Compulsory sterilisation?

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 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.

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!

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 .

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

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

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

You appear to be back tracking .

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 .

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?

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.

Yes, it was. Thank you.

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.

when that's what i was trying to say!

Gushing & emotional responses !!

What on Gods sweet earth are you on about ??????

Remenber my dear , there are two sides to every story !!

Sorry nonu this is a thread about the murder of a small child. I do not want it to become a trivial argument between us so am choosing not to respond to your comments.

Iam and when. Informative and insightful posts.

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

nfk many social workers put 20 or 30 years into the job, having trained when they were mature. Some will manage more. It's not a job for kids, although plenty of post-graduates do join the service. My friend the ex PO did 25 years in probation and is in her fifties now. It's an exhausting job and she has the luxury of specialising in three schools. Working in a busy social services office, covering many other duties as well as a caseload, is even tougher. Many social workers succumb to stress.

nanaej a most dignified response! Let's focus on the children and what our own experiences can tell us.

Sadly social work is now seen as a 'job for kids' in the sense that it is a degree course to be embarked upon like any other at the age of 18. How on earth can an 18 year old have the faintest idea what they are letting themselves in for?

I found being Child Protection person in a big comprehensive school (along with teaching etc) a very hard and emotionally demanding job, and could not have coped without the local Social Workers to hand to give advice and support.

I had my first social work job at the age of 21 and felt as though I was really too young. I went and did a post-grad qualification for a year, then returned to work - still feeling as though I was wet behind the ears.

I have been involved in social work education in the past - I think we have discussed this before - and it had become very "issue-based" and bogged down in the latest PC fads, when what it should have been doing was giving SWs some real solid basis of supervised experience and clear protocols. Some of the SWs who went through my hands as students were passed by their colleges - and I did not rate them as fit to practice.

It truly is such a thankless task - you have to have the skill to make warm connections with families and gain their trust, whilst at the same time retaining the strength and professional objectivity to take harsh decisions when needed. A real tightrope walk requiring quality well-trained staff with some life experience behind them.

In my view there are too many managers hiding behind desks and reports and too little quality supervision of those at the sharp end. That supervision is critical to good practice.