The Revenge Of Crowds

[peterbirks]

There was an interesting statistic sparked out on Radio Four last night. This was that there were more than 200 deaths last year of children -- the majority of them babies -- that were "looked at" by the authorities. I'm not sure what statistical methods one could apply to conclude how many of these actually involved neglect or abuse by the parents, and neglect by the social services, but I am going to posit that the number is greater than zero.

So, why the Baby P uproar? Well, for once, The Sun could justifiably say that "it was the Sun wot won it". The Labour government may not care about the electorate, but it cares about getting elected. A one million-strong petitionis good enough to get any politician's juices flowing.

But I think that a key factor here was the decision by Sharon Shoesmith to claim that Haringey had not done anything wrong, that it had no reason to apologize, and that no-one would be disciplined.

This was, as it were, a "tipping point" that pushed the collective unconscious towards a desire for punishment. Many other children's services directors are probably muttering this morning "there but for the grace of god go I". For this is mainly a punishment of hubris, a decision to show those who work for local authorities that they are not quite as unaccountable as they think. While those in the private sector worry about their pay going into the bank next month, this was an example of public sector hubris at its worst.

There may be unfortunate consequences. "Better that 100 children be taken into care than one be left to die" will become the new mantra. And the net result of that will be 99 children severely damaged.

It's a sad shitty world full of people that can do this -- but giving local authorities more power over families isn't the right solution.

________________

Comments

Childrens Services

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Pete

I am very close to all this as I am head of a special school in in the North West and as such have daily contact with "Childrens Services". (30% of the children at my school are somewhere on the "at risk" spectrum). I can tell you that (while there will probably be a blip) there won't be a huge over-reaction in terms of large numbers of children being taken into care. The simple reason is not I'm afraid that considered opinions are being taken that that is not the best option, but that there is a total lack of any facility to look after them on a long term or even short term basis. This is the reason why so many children, who blindingly obviously should be taken into care, are not. There is nowhere to put them.

I have had any number of cases I could relate where we and other services have pressed for care orders to be made only to be knocked back by senior social services staff. Basically they are between a rock and a hard place. The facilities aren't there.

Brian

Re: Childrens Services

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Brian:
I did think of raising this point, but I was in a bit of a rush, and I thought that it detracted from the general thrust of the argument. I do think that in the short term there will be an increase in care orders, and I do wonder what the definition of "blindingly obvious" is. I suppose that this is what worries me. Who decides? By what criteria? I guess it's a case of "you know it when you see it", but I do fear that, if more money becomes available, then the criteria for care orders are correspondingly relaxed. At no point would anyone in social services say "this is too much money".

Of course, this is very unlikely to happen, but I think we can see a parallel in the land of motoring, where new offiences have to be invented because people are driving in a way that is more "law-abiding" by the definitions of 30 years ago.

PJ

Re: Childrens Services

[(Anonymous)]

But I do fear that, if more money becomes available, then the criteria for care orders are correspondingly relaxed.

Not going to happen, especially with the threat of capping for any authority thinking of going over a 5% council tax rise next year. Social services for both adults and children work slightly differently to any other part of council services, in that you are not legally allowed to refuse to provide a needed service just because the money isn't there. Unlike other areas of council services, where (for instance) there can be a freeze on filling potholes in the road if the budget situation gets too dire. But the idea of any council actually having spare money in social services at the moment is, frankly, unlikely.

I guess it's a combination of lack of facilities (as Brian says), plus lack of funding which will prevent an zealous over-reaction to the Baby P. case. Not an especially positive reason for such a policy outcome, however.

(Posted anonymously for professional reasons, and to avoid Mr. Birks becoming the next Damian Green.)

Cot deaths

[ukastronomy.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of these 200 will have been "cot deaths". This is an unbelievably dreadful event and is made worse by some experts who assume, at least as a starting point, that cot death = shaken baby syndrome.

Re: Cot deaths

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Martin:

Yes, as I say in my post, I am only assuming that a small minority of the cases actually have any maliciousness behind them. You have to feel sympathy in cot death land (although not so much as to be a statistical moron and to assume that if one family suffers two cot deaths then that makes them a billion to one on to be murderers). Should investigators only investigate if there is other evidence. and take the event at face value? Or should they say "hmm, maybe this was one that had slipped under the radar, we'd better have a look anyway"?

PJ

Re: Cot deaths

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I see from the statistics released yesterday (December 10th) that the 210 deaths applied to a 16-month period, but that cot deaths were not a majority (or even a significant minority) of the deaths involved.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

"Better that 100 children be taken into care than one be left to die" will become the new mantra. And the net result of that will be 99 children severely damaged.

This is a very odd, even weird deduction. It's not a random sample. I would be wagering that a very high proportion of these children would be much better off in child care - and that would be very apparent

de polemicis

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I would have thought that it's an obvious rhetorical flourish, rather than a deduction of any kind. And it's not a sample of any kind whatsoever -- taken at face value, it's just a reflection on the possible consequences of irrational public prejudice. It has nothing at all to do with the two hundred dead children "looked at" by public authorities.

I would wager precisely the reverse, and if you'd been through the same process, so would you. When my step-daughter was taken into care for a year (what with California having oodles of money to throw into this sort of public duty, plus a ridiculously large number of would-be adopters posing as potential fosterers), it was quite possibly the worst outcome that could happen to her. And she was lucky; we moved heaven and earth to get her back, and we had the resources to do so.

You might consider this, also, not a random sample. I agree. It is pretty direct experience, though, and I met a number of other parents who also appeared to be screwed by The Man, without doing any more harm to their offspring than being woefully disorganised (and, this being California, generally drug-addled).

Taking children into care is always an option, but it should be the last option. In the case of my step-daughter, the predictable unintended consequences arose: it's much cheaper for the state to offload child-care onto foster families, or even adoptive families. C.'s foster family had criteria for adoption -- specific age range, specific eye and hair colour, specific educational attainment of mother -- that would quite possibly have rung alarm bells in the Third Reich, but it made no difference.

Oops, just mentioned the Nazis. Gotta go now.

Re: de polemicis

[(Anonymous)]

I would have thought that it's an obvious rhetorical flourish.

It was neither obvious nor in fact I suspect, true. It was presented a la the equally polarised but obverse 'one innocent, for 99 guilty convictions' argument. The distinction here is crtitical. I'm sure there will be classes of alleged abuse where this hit/miss representation is accurate, for example, a child claiming abuse where none had occurred, or a serious one-off incident: innocent or guilty. There can be little doubt, though, that the huge majority of the families the social services keep tabs on will be guilty on the charge of problem/disfunctional familiy - it's only a question of degree. What odds reflect the kids chances achieving higher education, becoming a young offender, teenage pregnancy of the set of families called out 20 times by th social services. That these kids have little prospect sickens me, that society endorses it shames me. I have no experience of foster care, were it shown to offers no notable improvement then I'd be forced to concede your point, but it would need to be shown.

Doubtless opinions would change were I to endure your awful ordeal, it's an horrendous thought. But would I been more objective or biased? I suspect the parents you spoke to would have been a skewed sample, even still it was california, we're not california, nor would we ever be. You may well make the case for the system being flawed (and for sure it's not good), but not yet the principle.