only the more serious concerns could be picked up by social services and they certainly could not keep an active watching brief on all these families where there were questions about whether the children were being properly looked after and protected.

Do not be sad for me nonu I am not sure which post you consider 'beastly' but it is not important. You obviously disagree with my perspective and that is OK to see things differently.

I, like others who are posting , have first hand experience of being involved in child protection cases and I suppose we see the successes as well as the failure. I just wanted to show a balance in an emotive situation.

I know that actions I have taken over the years have protected children from harm and I can say that I know many colleagues who have also done the same. As I have said I am surprised, based on newspaper reports, that the HT in this case did not do more.

However the people who deserve the venom are Daniel's mother and her partner, They are the people who killed him.

Aka as in all walks of life there will be some HTs who are not as professional as they should be I agree. But most are not like that.

What a truly beastly little post , to you nanaej for the avoidance of doubt .

for you

aka it does not happen all the time now.

Referrals are made frequently by schools to SS. There are very clear procedures for passing on concerns about a child. In fact in my experience schools err on the side of caution because of these few tragic high profile cases. For every one of these tragedies there will have been very many more children protected.

Remember it is the bad news that makes the headlines but you never hear 'School reports concerns and SS protects child from abuse'

In other words every professional, from the child's teacher, the head, the doctor etc who came in contact with that child would be liable if they did not report to Child Protection and it was found that he had been abused.

Each to his own I will say what I want to say , okay !!!

It's obviously not working and I can remember a three year old freezing and starving to death when I lived in the UK over 25 years ago. The neighbour reported this family many times, the child wasn't seen and nothing was done because the parents said she was staying with relatives. That very tragic story will forever be imprinted on my brain.

I am not saying the system is perfect in Australia but if a teacher etc does not report directly to Child Protection, they are liable. When the reporting is passed on to others to deal with often nothing is done because no one has to take responsibility.

Nanaej some HT can be bullies and threaten members of staff. They don't want 'their' school to appear less than perfect. So a young teacher might feel quite intimidated by that kind of dominant and upwardly mobile HT. I've come across a couple like that myself.

nonu there is not one of us here who is not appalled by this tragic death and by the failure of those around the child to protect him. Using emotive language 'poor darling children' does not make you more appalled or caring than those who use less sentimental language.

The people who killed him were his mother and stepfather.

Those who saw him in school and hospital and were not more dismayed by his condition need to be held to account. It may turn out that they did everything they could given the information they had from the mother, it may be they failed the child by not following procedures rigorously.

As a young teacher I came across a case where a child was constantly covered in bruises. I asked the Headteachef what we should do and the answer was 'nothing' this happens all the time. When I tried to persevere I was told it wasn't up to me and to leave well alone. The following day he didn't appear at school and was off for a week, allegedly with 'nits'. On his return there was more evidence of faded bruising so that night I anonymously rang the Duty Officer at the Social Services who again was reluctant to 'interfere'. I ask his name and said that I was making a note of it and the time and content of the call and if anything even more serious happened I'd disclose this call to the media and put the phone down.
The child was taken into care, found to have two cracked ribs, numerous healed or partly headed fractures, underweight and bruised and with burn marks from an iron on his buttocks. This was December 1972. A month later in January 1973 a little girl called Maria Caldwell died from injuries inflicted by her parents. Forty years on.....

My post wasn't in response to your post Nonu it was more of a general comment about what is always said in response to such tragedies.

I stick to my post !!

quite really for these poor darling children !!

I can't agree that nothing changes after serious case reviews. As a direct result of the Lord Laming report into the death of Victoria Climbie the whole structure of social services as we had known it since the Seebohm Report of 1968 (one stop shop) was overturned. We have had a return to the fragmented services that preceded it and in my view to the loss of social work as a profession. I think Lord Laming fundamentally misunderstood the failings that had led to Vicoria Climbie's death and took a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It should be no surprise that not only the nut was cracked.

None of this is any reason why poor Daniel Pelka died. This was not even human error. One social worker, one teacher, one doctor cannot cause a child's death if the systems are sufficiently robust and adhered to. There appears to have been a catastrophic institutional failure at the most basic level. I will say again, as I keep repeating, that I will be very interested to hear the findings of the serious case review. I can understand the comments of the Director who said such reviews distract attention and resources from the day to day work of services, but what is s/he suggesting as an alternative? Surely we have to try to get to the bottom of what happened here.