Print Version: Social Services need to explain their role to prevent families from fleeing 

Social Services need to explain their role to prevent families from fleeing

Imagine this scenario if you can: You are parent to a young child. As a result of some relatively obscure event, you and your partner run into conflict with children’s care services who believe that you’ve ‘done something wrong’ with your child. They accuse you of failing to show emotional warmth; or of neglecting to nourish your child because you prefer to feed them the traditional food of your cultural background rather than deep fried chips.

Shocked and surprised at the intervention of the state in your family life, you argue that you love your child and only ever do the best for them. But children’s services insist that they must take your child away for their own safety.

Weeks down the line, your child has been removed from your care and your calls to the social worker are met with abuse and point blank refusals. The limited contact you have with your child are strained, impersonal, and under the eyes of a distrusting stranger. Your parenting skills all come under question, and you feel your worth as a parent drain away.

Sound like a horrible scenario in some parallel universe?

This, unfortunately, is the type of service that some members of the public receive from children’s services in the United Kingdom in 2010.

It may sound like an unlikely scenario, but the Victoria Climbié Foundation (VCF) has dozens of just such examples- where parents find themselves on the receiving end of mind bogglingly cruel treatment.

VCF was formed following the death of eight year old Victoria Climbie ten years ago. Her death was marked by the failure of social services to intervene even though there was enough suspicion that she was at risk. Over the past ten years, we’ve seen similar cases where the authorities have failed to intervene when they should.

But we’ve also seen too many of the reverse: cases where social services seem intent on adopting the harshest possible line towards parents, effectively ignoring the serious impact that their decisions can have on vulnerable families.

As it currently stands, social workers take the lead in planning the forward agenda. They have a massive influence on the direction of proceedings, and their word is often seen as golden by the courts.

Many parents, on the other hand, have simply never had to deal with questions about their child’s safety, and the whole process can be very overwhelming.

It must come as no surprise therefore, that so many parents choose to run away.

Over the past few months, VCF has intervened in cases where parents have fled the UK for the Republic of Ireland, Turkey, and Spain.

Each family told of their absolute terror at the idea of their child being taken away from them and placed into care.That’s why the Victoria Climbie Foundation is calling for a new approach to the way that families and parents are engaged by social workers and within the social services model.

As things stand, too many people simply believe that social services can just come in, take your kids and leave. It is clear that social services are simply not making clear their long term plan for families. It’s no surprise then that families decide to take drastic action and flee the country.

Children’s services have failed to properly explain their role to the public, and that’s what VCF has always been about – getting communities to understand how the system works.

That is why the recently announced governmental review into social services could not have come at a better time.

New Children’s Minister Tim Loughton has been longing to shake up children’s care services. Speaking at the memorial to mark the 10 year anniversary of Victoria’s death, he said:

‘Our top priority is making sure that social workers have the freedom and flexibility to spend more time with vulnerable children and families. We believe that this is at the very heart of the present problems we find in social work. People do not sign up to be social workers so that they can fill in forms on computers and sit behind a desk. Social workers are people people. They are trained to help human beings and that‘s what they should be doing.’

VCF believes that we ought to go even further. Social workers need to not only be freed from bureaucracy in their day to day work, but empowered to participate in proper family engagement, recognising that families can and do often improve when they are properly supported.

A proper and full engagement of families within the child protection system is more humane, can be better managed, and makes perfect sense to all involved. That is the direction in which we need to be heading.