Child protection - necessary, but not an excuse for unwarranted state intervention

This last week has seen the news that another child known to social services in the London Borough of Haringay has suffered horrific abuse. One should not hide the horrific nature of the abuse itself, and that it is the man who has now been convicted of the offence involved who is primarily responsible for that abuse.

Much of the media comment, however, has centred on the fact that Haringay's social services have, once again, failed to protect a child who was on their "at risk" register, and towards whom therefore the local authority's social service teams had a particular responsibility of care.

Lord Laming conducted an inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie in 2000, an inquiry which has led to a complete re-structure of local authority services - the Every Child Matters agenda. These are now structured to have a single Children's Services Department, which includes what were formerly separate Education departments and Children's social work departments (within the social services department of the authority). Local Safeguarding Committees now exist, on which are represented all those likely to have a part in the care of children - health services, education services, police, social workers. The whole intention is to achieve the sort of communication between different agencies that was not there for Victoria Climbie. Local authorities, through their Children's Services departments, now have a statutory responsibility to safeguard children in their areas from abuse.

According to the report on the Timesonline website:

Lord Laming, who conducted an inquiry in to the death of abuse victim Victoria Climbie, eight, in Haringey in 2000, said on Radio 4 it was ‘dispiriting’ that some child protection services were still not working.

There is another side to the new child protection environment. That is what happens when professional staff who work with children, and sometimes parents, face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded. Careers can be blighted, and the confidence of perfectly competent/safe staff and parents destroyed.

1. The structural changes undertaken after the Victoria Climbie inquiry (and I am not suggesting that changes were not necessary) appear to me to have an underlying flaw. The changes have brought into existence a system that applies to all children - including those who may not be on an "at risk" register - by virtue of the obligation placed on local authorities to safeguard children in their areas. But the structures are designed to respond to the situation of children who are at risk. The element of injustice towards those who face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded therefore seems to me to be in-built. This issue is becoming an increasing concern for teacher trade unions, and the associations of other professionals involved in the care of children.

2. An unfortunate effect of the present child protection environment is an erosion of trust. Certainly care has to be taken that the idea of trust is not used to avoid pursuing enquiries when there is a good reason to do so. On the other hand, what also needs to be avoided is the opposite - where suspicion becomes the presumption, not just in casework where it might be justifiable in appropriate circumstances, but in one's general attitude and policy. This element of suspicion is what can lead to unfounded allegations.

3. From the point of view of Catholic social teaching, it is parents who have the first responsibility to care for their children. The allocation of a statutory duty to safeguard all children to the local authority conflicts with this. The role of the local authority should come in to play when there is a need to support parents in fulfilling what is essentially the parents' responsibility; or in situations where the parents are unable to fulfil the responsibility at all, in which case the local authority can quite rightly step in to take on that responsibility completely by taking a child into care. Those more expert in children's social services might know more about this than I do, but my impression is that local authority social services are only really stepping in when they have a statutory duty to do so; they are not able to offer what might be called "non-statutory" support. In this context, I am rather wary of Lord Laming's observation, in the Timesonline report, that:

I believe that the state should become a responsible and effective parent to more children.

To be fair to Lord Laming, he does go on to recognise that this should not mean a swing to an opposite extreme of children being "snatched away" in ever increasing numbers, and he is referring to children identified as being at risk. But it is the relatively easy reference to the state as a parent that I find worrying. I would not like this latest incident, and Lord Laming's remarks, to give a justification to the state taking to itself greater parental responsibility for all children.

4. Running alongside this question of child protection are the questions of Sex and Relationships Education and societal/political attitudes towards marriage. I am not in principle opposed to the provision of Sex and Relationships Education in schools - in the context of Catholic social teaching, this is one aspect of the part that a school can play in collaborating with parents in the education of their children. However, when, in practice, that provision lacks any real choice of programme and resources and becomes a mechanism for imposing in schools one, single form of provision, primarily through the preferential funding and support of a small core of suppliers - then we have an imposition by the state. The state is in effect taking over a responsibility for this area of parenting. I would also want to argue that the duty to safeguard children would be very well served by the promotion and protection of marriage in wider society - and in Sex and Relationships Education in schools. This is not to say that no abuse of children occurs in families where the parents are married, or that I think a couple must stay together where there is domestic violence of one form or another. But the inherent increased stability of most married relationships should help the overall situation. But, of course, this is not on the public agenda. I have yet to see any recognition that these are issues relevant to that of child protection. The provision of contraceptive and abortion advice, and making as easy as possible access to those services, for young people under 16 seems to me a major question for child protection. If the proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion is higher for under-16's than for other age ranges, one is entitled to ask about the nature of the guidance being offered to those children, again a question for child protection.

4. Legislation might impose an obligation on local authorities to safeguard all the children in their area. But is this a bit like to trying to say that the sky is green? [Well, for us physicists, there is a phenomenon called the "green flash", but let's leave that aside!] A local authority can try its best, and take actions to help safeguard children in general and respond to individual cases - but is that the obligation to safeguard all children a realisable obligation?

5. Finally! So far as I can see, failings in child protection come down to failings in the work of those involved. And the last week's events seem to suggest that this is the case now as much as it was before the changes following Lord Lamings inquiry into the Victoria Climbie case.

Every Child Matters - a parent's comment

The following has come via a comment on the post "School bans girl's crisps". I publish it here as a discrete post. The comment is of interest as one thing I did not say in the post it responded to was... that the school involved was a Catholic primary school. I have also just amused myself by looking up its OFSTED report, published in January of this year. The school achieved an overall effectiveness grade 2 (good).

From the text of the report:

"Pupils have an excellent understanding of how to live healthy and safe lives. One said, 'I run up and down the stairs - it warms me up and gives me exercise!'"

And then from the list of judgements at the end of the report:

"The extent to which learners adopt healthy lifestyles grade 1 (outstanding)
The extent to which learners adopt safe practices grade 1 (outstanding)"

Well, there are circumstances where it may be quite safe to run up and down stairs (I can think of an experiment sometimes done in science lessons to work out the power of a person); but, as a general rule, for primary age pupils in their general movement around a building, it would be discouraged in favour of walking! Oh, wonderful, wonderful, OFSTED.

Though I know of the "All that I am" programme to which this comment refers, I am not familiar with the content of the programme and its materials. I would be happy to receive comments with other people's experiences of the programme. I am not sure that I would agree with characterising the ECM agenda as "evil" per se, but I can see that it is giving rise to serious difficulties. I suspect, as this comment seems to indicate, that Catholic schools need to be a bit more critical/assertive in the way in which they respond to the demands of ECM.

I did leave a comment earlier about my experiences of ECM, as a parent. It must have somehow got lost on the worldwide web. I shall try again.1.Collecting my children from school earlier this year, a question on the way home in the car from my son: "mum, what`s child pornography". The two 7 year olds in the back asked as well, as I tried not to steer the car off the road into a tree. They had a visit from the local policeman who, as it turns out, went into some detail about what child pornography is and why it gets on the internet and to please ring them on this number if they suspect they have seen any. It led to many questions from my children about why people would want to view this stuff or produce it in the first place. I was shaking by the time I got home. This part of the timetable came under something called "personal health and safety" and my enquiries showed that it is part of the Every Child Matters Agenda. We know every child matters. Show me anyone who actively believes "Only Some Children Matter". Those who don`t think any children matter will eventually be dealt with by the courts, as with Victoria Climbie's killer( which gave rise to this ECM stuff).It is complete nonsense and being used to enforce a secular/anything goes agenda in our Catholic schools. THEY are the ones affected by it, not the community schools. It is ONLY in a Catholic school that children will be taught that certain things are moral absolutes and wrong: abortion, pre-marital sex, divorce, to name the 3 obvious ones. What ECM is succeeding in doing (because teachers do not want to ignore a government directive - their jobs depend upon it)is under-mining parents' right to educate their Catholic children in matters of the faith. And these are literally matters of life and death. My childrens' dignity was assaulted by this health and safety lesson. They and I were violated. But parents have no recourse. Everyone in authority supports this ECM nonsense. NO-one wants to rock the boat for fear of being unable to pay their mortgage in 6 months' time..

2.My son in year 5 last year was put through a programme called " All that I Am". This is a sex education programme that has been approved by the Department of Health and funded by them, in co-operation with the Church for use in our schools. The last time I checked, the DOH didn`t share my values about sex education for chlidren. However, that aside, and trusting that it would be fine - this is a Catholic shcool, after all - I ticked the box agreeing to it. My son, at the end of the week relayed to me all that he had learned. I had also taken the trouble to read the programme myself. It is big on dignity, self-worth, God's love. Doesn`t mention chastity once. The teacher (non-catholic) taking them through the programme expanded onto teenage sex, and how many teenagers are getting STDs because they are becoming sexually active "too early". Sexuality was not taught within the context of the Sacrament of marriage. It was taught as an animal bodily function with a bit of spirituality thrown in. This was a real mistake on my part to have allowed my son to go through this. I should never have put his soul in this position, and it has caused enormous distress. I do not know how I could have been so utterly stupid. With hindsight, I should have removed him from school, for the week, and taken him through the teaching myself. I have since, with the help of Grace, ironed out the misunderstandings and filled in the teachings of the Church for him. I will not make the same mistake again.These are just 2 small examples, Joseph, of how ECM is being used to enforce, by stealth, (you can be sure most people aren`t even noticing)this government's anti-Christian agenda. They are not anti-faith, as such. We parents just have to put up with it, or take our own evasive/curative action. NO-one is listening to us -our priests (with notable vocal exceptions - Fr Tim Finegan understands this perfectly), our teachers or our governors. NO-one wants to speak out.And, the government has also brought a supplementary document to ECM called " Every Muslim Child Matters". When I rang the Schools Department to ask for a copy of "Every Catholic Child Matters", they told me that that was not one of their publications. We are not imagining this, Joseph. ECM is evil. MY children matter to me, and I will not have their dignity and my authority udnermined by ECM. I do believe I am not alone, but as you can appreciate, with so very little support, you have be robust to speak out.

I am glad you have raised ECM. Because it certainly matters to me, and many parents. I believe, from terrible experience, it is much more serious than low fat crisps.

"School bans girl's crisps"

"Allergy girl told off for eating low-fat snack.

A mum believes her daughter is being discriminated against at her school - because of her dietary needs. AG says her daughter N, 11, who has wheat allergy and attends X school, was told she could not have her low-fat crisps as a lunchtime snack because they were not allowed under the school's healthy-eating policy....

N suffered seven painful years with Irritable Bowel Syndrome before she was diagnosed with the allergy. Since her diet change, her IBS has calmed.

Her packed lunch now consists of wheat-free pitta bread with ham or chicken, a rice crisp bar, a packet of low-fat crisps and fruit...AG said her daughter used to be overweight but she worked with Havering PCT's junior weight programme and lost 2 st in nine weeks last year."

This is from my local paper this week. One might see the point to a school encouraging healthy eating in the food it provides for its school meals, but it gets a bit alarming to see that being extended to monitoring the packed lunches of pupils. The paper's report ends with the paragraph:

"A Havering Council spokesman said: 'The school has offered to arrange a meeting with AG and invite a dietician to help them discuss the matter and find healthy eating alternatives'."

So it is not just a case of a member of staff at the school saying something when they are unfamiliar with the medical background - it looks like a policy being enforced. One would have thought the school could recognise the special need relating to this pupil, particularly given the medical history and previous collaboration with health initiatives.

But, of course, OFSTED now report on how well pupils in a school adopt healthy lifestyles (the "be healthy" strand of the Every Child Matters framework, which includes a measure relating to how many young people are eating their "5 portions a day"), and what they eat at school is an easily measurable aspect of this. I wonder if this is influencing this school's approach here?