A little lad for whom it is all too late...

So, three senior managers find themselves out of work. Two resign and one is suspended pending investigation (Head of Children’s services, Sharon Shoesmith- she will not be back.) Full story here.

I had posted earlier about my own reaction to the tragic news of Baby P’s death and the resignation I felt at the inevitable witch hunt that would surely follow.

Now the Social Work inspection agency (the same one that recently awarded the Haringay children’s services 3 stars for their excellent work) has now found serious failings in leadership, supervision of staff, the sharing of information and, perhaps most worryingly, evidence that kids who are suspected of being abused are not routinely interviewed alone (that is, away from parents.)

So, do I DEFEND these, my colleagues, and their obvious failings?

Well- I stand by my earlier comments- here.

And should there be a disaster in Argyll involving perhaps, a mother who is mentally ill, and a drug using father, who physically abuse a child in this horrendous way, I hope that by a combination of our closer communities, our good working relationships with colleagues in health and the police, and good practice, that we will be able to intervene and save that child.

The truth is, of course, is that even with our imperfect systems- this happens all the time. We intervene and try to make things better. Sometime we succeed. But never without a cost, that is paid out in the lives of young people as they move on into adulthood.

Argyll and Bute Council had a recent inspection from the Social Work Inspection Agency- it is there for all to read on the SWIA website (here.) It was far from positive. However, after hard work, the replacement of just about a whole management system (somehow, I survived!) and by learning the rules by which we were being measured, the follow up report was much more positive- here.

Children are incredibly fragile. And also incredibly adaptive and resilient. They survive, somehow in appalling circumstances. They even survive the states interventions to protect them.

If they are lucky.

For much of my career I have worked with adults in crisis. Many of them have been the survivors of childhood trauma- sexual abuse, beatings, broken homes and all sorts of other dreadful things. I am always amazed at how people survive…

But the dreadful truth is that dreadful things have happened before, and will happen again. And when they do- those whose task is to try to prevent these things happening will be found wanting.

That is not to say that things could not- SHOULD not- be better. But shock-reaction rarely achieves anything other than shock-defensiveness.

Meanwhile there are some very real issues facing us as we look at our attempts to protect children in our society.

• There are the financial ones, mentioned before.
• The community ones, in a society where people increasingly lack connection and commonality.
• The regulatory ones- the constant drive to eliminate risk and bad practice leads to huge complexity, and individual responsibility for social workers- who in turn, take fewer risks.
• And once we remove kids- where do we put them? Foster care placements can be impossible to find, and the homes that have not already been closed are full, and often highly problematic for the kids there.

I hope that the baby P issue will open up this debate, rather than focus on the ritual execution of yet more social work staff.