Daniel Pelka

Hermadge in my experience, there are many social workers and probation officers who gravitate to child protection work because they do have the confidence to question the system and not be put off by obstacles.

It's a two-edged sword - they can be challenging to manage and train when they become so experienced that they can see pitfalls in new systems and policies, and vocalise them to the extent that proposed changes are slow to be activated. Senior managers and government ministers often impose changes despite protests that they are not thought through. Well thought out policies and new systems take so long to get off the ground that they need updating as soon as they are disseminated.

It takes gumption to be able to carry on your child protection job within a system in a perpetual state of flux, knowing that what you are doing will be analysed and criticised, and constantly having to check whether breaching procedures will get you in hot water or a pat on the back.

Stansgran - What you have said is a heart=rending example of exactly what I was talking about in the comment I have made just now to Whenim64. Honestly, I think there should be a National Red Alert sounded on behalf of children like those you described and the NSPCC has tried to do this with its "STOP!" campaign. Tragically, it seems that more is needed to take the reporting of child neglect and cruelty out of the "voluntary work do-gooder", "mavericks" and "loose canons" category of action and put it fairly and squarely into the arena of legally supported concerned action. If you haven't yet signed the Change.org petition (Change the Law to Protect Children like Daniel Pelka: www.change.org.uk) for a change in the law, I hope you might consider doing so now.

You are a brave lady, Whenim64 :-) I wonder how many other people would have shown your dedication and not thought stepping outside their professional skin more than their job was worth? You have demonstrated that the safety of the child was more important to you than your career prospects. What worries me about so many of the comments I have read is that they seem to show more protective concern for practitioners in the caring services than they do for the children, like Daniel, Baby Peter and Victoria Climbie and others, who are in dire need of protection.

There is another aspect of this issue that concerns me as an ex-primary teacher/SENCo. Regrettably, I found when I was still working that the opinions of Primary teachers are frequently treated with condescension and insulting patronage by other services. I wonder if this is worse for Nursery teachers and staff? Were Daniel's nursery school teachers crawling out of their skulls with anxiety over what they saw happening to him and were their concerns being pooh-poohed as exaggerated by others who weren't so closely observant of him? I wonder if the Serious Case Review will indicate this? If it takes a change in the law to bring about a change in attitude then maybe it's worth it. If a law were to say: "You WILL take these concerns seriously or there will be legal repercussions if the situation goes pear-shaped", maybe it would be worth bringing in such a law. It's sad but maybe it's necessary.

I think what I was trying to say yesterday that we are hot wired to love children and find it almost impossible to believe that people we know would harm them because we think that other people feel the same. I still remember the recoil that the health visitor made when i told brought up my neighbours situation. i can still see the GP's face. i slept badly last night because it churned it up.
Perhaps it makes a difference that the names are Pelka and Climbie and are foreign. Perhaps we are insular enough to believe that foreign thinking is different. When its David A with blue eyes we are shocked rigid. I am not making excuses for the teachers or social workers but it is relatives who harm the child and we have seen the culture of ignoring the girls who go abroad for the summer and never come back. There is always a feeling in the UK that the home is the castle. The attitude to health workers changed after a number of strange suggested abductions by fake health visitors. I don't know if it was local to Merseyside or not but it used to be the norm for a health visitor to appear randomly. I know with my DDs new babies they seemed to make appointments
Sorry to go on but surely the categories are simply mad,like my neighbour,bad like the Pelkas or dangerous to know like David As mother's boyfriend. I think the teachers mentioned were probably at the end of their tether . Good that they left.

I remember a case where a teacher pushed a 15 year old boy against a wall in school and it provoked a big safeguarding conference My view that was that internal school policies were more than adequate to deal with such events (combined with the police if necessary). So I think that sometimes LA officers get drawn into things that are almost certainly a waste of time.
But with the demise of the LEAs under Gove (if my last local one was anything to go by) things like staff training in this area will probably suffer.

I know of a case where a teaching assistant pulled a child off his chair by his ear and was immediately suspended from school until the safeguarding team looked into it. If it can happen so quickly in that situation, why could it not happen with Daniel Pelka?
When I was teaching in the 80s, one of my tutor group was hit over the palm by the metalwork teacher with a metal rule. She had marks on her palm. I took her to the head, the teacher was suspended, and never came back to school. I did what I felt I had to do to protect the child.
I get fed up, like others on here, of people saying we need to learn lessons from what has happened. No, you do not need to learn lessons, you need to act on what you are told.

Stansgran You went out of your way to do the very best that you could in helping her and trying to tell people what was happening - that's a lot more than a lot of people would have done.

A sad story Stansgran !

It was 30 odd years ago. A group of young mums met up weekly. One mum a close neighbour complained how naughty her daughter was. She had a new baby. I was an at home mum. As soon as my DH left for work the phone would go. She would say she couldn't cope, that she needed cigarettes, that the daughter was playing up. If I was doing something and couldn't take the older child or the baby ,one was locked in her room the baby put outside in its pram(where everyone could hear it) and she would sit in front of the TV very loud . The window cleaner complained that the older child chucked faeces out of the window. They boarded up the window saying she was climbing out. I took the baby in most days when I was home and kept him clean- his clothes were stinking or had the girl to play with my daughter but she was withdrawn . The other mums helped but wanted to look the other way. My health visitor was appalled when I said I was unhappy about the children AND DIDNT WANT TO KNOW. it didnt happen in nice neighborhoods like ours. The mums group decided it was beyond our abilities( I had tried to get the husband and his mother to help)and I was delegated to see the GP practice,hers not mine. I was still not believed even though I said the whole mothers group backing me. A week later the neighbour had a full blown post puerperal psychosis and was taken away , men in white coats stuff. All too horrible. I think the attitude still remains ,that it can't happen ,it's not possible, oh no not here. Not that sweet polish/ Nigerian/wealthy young mum at our school/play group/church mums group/ . Fill in as you wish. I often wonder what happened to those children. My husband's work took us up north but I still remember being desperately mortified at not being believed when I was feeling sick every time I had to look after these children and KNEW there was something wrong. I was a new very ignorant young mum but instinct made my skin crawl for those children

I don't want to detract from this thread and wasn't sure whether it was best to ignore J08's response to my comment. I didn't mean to be patronising, it was a genuine comment.

* Eloethan* your analysis of the reasons for concern in the majority of child protection cases is spot on, and you are quite correct in saying it is a social worker's role to try to work with parents to address their chaotic parenting. It is indeed a fine balance between being able to do that whilst being honest and challenging parents robustly when things don't improve. In Daniel's case, it seems as though the problem was that the concerns were not even passed on to social workers to be dealt with. I can't believe that anyone seeing the level of his weight loss, and his behaviour which clearly indicated that he was starving, could have accepted the parents' explanation without checking it out. Without wishing to pre-judge the findings of the serious case review I feel that there was a serious error of judgement on the part of the teaching staff. It's not that the procedures weren't there to protect Daniel, it seems they simply weren't used either through lack of knowledge or lack of judgement. Changing the law or the procedures won't change that, only training will do so.

By the way, I would plead with anyone who has concerns about a child to phone either the police if the concerns are regarding the child's immediate safety, or otherwise Children's Services. It's much quicker than phoning the NSPCC who will only pass on your concerns to Children's Services anyway. It's far better for Children's Services to receive the call direct as that way they can get all the information they need at first hand.

I am not ungracious. Maybe it was a compliment. Or it could come across as an unnecessary dig.

I wasn't being "nice". Just honest as usual.

#againbacktothefarmoreimportantmatter

Isn't the danger of this proposal that those responsible for investigating child abuse would immediately be inundated with information about every child that is giving the slightest cause for concern. That's fine if the apparatus is there to deal with it but staffing levels in the public services have been cut and very serious cases of child abuse may end up buried in a huge backlog of cases to be investigated.

My feeling is that everybody - not just professionals - should have a duty to raise their concerns so that parents don't automatically suspect that it is a social worker who reported the matter. I'm not a social worker but for those on Gransnet who have experience of social work, I would imagine that, in the majority of cases, inappropriate, chaotic and ineffective parenting is the issue rather than deliberate cruelty and wilful neglect. In the former cases, it's important that a social worker gains parents' trust and co-operation to help them address problematic issues, rather than be seen as a "spy" for the "Social".

Having said that, it does seem ridiculous that teachers accepted the parents' explanation for the little boy being half starved as being due to him having an eating disorder. Perhaps cases such as these should be passed immediately to experienced police officers properly trained in child protection issues. If the "buck stops" with the police, this may prevent the scenario where where everybody thinks that somebody else is aware of the matter and is dealing with it.

Jingle If you are so ungracious when you get a compliment, don't be surprised when Iam64 lets the pat slip down a bit to a clip round the ear! You were nice to When! It was noticed! Smile, you are on candid camera!

I hope that's not patronising. Don't you pat me on the head!

#keeptotheimportanttopic

Good to see your positive comments to when J08.
I agree with her, those involved with children need to be prepared to step outside professional constraints on occasion, and look at the situation from the point of view of the man or woman in the street. Research suggests that any meeting about a child/ren moves to an adult, rather than child focussed approach, within about 10 minutes.

Sounds like you did pretty well when.

Respect.

Hermadge child protection sometimes needs professionals to step outside their role and remember what the public and the child would appreciate them doing. Most social workers who have safeguarding jobs are prepared to do this and be criticised, called arrogant, overbearing, questioned how many children they've got themselves, and all those other tactics that are used to undermine them in this difficult job.

There were many times when I overstepped professional courtesies because I was worried about a child, including phoning someone above the head of the worker who was not acting on concerns, telling local police that I wanted to log my concerns because my own organisation had not backed me when I said I was suspicious, following offenders that I suspected were going into a house where there was a child they should not have contact with, persuading unconfident teachers that they knew better than the head teacher who was not taking them seriously, and asking colleagues in other agencies to do a bit of surreptitious checking for intelligence. I have known conscentious colleagues be called 'mavericks' and 'loose cannons' for going it alone when they were worried about the slowness of the system, especially convening a child concern meeting or case conference. Careers can be stopped dead in their tracks from such behaviour, but many of us couldn't give a toss about promotion being denied because we spoke our minds. Risk to children's lives overrides all that.

I had a great manager for a few months - he went to work for NSPCC - who would say 'do you want to get carpeted for doing something you shouldn't have, and annoyed some managers and parents, or for not doing something you should have done and left a child at risk?'

I agree with j08. This is the most important petition I have ever come across and I have signed it. My M.P.'s office (my M.P. is Anne Milton) has offered to send me a copy of the Serious Case Review when it is published and I am currently reading the report by Isla Wallace and Lisa Bunting titled "An examination of local, national and international arrangements for the mandatory reporting of child abuse: the implications for Northern Ireland." For "Northern Ireland" you might as well read "United Kingdom". The findings of this report, which came down against mandatory reporting, now need overhauling in the light of the tragedy of little Daniel. This petition is very, very far from being "knee jerk". This is a "Right, that's it - enough is enough" response and it has been a long time coming. It is not about criminalising the caring professions. It is about enabling them to be pro-active in reporting suspected child cruelty with the security of knowing the law will protect them when they do. It will not apply to members of the general public. As you may know, members of the general public can phone the NSPCC in confidence if they suspect that a child is being neglected or ill-treated and increasing numbers of people are now doing this in the wake of the ghastly Jimmy Saville revelations. However, whistle blowers are still stigmatised as "interfering busybodies" and I am appalled that visitors to Daniel's "home" were turned away without being able to see him. When I had a 2-year old baby at home, I was visited by the Health Visitor who wanted to see him. He was in his cot asleep and I took the HV upstairs to see him. It would never have occurred to me to deny her access to the child she had come to visit; I regarded her as my ally in the care of my son. I am shocked that health visitors and social workers can so easily be denied access to the children they are concerned about and I would regard such refusal as "fishy".

For me, Daniel's tragedy has been the final, gut-wrenching straw. I was SENCo in a Primary School for 3 years. What, I ask myself, would I have done if I had witnessed the things that Daniel's nursery school teachers witnessed? Reporting to the Head Teacher would have been Act No. 1. What if I had felt that not enough action was happening fast enough? Phone the NSPCC from home privately? I could have been disciplined for unprofessional conduct but a child's safety is paramount! A "Daniel's Law" would have put justice on my side. The situation as it currently stands is not doing enough to protect vulnerable children. It needs to change. I should add that I have been a contributor to the NSPCC's "STOP!" campaign pretty much since it started, so I am putting my money where my mouth is. Are you?

This is the most important petition I have ever come across.

I signed this petition. I agree with it wholeheartedly.

We need to get rid of the feeling that people can have about "interfering". If it was the law to report these concerns then people will feel justified in doing so. They will have been given permission.

We can't go on letting children down like this. We need to try something new.

It's not just the social workers who are at fault here; it's his teachers, his neighbours, other parents, doctors and nurses, hospital administrators, etc. If any one of a number of people could have raised a red flag and made sufficient fuss then this wouldn't have happened.
Too often corporate responsibility means that everyone assumes sometime else has a handle in the case, but it's more often it's the blind men and the elephant picture they have.

I think it's that combination of inexperience and delay in ensuring everyone gets updated safeguarding training, across all the agencies, together with this 'egg-timer' model of reporting concerns that needs sharpening up. When all staff can confidently go straight to social services AND get feedback to inform them their concern has been acted on, things will improve. If deceiving parents can fob the authorities off, going back to the source of the concern and complaint can be illuminating because it can identify how the parents and the child behave towards different professionals, whether that be consistent lying, disclosures from the child to a trusted person, or direct observation of neglect or cruelty.

Having an artificial bottleneck through which to squeeze concerns clearly stifles communication. Data protection and confidentiality rules, whereas being able to speak direct to those who have taken the concern to a manager can shed so much more light on what is going on. Perhaps a Crimestoppers type system for reporting concerns anonymously, and a broad access system for sharing concerns, with feedback so that the reporting professional can gain and provide better quality information if social services don't or can't act. And how about empowering children to be able to say their school mates, or themselves, are in difficulties?

It's certain that the findings from the case review will say the same thing yet again. Poor communication, system failure, training needs not met, too much time doing paperwork and so on. There'll be a blitz on training and auditing, leaving no cover for active cases whilst those staff are away from their jobs, a drop in recruitment, promotion into managers jobs taking what skill there is away from the frontline, and then yet another high profile case to disgust us all.

I agree with you nellie. I am very concerned that there is a growing level of inexperience in social work (if that makes sense) due to high turnover of staff and managers who are still wet behind the ears. I have come across many workers and managers who are very unclear about the law. This leads to them being at times oppressive, in claiming legal powers that they don't have; and at other times dangerous, in not using the powers they do have appropriately to safeguard children (and adults for that matter, but that's a different thread).

Central to the problem is the fact that SWs are working with a paradox - they need to engage with the parents and get them onside in order to try and improve parenting; but they also need to be challenging and ever-vigilant for lying, cheating and subterfuge. It is an almost impossible tightrope to walk. They are being asked to take on two incompatible roles.

The emphasis on keeping children at home has, I think, gone too far. I remember a recent fly-on-the-wall TV series that followed SWs dealing with children and families, and on several occasions I felt that the pendulum had swung to far in the direction of keeping children at home at all costs - there were people there who clearly could not be even the most basic of parents.

However it is so very hard - there is absolutely no doubt that the desire to know or be with one's biological parents is an atavistic need - you only have to watch "Long Lost Families" to see this. I do not like the format of this programme, but it is riveting because it brings home that truth. Even those adults whose adoptive homes were ideal and who had happy childhoods seem driven to find that biological connection.