It is important to remember that taking a child into care is supposed to be a measure to prevent significant harm. Hence if the numbers taken into care are going up, but it is having no effect on the most significant harm of death then a question should be asked as to whether the right things are being done.
There always will be a financial need to limit the number of children taken into care. When Haringey were considering whether or not to take Peter Connolly into care they were under severe pressures. The fact is that there were children in care at the time in Haringey who were taken into care because their mother might say things to them that might undermine their self esteem. If those children were not in care there would have been space for Peter Connolly.
It isn't difficult to understand, but it appears to be beyond the government. If you take the wrong children into care there is not only the injustice for those children and their families, but also more children die.
The absence of an intellectually rigorous system for quality control on care decisions lies behind this.
Comments
After today's revelations in Scotland on the former head of the children's panels - another agency that makes egregious decisions that can and often does overturn sheriff court decisions and blight the lives of mothers, fathers and their children forever, people more or less plucked from obscurity with no more than 45 hours 'training' - the content of this blog is a welcome reversal of opinion. Thank you.
After today's revelations in Scotland on the former head of the children's panels - another agency that makes egregious decisions that can and often does overturn sheriff court decisions and blight the lives of mothers, fathers and their children forever, people more or less plucked from obscurity with no more than 45 hours 'training' - the content of this blog is a welcome reversal of opinion. Thank you.