VCF Response to Professor Munro’s Interim Report- February 2011

Commenting on the publication of the Munro Interim Report, VCF Director Mor Dioum said:

“VCF, the Victoria Climbié Foundation, welcomes the Munro Review of Child Protection: Interim Report published on 1 February.

This report is a landmark opportunity to remind child protection professionals of the fundamentals underpinning their work- a commitment to do the best for children.

Adopting the theme of the child’s journey, Professor Munro has captured the important role played by frontline staff and the need for them to focus on that aspect of their role, dealing with children and families in a holistic approach. We applaud her call for professionals to embrace the child’s context and family history in an attempt to truly understand the child’s situation.

However VCF would like the final report to be more embracing of the other agencies and organisations involved in keeping children safe. Professor Munro’s initial and interim report have both focused largely on the role of social workers. Not enough attention has been paid to the important work carried out by health agencies, the police, schools and other organisations that are in regular contact with children. If we are to focus on understanding the overall context in which the child functions, the role of these agencies must also be addressed in any child protection review.

The pointed use of the word ‘help’ when describing how social work professionals work with families as opposed to instructing them, is a welcome recognition of the fact that professionals have become too far removed from families. It reinforces VCFs view that much more can be achieved through practical working with families rather than adopting an ‘interventionist’ approach that does not directly address families’ needs.

Effective information sharing and joined up multi agency working is clearly the way forward. But this must also be supported by empowering frontline staff to implement the decisions they have made. Too often we have seen cases where frontline staff make sensible decisions but are challenged behind the scenes to adopt a more cost effective or politically minded decision. Frontline staff need to be supported in the decisions that they make, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be scapegoated by senior staff.

The recognition by Professor Munro’s team that Serious Case Reviews sometimes fail to identify or explain the factors that have contributed to poor practice is particularly welcome.

VCF has long campaigned for serious case reviews to be a tool for improving the child protection system and helping to prevent future deaths. Professor Munro has rightly raised the point that the current system of SCRs has failed to identify or explain the factors that have contributed to poor practice. We would go even further in arguing that it has failed to properly share information across professionals and local authorities. In recent years, the system has seemed to be more concerned with proportioning blame away from senior care professionals instead of seeking to identify reasons for child deaths and share that information.

Over the past five years, VCF has campaigned for full disclosure of serious case reviews and the better sharing of information. The government has now come to support full disclosure. Professor Munro’s report will hopefully be the catalyst to the next phase of proper information sharing.

All of the points so far examined by Professor Munro’s team are fundamental to improving the child protection system.

What VCF would certainly like to see in the final report, is a plan as to just how these recommendations will be put into practice. Restraints on financial spending and reductions in the number of available staff in this field, means that we can end up with a system full of recommendations but with too few professionals to deliver. The Big Society of community groups cannot be expected to deliver change on this scale. There must be a concerted effort for all of the agencies involved, to work with families and community groups to help families become families again.

We look forward to Professor Munro’s final report in April 2011.”