After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Bickers

This is what happens when you allow bureaucracy to flourish without proper checks and balances - just look at how the FSA fell asleep on the 'economic job'.
This also goes to the heart of the Damien Green affair - exposing bureaucratic incompetence and deception.
There needs to be a radical re-think into how we run our society and the part governemnt and their affiliated agencies play and their accountability

Kathy Worwood

I am a foster carer of over 25 years do not doubt for one second the accuracy of this story. I have helped carers in similar situations. Foster carers ae easily dispensible as they have no status or job security in the system.Speak out and it ends up as get out. Even if you win trough and struggle through the pain you find you arent offered placements. I have seen people have their lifes ruined just by fostering. Its about tick boxes and window dressing and lip service to a system that often doesnt serve the childs best interest. Its about keeping kids at home rather than risk being sued by taking them into care to protect them. Its about rights with no responsiblity so carers cant really treat the child in care as part of a family. Being in care is now like being a protected species with money thrown at them without due regard to if its making a difference. Its about a paper trail of arent we doing it right whlst doing it so very wrong.The kids tha suceed now succeed due to the dedication of carers and not becasue of the system as it is.

Foster carer from wales

As a foster carer the one thing I don't feel is suprise.

It would appear that the principal purpose of the so called inspectorate is to generate jobs.

Pointing out that things are well short of best practice simply produces expressions of powerlessness on the part of the inspectors.

I have seen several similar cases myself where the agency if grossly negligent and the only one punished is the carer who points it out.

Christopher Chantrill

Kathy @4:43pm: "Its about tick boxes and window dressing..."

from wales @4:53pm "the principal purpose... is to generate jobs."

Are you getting the point yet? It's not the people; it's the system.

Let's face it: government is useful for breaking things, and it's not safe to let it do anything except defend against enemies foreign and domestic.

The only thing that government is good at is rewarding its supporters. The last thing you should let government do is care for children.

Let's reform the cruel and unjust welfare state.

Foster carers from South Wales

Our heart goes out to Sarah and her partner. My husband and I are foster carers, we are not shocked as we should be by this article, this and similar situations like this repeat themselves daily. Speaking out, as you should, from our experience only brings about cover up and sometimes threatens your livelihood. You are seen as a trouble maker, not a good advocate for children, as this is your reason for speaking out. We have been foster carers for nearly nine years, we are disollutioned, just worn out for trying to change a system that closes ranks when you challenge or question they stand together, singularly you have no chance. Trying to get a recognised voice for foster carers is fruitless, the job itself leaves us wide open to allegations of all sorts, mainly because childrens needs are not being met. Ask us why we do it, well we have to try although the sytem doesn't allow it! We have complained, we still are but at what cost to ourselves and our family, is the cost too great and the risk too high. We still have the same young peole, one for 8 years, all we can say is we have done and will continue to do all we can for them.

We truely want change so that the children will benefit and will not continue to be neglected by their corporate parents.

Kiffa

It's the system. 1. Morons get paid by the state to become parents. They are actively rewarded by benefits, to do so. 2. Charity got nationalised. 3. In any state system the interests of bureaucracy is inevitably pursued (hence the insistence that 'all procedures were followed'), and 4. the 'neutral morality' of bureaucracy and nationalised charity means that bad behaviour is rewarded and goes unchecked.
The ONLY solution is to reform the welfare state by stopping benefits accompanying babies, giving social work back to the churches and Barnados. The parish is a much better assessor of individuals than a right-on social worker is.
The welfare state's Unintended Consequences are nothing short of wicked and evil. The needs of children should always come above the needs of inadequate adults.
This country needs to get a grip and start distinguishing between co-dependency (which the welfare state does: it enables abuse)and true assistance to people who need help - however much the liberal elite don't want to discuss this.
Charles Murray has a very good solution to the problem of welfare: google him. It takes the workings of the state right out of people's lives - with increased payments - and rewards good behaviour whilst foolish decisions become the sole responsibility of the individual.

Jean Robinson, Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services

One mother we were helping was worried about the over-strict discipline used by the foster carer. The agency employing her was concerned, and spoke to her about it. The foster carer simply changed agencies. Nothng was said by social services, who knew about the whole affair.

Charles Pragnell - Independent Child/Family Advocate

This is typical of how the UK Child Protection and Child Welfare Industry moves to protect itself whenever its flaws, defects, incompetences, and malpractices are exposed. The first step it to discredit the complainant, whether it is an individual, group, or the entire media. If this fails then the next step is to plead to be the victim – the “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t” outworn cliché and “We are doing an aweful job under difficult circumstances”.

If these ploys fail to divert the criticism, then it is all out defence. “Do not admit to any error, no matter how small”. After all the CP Industry has massive self-interests to protect from the front-line worker to the mandarins of Whithall and the martinetsof the Universities who train the child protection workers.

Procrastination, prevarication, and obfuscation are the ordere of the day in trying to confuse the `enemy’, as the critics are seen.

Eventually if a Public Inquiry is appointed due to the seriousness of the matter, and the criticisms are proven well-founded, then a few token recommendations are made the system is made even more bureacratic and the further tired cliché’s are brought out, “Lessons have been learned” and “Our systems have been changed to prevent this occurring again”. Such cliché’s have now become completely laughable when the same errors have occurred time and time again. Tragically it has often cost a child’s life or at the least has left children and families devastated and destroyed. The Industry charged with protecting UK children has become the country’s worst child abuser and family destroyer.

Nothing will change until the entire Child Protection Industry is subjected to a full public Inquiry and is reformed from root to branch.

Balancingthescales

'Nothing will change until the entire Child Protection Industry is subjected to a full public Inquiry and is reformed from root to branch'

I entirely agree. But as well as looking at all the individual cogs in the wheel we should be looking at the connections between those cogs especially those of the social service departments and the private providers of child care.

Portia Barrett

An Ofsted officer was investigating similar truth in our LA and all was going well.

Then she suddenly disappeared.

Obviously, she has been taken off the case to keep the abuse covered.

Mum of two

This kind of behaviour does not surprise me at all. I was accused of physically abusing my 2 year old son after making a complaint about a peadiatric consultant in 2007. I continued with my complaint despite then having social services involved in our lives.

Nothing hapened with the complaint, the doctors stuck together, they did apologise if "they made me feel they were treating us unfairly, however they did not feel they had acted innaprpriately".

Thankfully it did not result in my children being removed from my care, or court hearings. However it did result in the most traumatic year of my life, which still has affects on my parenting now; I find myself being so cautious and give so much attention to details whenever my son has an injury (through normal play). I find myself coming across to nursery and playgroup teachers as an over concerned mother. I get very nervous when my children are invited round to friends houses, wondering what the best way to tell the parents that I need to know if he has any falls, is.

My son was diagnosed with a health problem which results in spatial awareness and clumsiness issues amongst other things. This was during my case. Despite this, the Doctors I made complaints about still failed to acknowledge this and even attempted to discredit the Professor who had diagnosed my son and attributed my sons injury to his diagnosed illness!

Therefore this article does not surprise me, the only thing that did surprise me was the fact that the issues did not get worse for this family.

I wonder just how many other people similar events have happened to across the country? It would not surprise me if it were thousands just in the last ten years.

Brodde Nation

Social Care for Children is so corrupt that turning things around would be a big task, unless we scrap Social Care for Children and every child matters and capture, every family matters and have people that want to actually work with families rather than just removing their children. We should not tollerate the spreading of DNA through Social Cares medievil practices. Guess what - no one in power will ever truely listen to these issues and the spiders on the community web will continue to harrass parents and remove their children. The SS are not to be trusted nor the solicitors they deal with, nor the secrets of family courts. People need to stand up and forcefully remove Social Care from their communities and their assessments and intollerance is beyond belief. How many children have been abused by the care system. Let Down in education. And emotionally abused by being taken from their parents for lesser matters than severe harm cases. DISBAND SOCIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN!

Wilt

Gawd help us - 'wonder woman' reclaims mother earth and is as about grounded in reality (much like the Journalist) as, well, a dead duck hoping for a second life. What a dork.