Child Protection Lit Review

Literature Review Social Services are part of the Department of Education. They are responsible for Child protection services in England and Wales. In the year ending 31 March 2011 "there were 615,000 referrals to children`s social care services" . 382,400 of them being children in need cases. They have a large amount of responsibility with regards to protecting the children that are brought to their attention. The delivery of child protection is handed down to individual local authorities, taking a multi-agency approach. This means working in partnership with public organisations such as health bodies and the police, as well as organisations in the voluntary sector, families and the wider community. The main Act that protects the welfare of children is the Children Act 1989 . This places a duty with the up most importance on both organisations and individuals alike to safeguard the welfare of children in their course of business. The national framework of Statutory and non-statutory guidance is issued by the Department of Education in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and Children Act 2004, which must be followed by all professionals that work with children and families. The National Assembly for Wales however operates slightly different, by often producing their own guidance to local authorities in Wales. Local Authorities are, by statute, required to act in accordance with the guidance of the Secretary of state under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 . Local Safeguarding Children's Boards (LSCBs), as set out in Section 14 of the Children Act 2004 oversee and implement the child protection policies and procedures. Children's Trust Boards which is also a provision of the Children's Act 2004, section 12a oversee the delivery of children's services at a local level. The "Working Together to Safeguard Children" guidelines is a lengthy document although is well detailed and set out. It provides comprehensive details for all those that are responsible in safeguarding children. They have been up dated in light of the Victoria Climbie case which generated a formal inquiry. This led to radical reforms in the child protection system contained in the "Every Child Matters" Green Paper in 2003 . The Department of Education then published Every Child Matters: Change for Children in 2004 . This then led to the provision of the Children Act 2004 .

The death of Victoria Climbe, 8, generated a yearlong inquiry headed by Lord Laming. Victoria died after suffering abuse and neglect by those who should have been protecting her - her aunt and her boyfriend. Lord Laming described it as the worst case of neglect he had ever heard of" . He identified "social services departments at four London boroughs, two police forces, two hospitals, and a specialist children`s unit who all failed to act when presented with evidence of abuse" . Lord Laming made 58 recommendations in his report "The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report ". However only 23 of these recommendations feature in the current revised guidance. It is suggested that for child protection to be sufficient there must be shared responsibility between agencies with regards to safeguarding children. In light of this, it is important to ask just why there are still so many cases where social services and other agencies have failed our children. The reports are endless. Some old, some new but all report catastrophic failings by those who should be protecting our children. Major systematic failings have been reported in social services departments, the police, health trusts and other children's organisations, failing society's most vulnerable children in the process. Some agencies blame the confidentiality, information sharing legislation and the lack of communication between agencies. For example a report made by a voluntary organisation may be sent to the parent but not to the child's school. Having all the information held on the child would help piece together information and increase the chances of problems being spotted earlier. This project will discuss how children have been failed and what impact information sharing rules have on the safeguarding of our children. Could it be said that despite the existing laws, that still not enough is being done? Is the current legislation covering confidentiality and information sharing stopping agencies, particularly social services from saving our children? Do we actually learn from past mistakes? The content of this topic means that information is widely available, using online resources, books and journals will prove valuable in locating and analysing child-death inquiries, such as Victoria Climbe, looking at the relevant existing law, such as, the Children Act 1989/2004 and the Data Protection Act 1998 , looking at academic research literature that is already available, analysing reports and official documents and also using media, television and newspaper reports to give a wider understanding and varied opinions of the subject in hand. There is an abundance of empirical research that has previously been conducted in this area. The issues faced when protecting children are not a new thing. The case of Maria Colwell in 1973 was the basis of the child protection we see today. Legislation was made in light of her death and has continued to evolve. Since, there has been several cases to make the headlines such as baby P, Demi Leigh Mahon and many more that did not. The media is a great tool for investigating such topics. It plays an important part, informing the public of such issues and may lead to considerations of policymaking in parliament. When using Lexis to look up child neglect cases in newspaper articles it returned an amazing 996 results and a whopping 3165 results for child abuse cases. Is this proof that our children are being failed by those that are meant to protect them? While reading through many of these, such as, Ajit Singh and Violet Mullen, it came to light that the biggest downfall is communication. This is something that will be addressed in the course of the project. Just how communication has been misused and not used enough between agencies with regards to child protection. Cases such as Victoria Climbe generate the need for change. Often such cases trigger serious case reviews. How often have we heard 'lessens have been learned from this' only for it to happen again? Lord Laming who headed the Victoria Climbe inquiry also headed a review of the child protection system after the death of baby P. Both deaths occurred under the same local authorities, (Haringey) care. Both these reports make interesting reading and flag up room for improvement. Lord Laming makes numerous recommendations in his reports, most of which have been accepted by the Government. A follow up report by Ofsted was conducted; "Learning lessons from serious case reviews" and a more recent review of the child protection system headed by Professor Munro. The Munro review has been conducted to evaluate the Child Protection service since the implementation of the reforms suggested by Lord Laming. These official reports will provide key information with regards to researching this topic. They are officially documented and can be relied upon. They have been presented to parliament who have acted upon the information contained within these reports. Some of these have been the basis of reform within Child protection service. The National Society for the Prevention of cruelty of children (NSPCC) is the main charity with regards to child protection. They have many services to supplement and support professionals that are likely to work with children, as well as, support and education programs for children and their families. The NSPCC was founded in 1884 and were the predominate bodies in protecting vulnerable children. Much of their work led to the passing of the first Cruelty to Children Act in 1889. Today the NSPCC still play a vital part. They have a lot of literature available from past and present. They also conduct independent reports and have factsheets that are published on their website . This will prove very useful as it provides a broad overview on aspects concerning child protection. Sometimes however where statistics are concerned it can be difficult to establish what is actually included. The NSPCC provides a robust amount of information with regards to different aspects of child protection and its statistics. In the aftermath of the highly published Baby P case the BBC made a three part documentary called "protecting our children" . It was a documentary of professional social workers, working with families and was geared mainly from their view on the inside. It was suggested that as the population has increased, so have the cases bought before social services each year. A worry is that in this current economy, smaller charitable organisations will not be able to offer their services at a preventative level and that, in turn, will lead to further cases for social workers. However, after the first episode in particular, it was apparent that despite the family's problems they had not done enough meeting the needs of the family to allow them to care sufficiently for their children. It is hard to establish if this is actually the case as confidentiality laws would not allow the full in depth report of the case to be broadcast. There was a continued reinforcement of their bad parenting skills, with little encouragement shown for the improvements. In society some people just do not have the tools and knowledge of what is expected. If they had grown up in a similar situation, it would be normal to them, as that would all they know, a taught behaviour. Therefore, without being shown and having the help and support that is needed, there is little chance for a good outcome. Furthermore, hostility and anger met from the parents, maybe caused purely by frustration of not knowing how to deal with the situation and what is expected of them. Nobody likes to be judged, particularly when they don't understand the system. Information sharing not only with other agencies but also the parents is therefore a key tool in working together for the good of the child. There are of course times where arguably information is used too freely, such as the ContactPoint which was set up under the labour government. It consisted of a database containing details of thousands of families which was widely available to professionals at a click of a button. This could have been as many as some 390,000 professionals. Rightly so, this raised data protection concerns and was said to be poorly maintained by social services. Since, however, questions have been raised to what alternative will be available with regards to information sharing and child protection. The government has suggested that it is "exploring the practicality of a national signposting approach, which would focus on helping a strictly limited group of practitioners to find out whether a colleague elsewhere is working, or has previously worked, with the same vulnerable child. We are working closely with our partners to assess the feasibility and affordability of such an approach." Child abuse/neglect has been happening for generations. There are many cases that go unheard of, or have a small write up in the local paper. This is proof that there are still failings. Children don't just die unless there is an underlying health condition. Legislation is there to protect our children but that said, professionals can only act on the information that they receive or that is shared. Often there are concerns for the children before social services are involved or called upon. This information is vital in helping save our children, so surely it should be freely available to inter agencies to study. They may be sat on the fence over an injury for example. If they then read that another agency/professional also has the same concerns then they are more likely to act on it. There is a lot of literature on this very controversial topic. This review, by no means, goes into the amount that is available. It will be a challenging task to decipher which information/research is relevant to this project.

References

Department of Education Children in Need statistics: http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/STR/d001041/index.shtml (accessed 14/10/2012) Ibid Children Act 1989: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents (accessed 14/10/2012) Department for Children, Schools and Family; Working Together to Safeguard Children: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/00305-2010DOM-EN-v3.pdf (accessed 14/10/2012) Ibid Local Authority Social Services Act 1970: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1970/42/section/7 (accessed 14/10/2012) Children Act 2004: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/31/part/2/crossheading/local-safeguarding-children-boards (accessed 14/10/2012) Children Act 2004; Children's Trust Boards http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/31/part/2/crossheading/childrens-trust-boards (accessed 14/10/2012) Department for Children, Schools and Family; Working Together to Safeguard Children: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/00305-2010DOM-EN-v3.pdf (accessed 14/10/2012) HM Government; Every Child Matters; https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/CM5860.pdf (accessed 15/10/2012) Department for Education; Change for Children: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFES-1089-2004 (accessed 03/11/2012) Children Act 2004: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/31/contents (accessed 15/10/2012) BBC news; Climbie report urges childcare reform: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2698295.stm (accessed 15/10/2012) Ibid The Protection of Children in England; a progress report: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/HC-330.pdf (accessed 15/10/2012) Children Act 1989 and 2004: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ (accessed 17/10/2012) Data Protection Act 1998: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents (accessed 17/10/2012) Lexis search results; child neglet cases: http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/legal/search/LAFNContinueHandler.do?formBeanKey=37_T15831924668#0|1|RELEVANCE|||search.common.threshold.off| (accessed 17/10/2012) Lexis search; child abuse cases: http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/legal/search/newssubmitForm.do#0|1|BOOLEAN|||search.common.threshold.off| (accessed 17/10/2012) Families and Social Services Information Team; Barking and Dageham Social Services; http://www.fassit.co.uk/ajit_singh.htm (accessed 18/10/2012) Families and Social Services Information Team; Oldham Social Services http://www.fassit.co.uk/violet_mullen.htm (accessed 18/10/2012) Ofsted; learning lessons from serious case reviews 2009 - 2010: http://www.workingtogetheronline.co.uk/documents/Learning%20lessons%20from%20serious%20case%20reviews%2020092010.pdf (accessed 18/10/2012) Munro Review of Child Protection; Fi nal Report: http://www.education.gov.uk/munroreview/downloads/8875_DfE_Munro_Report_TAGGED.pdf (accessed 18/10/2012) NSPCC; Cruelty to children must stop, full stop http://www.nspcc.org.uk/ (accessed 18/10/2012) BBC TV Series; Protecting our Children: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2012/01/protecting-our-children.shtml (accessed 19/10/2012) The Independent; Choosing data protection over child protection: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/08/06/choosing-data-protection-over-child-protection/ (accessed 4/11/2012) ZDnet; Scrapping of ContactPoint database: http://www.zdnet.com/scrapping-of-contactpoint-database-begins-3040089760/ (accessed 4/11/2012) The Independent; Choosing data protection over child protection: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/08/06/choosing-data-protection-over-child-protection/ (accessed 4/11/2012)