Taking
the Stick Away:
The
Service Users’ Joint Statement
Dated 1.12.04
Copyright. May
be quoted with acknowledgement
Coordinated by Dr Lynne Wrennall, University of Liverpool. Authored by Dr Lynne Wrennall Ph.D, Charles Pragnell, Lisa Blakemore-Brown, Brian Morgan, Dr Helen Hayward-Brown Ph.D, Bruce Irvine, Dr Clive Baldwin Ph.D, Stephen Clark and Cathy Johnson. This statement was prepared in anticipation of the release of the Government Green Paper on “Children at Risk” entitled Every Child Matters. The statement is designed to reflect the views of service users and service providers, academics and other colleagues who support a service user perspective. The statement was distilled from over 47 scholarly studies and developed through an iterative process involving the additional work of over 35 commentators representing a broad span of constituencies. For various reasons many of those involved in the project cannot be named. For all their efforts, we extend our heart-felt thanks. In particular though, we should like to acknowledge and thank Professor Peter Beresford, Professor Nigel Parton, Earl Freddie Howe and Countess Margaret Mar for their kindness and wise counsel. We would also like to thank Dr James Lefanu and Jan Loxley Blount for their valuable contributions.
“If one person tells another who they really are, while denying them the right to self-description, certain kinds of self-doubt or inner disintegration will follow. People are formed and also deranged by the stories others tell about them. When Jean Genet was told he was a thief, it was a label it took him most of his life to escape.” Hanif Kureishi
“We have created a system that destroys children in order to save them…We have a monster on our hands.” Kermit Wiltse.
“This inquiry saw too many examples of those in senior positions attempting to justify their work in terms of bureaucratic activity, rather than in outcomes for people” Laming Report: 2003, 5.
· The practice over the last forty years of conducting government inquiries into single child cases is producing scientifically invalid results which are distorting the entire system of children’s service provision. Future government inquiries should consider their brief within the context of the needs of all children.
· The role of Social Service Departments in brokering access to services should be replaced with a system of Independent Health and Social Care Advisers, funded according to one of the formulae applied to funding general and specialist medical practitioners. Some advisers would be generalists, some would be specialists. These Health and Social care advisers would be encouraged to form Trusts in response to local, national and international contingencies. Trusts could seek funding from local, national and international sources.
· Universally available services should be favoured over targeted services, as this reduces stigmatisation and traumatic assessment. Self-referral should replace coercion as the basic principle covering access.
· The role of Independent Health and Social Care Advisers would emphasise client (child or family) focused practice in which accurate advocacy was motivated by the fact that the client could select, and if necessary replace, the adviser.
· Social Service inspections should focus on whether accounts have been publicised transparently on the web. A particular emphasis should be placed on distinguishing expenditure on assessment and surveillance from expenditure on services valued by children and families.
· Provision for adult, child and young service users to influence decision-making, needs to be built into legislation, policy, education, training and practice. Opportunities for service users to express influence at all levels must be expanded.
· A transparent mechanism is required to evaluate performance in involving children, young people and families in decision making in health and social services and perhaps to allow for negative funding consequences to follow from poor performance in this area.
· Paper based and web based directories of services should be made publicly available.
· Surestart and extended schools are models deserving optimistic support, conditional upon Child Protection powers being re-located into a separate national body.
· Child Protection powers must be held in trust by a National Commission, staffed by persons of such sufficient integrity whom we may all agree to respect. Ideally, the Senior Commissioner’s position would be elected by a broad-based constituency. The Commission would be able to purchase services tailored to the needs of individual children and groups of children.
· Labelling of children and families should be discontinued in the legislation and in policy documents.
· We support the expansion of appropriate preventative services such as 24 hour Creches, Nursery Education, flexible schooling, parenting education, youth clubs, recreational facilities, escort services, nutritional programmes, housing, income security and employment.
· An amendment to the Children’s Act is required to provide a mechanism for destructive partnerships to be mediated and if necessary, ended.
· Inappropriate surveillance, assessment and child removal should be minimised.
· In-house training of magistrates in the needs and perspectives of service users is required.
· In the longer term, Family Courts should be replaced with a Children’s Commission. In this context, decisions about children should be made jointly by a Commissioner, children’s representative and parents representative, appointed by Westminster.
· National Guidelines are required, covering how a legitimate public interest in media reporting of children’s legal matters might be exercised without jeopardising children’s rights to privacy.
· The health and social impacts of the Child Protection discourse should be audited through public submissions.
· A national database is likely to produce indelible labeling, increased bullying, conflict and more false allegations. It is therefore contrary to the best interests of children and families.
· Tri-partite discussions between government education officials, The Law Society and Service Users are needed so that solicitor education and training places a greater emphasis on following client instructions.
· Legal Aid for Children’s Court matters should be obtainable for all solicitors, not merely a hand-picked small group.
· Legal Aid, not subject to means testing should cover Child Protection conferences.
· A Parliamentary sub-committee is required, to give consideration to how access to the law may be expanded.
· The Government Guidelines on Fabricated and Induced Illness (MSBP) should be withdrawn. The College of Paediatrics and Child Health should do likewise.
· The Government should consider funding Medical Defense Unions to train doctors in appropriate methods to avoid giving rise to negligence claims., subject to service user involvement in the design and delivery of the training
· A Parliamentary working group is necessary to examine how to enhance the client (child and Family) focused practice which is currently contained in legislation and Guidance. Consideration must be given to how this emphasis may be cascaded down through the system.
· Legislation allowing open adoptions and favouring open adoptions over closed adoptions should be developed.
· Legislation favouring intra-family fostering and adoptions over state “care” should be developed.
· Over time, Independent Health and Social Care Advisers could be expected to develop their own areas of specialisation, for example, in areas such as mediation, family group conferencing, intra-family adoptions and open adoptions. Clients would be able to select the specialist who was most able to meet their needs rather than receiving an off the shelf Social Service.
· A proportionate remedy for false allegations and false inferences is required to deter the excessive waste of resources they entail.
· Organisational flow charts should be re-drawn to provide multiple opportunities to divert innocent cases out of the system. Upon request by innocent persons, their records should be expunged after three months.
· Legal opinion should be sought on how “without prejudice” apologies might be given to people who believe that they have been harmed by the Child Protection system.
· A Code of Practice for Social Workers should be developed by the General Social Care Council, based upon the International Code of Practice. This should occur in consultation with Service Provider and Service User representatives. The General Social Care Council must be given statutory powers to tackle unethical practice, using a range a sanctions from mandatory retraining to withdrawal of permission to practice.
· A government inquiry should occur into how the provision of educational services to address the diversity of children's needs might be better achieved, recognising that mainstream provision may not be appropriate for all children.
· Further research is required into the health and social impacts of current Child Protection practice, particularly in the following four areas where harm is believed to be occurring:
1. Children
not receiving appropriate assessment, treatment and support.
2. Parents and
carers being intimidated out of accessing necessary services.
3. Diversion
of resources from genuine life-saving courses of action.
4. Families suffering health and social consequences from the trauma of inappropriate assessment, false allegations and false inferences.
Britain’s Child Protection discourse has lost credibility to the point that it discredits and undermines the processes with which it is identified (Packman & Randall: 1989). In order for clients to feel safe in accessing services, it is essential that the Child Protection discourse be kept at a safe distance, only to be called in where there is clear evidence of abuse or neglect. The links between the Child Protection discourse and service provision are deterring clients from accessing services we would wish them to draw upon. Currently, the extent to which clients are deterred from accessing services for themselves and their children needs to be more widely recognised and admitted. Other adverse impacts include sacrificing preventative and therapeutic aims for the achievement of greater surveillance, stigmatisiation and traumatisation of families (Farmer & Owen: 1995, Sanders: 1999, Hallett & Birchall: 1992, Frost & Stein: 1989, Pragnell:1997-2003, Blakemore-Brown: 2000-3, MAMA website, Cooper et al: 2003, The Cleveland Inquiry).
The current framework conceptualises stress as the major factor predisposing child abuse (Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 8). Almost everyone experiences stress at one time or another. By this conceptual device, the Child Protection discourse has extended it’s remit to take in virtually the entire population! As a result of this conceptualisation, the imputation of the negative label of potential child abuser can be applied to almost everyone. Almost every child can be labelled as “at risk.” The negative consequences of this should be obvious. Serious traumatisation of families who believe that the labelling is unjust, health and social impacts resulting from trauma, relationship conflict, major Human Rights violations, and a dissipation of resources from where they are needed to actually assist children and families, are among the entirely predictable results.
Current arrangements, in which the Child Protection discourse is mainstreamed into service provision, cannot deliver on the government’s agenda of reducing social exclusion and meeting long term demographic challenges (Kendall & Harker: 2002). Mainstream services need to be given the opportunity to work in the best interests of all children. They cannot do this if they are distorted into carrying an authoritarian agenda. The full social and health impacts of the current Child Protection framework should be carefully audited, perhaps through a government inquiry into Child Protection.
We would want appropriate preventative services such as 24 hour Creches, Nursery Education, flexible schooling, parenting education, recreational facilities, escort services, nutritional programmes, housing, income and employment to be increased. Inappropriate surveillance, assessment and child removal should be minimised. The needs of children and families should be the focus of universal service provision. The basic principle of access should be self-referral. Independent Social Care Advisers, organised into Trusts, can facilitate such access.
The current housing of investigative, prosecutory and service delivery functions within Local Authority Social Service Departments results in financial, and other, conflicts of interest. These conflicts of interest distort practice and undermine the credibility of each function. These areas ought, properly, to be functionally separate to a marked degree.
The remit of Child Protection should be focused on abuse and neglect and should be located in a dedicated national agency. The Child Protection agency should be funded to commission specialised services, but should not be mainstreamed.
Further opportunities for service users to influence the development of legislation, policy, education and practice must be developed. This is essential to repel empire building agendas and ensure that resources are focused on solving social problems.
Care orders and child removal are issues of particular seriousness. Extremely grave adverse consequences follow for the children concerned and for extended kinship networks. These effects last for entire lifetimes and even follow through the generations (Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission: 1996). It is believed that Care orders and child removal are being undertaken to an unnecessary extent with a degree of flippancy and arbitrariness that is disturbing. Entire communities feel terrorised, both by the investigative process and by what is regarded as the cavalier removal of children. Promises to improve the care system cannot compensate for the problem that the wrong children, and too many children, are being removed.
Pre-existing research studies of direct relevance to service user perspectives on Child Protection (n=>47), were coordinated in the form of an initial draft document. The draft was sent for comment and guidance from service providers, service users, academics, consultants and other colleagues who were believed to have an interest in the furtherance of service user perspectives (n=>50). Many of those who were consulted held large constituencies, but the opportunities for them to consult with their wider constituencies were limited by the given time constraints.
In an iterative process, the draft document was developed in response to the feedback that was received. A high response rate (r=>60%) was achieved and responses of two main types were received. All responses bar one, were generally positive about the direction of the statement. Many respondents expressed relief that views they had felt were their own private views were also held by other commentators. A smaller number of responses were positive in a general sense but felt that more time would be required to consult with their constituent service users about specific recommendations.
Despite the high response rate, the research coordinator nevertheless formed the view that Child protection in the U.K. existed in a climate of intimidation. A number of people felt that courage was required to speak out against what was seen as extremely dangerous practice. Some respondents felt able to talk about the issues, but not to commit themselves to writing. Others felt deeply afraid of openly expressing their rights as citizens in this area. That such a high degree of fear was found to exist among the respondents (and may explain some of the non responses) is a matter a great concern. Indeed, it is an awareness of the high degree of fear and perceived intimidation amongst the witnesses, exposed by the methodology, which informs the call for a government inquiry into Child Protection. Thus, witnesses may be able to speak with a greater assurance of safety.
Despite what was regarded as a highly oppressive atmosphere many people did express themselves with courage and dignity. Hence, we were able to gather the richly textured sense of people’s experience that makes qualitative research worthwhile. We urge a furtherance of research into service user perspectives. The bravery of the respondents to the research which produced this statement, deserves to achieve the commitment of the government to obliterate the causes of the fear and therefore to eliminate the dangerous and authoritarian practice which has become endemic in the field of Child Protection.
Britain’s current “Child in Need” and “Child at Risk” framework is likely to produce a crisis of health and social impacts. The removal from home of children with M.E. and the inhumane handling of families with SIDS deaths constitute recent high profile examples of the controversy which is being generated.
The current Child Protection regime is failing to meet the reasonable expectations which ought to be placed upon it. The general public expects Child Protection to focus on genuine cases of child abuse and child neglect and not to focus on broader issues in child rearing and family functioning. Child Protection’s failure to do this, is the source of it’s continued crisis of credibility.
Public criticism of Child Protection has, at times, been belittled (Woolf: 2001), because Social Workers are seen as both “neglectful” and “over-zealous”. It would be too easy to conclude from this that the public cannot be satisfied. It would be preferable, to recognise that neglect of serious cases of abuse is the inevitable price paid for over zealousness in the pursuit of other agendas. The public is all too aware of cases where numerous public reports of abuse did not stir Child Protection to appropriate action. On the other hand, there is unrest about the role of Child Protection in cases where abuse does not appear to have occurred (Woolf: 2001, Staff & Agencies: 2001). These two problems, we would submit, are two sides of the same coin. The Child Protection workers were not where they should have been, because, they were where they should not have been. The public is rightly disquieted, when Child Protection sets off looking for dust in houses and untidy gardens (Department of Health: 2000b; 24-25), whilst the extreme suffering of children is routinely ignored (Laming Report: 2003, 5). Allocating resources to trivial pursuits, means that they are not allocated to really important matters.
The assumption in much of the literature, that the Child Protection discourse is largely applied to children who are actually neglected and/or abused, does not accord with public perception or with the prescriptions of the current framework. Under the current assessment framework (Department of Health: September 1999; 1), the discourse is applied to all children about whom requests to Social Services for service provision have been made. Increasingly, the methodology of the discourse is applied to ordinary families in which there is a child who has a medical problem or disability and families for whom appropriate Nursery School and After School provision has not been made available. Indeed, the framework allows for Child Protection powers to be used against any family which is thought to be experiencing stress (Department of Health, Home Office, Department for Education and Employment, 1999).
When a spokesperson for the Council for the Directors of Social Services (quoted in Carvel & Batty, 2002), places “children in need,” and hence, children with disabilities or other difficulties, “on a continuum with children at risk,” boundaries are further blurred and the credibility of the discourse is sent into further decline. Families are rightfully offended, this places ordinary families, on a continuum with Marie Therese Kuou. It is highly unlikely that service users will be treated with appropriate respect when they are viewed by service providers as potential child murderers! This highly offensive conceptual “continuum” should be trashed.
Given the extensively widened application of the discourse, the appropriateness of this approach in respect of ordinary families, must be questioned. To approach ordinary families as potential criminals, can only distort the manner in which they are treated. Evidence is now coming to light of considerable dissatisfaction with this approach (National Autistic Society: 2003, Communitycare Archive, Oct 24, 2002, Family Rights Group: 2003, Harding & Beresford: 1996, Blakemore-Brown:1997-2003, MAMA website, Pragnell: 1997-2003, Hayward-Brown; 2003).
It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that Child Protection actually has an agenda of protecting children from abuse and neglect. Though the other agendas are becoming more visible. Community organisations and their clients, are increasingly forming the view on the ground, that the current framework is being used to re-brand children with disabilities as either, falling within a broadened spectrum of normalacy, or as children “at risk”. This, they believe, is deployed as an attempt at cost-saving. However, the health and social impacts of the strategy are likely to be very high indeed. It must be seen as socially regressive, when families who have a child with a disability, believe that they may have to hide their child’s disability away, so as not to risk losing the child to the authorities.
On the other hand, the current situation is one in which some practitioners often feel the need to label a child “at risk,” in order to access services for the child and family. The strategy frequently backfires. Over half of the families who were the subject of S47 inquiries received no services as a result. (Department of Health, Home Office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10)
The approach of labelling children as “in need” and “at risk” is stigmatising, traumatising and counter-productive (Farmer & Owen: 1995). It is based upon authoritarian assumptions and dubious motivations. In comparison with Europe and Australia, the British model is seen as punitive, coercive, unhelpful, discriminatory and anti-therapeutic (Hallett: 1993, Hetherington, et al: 1997, Corby: 1993, Narducci: 1992, Dingwall: 1986, Searing: 2001, Blakemore-Brown: 1997). The strategy is inviting a call to the European jurisdiction and the United Nations. If it can be proven that the child “in need” and child “at risk” strategy is being used extensively to emotionally blackmail families out of seeking resources for children with disabilities and to lead children into inappropriate strategies, there is much room for international embarrassment.
The current Child Protection regime takes far too many children on a journey in which they travel through the designated stations of labelling, from “child in need” to “child at risk” to “pre delinquent” to “delinquent” to “career criminal” (Cohen:1984). This journey is tragic and life destroying for the children and their families (Communitycare: May 1, 2003, Communitycare: April10, 2003, Communitycare: July 2, 2003.). It is also counter productive in terms of appropriate social goals (Kendall & Harker: 2002, Modernising Social Services: 1998). The itinery which takes children on this journey, cannot reasonably be expected to arrive at a different destination. The very coercive and authoritarian practices of the discourse, deter cooperation, destroy trust, undermine confidence and preclude genuine therapeutic practice. It must finally be accepted that the role of forensic investigator and the role of Social Worker cannot be performed by the same person, or the same agency. Combining the roles has meant that neither role has been performed adequately. If we are to secure more appropriate social outcomes, then agency specialisation is essential (Kendall & Harker: 2002).
The long history of euphemism in the field (Cohen: 1984, Edelman: 1977, Wrennall: 1989) has also destroyed confidence. Investigations, surveillance and interrogation are called “assessment”. Child removal is called a “service,” and parents can be made to pay the cost of it. “Expansion of alternative residential placements” means removing more children from their homes. We ought to have grave concerns in this context then, over what the terms, “child in need,” and “child at risk” actually mean. Language which conceals to such a high degree, arouses disquiet and prevents practitioners from confronting the serious harm which is occurring.
Too many Inquiries based upon individual cases in extremis, have distorted the Child Protection discourse and the behaviour of Social Services Departments (Parton: 1991, Dingwall: 1986). Generalisations from individual cases have produced scientifically invalid conclusions. It is only in the Cleveland and Orkney inquiries, that the wider views of service users were given an airing. This imbalance in influence is having serious consequences as the system is failing to receive relevant feedback.
For forty years or more, governmental inquiries have called for more coordination of services to meet the needs of Child Protection. Yet there is widespread scepticism in the academic literature around the emphasis which official policy has placed on coordination (Davies: 1977, Stubbs: 1988, Parton: 1985, Dingwell, et al : 1983, Dingwall: 1983, Weiss: 1981, Warren: 1973, McKegany & Hunter: 1986, Westrin: 1987, collated by Hallett & Bichall: 1992). This substantial body of opinion coheres in a view that the simplistic approach of attempting to enforce coordination by more coercive or structural means has not worked and will not work. On the contrary, services have been distorted by carrying the Child Protection agenda to the point that they have become incapable of meeting the real needs of children and families (Packman & Randall: 1989, Sanders, Jackson & Thomas: 1996, Sanders:1999, Kendall & Harker: 2002). The discourse has survived, simply because perfect coordination has not occurred. If all roads did indeed lead to Child Protection, many families would feel that there were no roads upon which they could safely travel. Better coordination of existing practice would mean that the adverse impacts and outcomes would be amplified (Hallett & Bichall: 1992).
Both families and professionals alike, have been alienated by the Child Protection discourse (Oppe: 1975) to the point that families who need support are left isolated. Once families have been labelled in the “at risk” strategy, no one pays them attention, except Child Protection ((Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10), because Child Protection has alienated everyone else. Placement on the “at risk” register diminishes the families’ employment prospects and self-confidence, further contributing to social exclusion. In the worst case scenario, these families are hounded and hunted into a transient lifestyle, avoiding anyone who might discover their “shameful” secret and take their children from them. Evidence of the extreme approach taken by British Child Protection is provided by the absurdity that a “neglectful mother”, herself a former Social Worker, has been placed on Scotland Yard’s list of “Ten Most Wanted” (Morris: 18.4.2003).
Other families live with the trauma that their child is being held hostage to the Local Authority (Meyer: 1977, Picton & Boss: 1984, MAMA website). Any action or inaction on their part could provoke reprisals. In this context many families are effectively terrorised out of accessing the services which labelling was supposed to link them into. Other families access the services in a state of stress and non disclosure (Farmer & Owen 1995), thus defeating appropriate therapeutic goals. Far from being socially included, families become ever more isolated. The legal coercion which was supposed to bind them to services and to bind services to them, is in itself responsible for their abandonment.
Once labelled, families become very vulnerable. They pay a hefty price in defending themselves, both financially and emotionally (Hayward-Brown: 2003, MAMA website). They are vulnerable to transience as a result of being overtly or covertly “driven – on, ” by authorities who fear that they may be expected to spend money on them. They are also susceptible to bullying and exploitation of their increasingly vulnerable status.
The defamation involved in coordinated information sharing about clients is also a source of enormous stress for many service users, particularly when it is done coercively. Malicious gossip is given an official rubric and losses are not compensated. Women particularly, describe the process as akin to being raped (MAMA website). Delicate and intimate details are exposed to view in a degrading, hostile and invasive manner. The extent to which service users are stripped of their private information is contrasted to the unwillingness of the child protection practitioners and the courts to be opened up to public view. Court secrecy, it is believed, is encouraging and concealing malpractice in the Child Protection discourse. A double standard is thought to be operative. Even children who have actually been abused report that the way they were handled during the investigations was more traumatic than the actual abuse they had experienced (Cooper et al: 2003, The Cleveland Inquiry).
Families who have encountered the Child Protection discourse, particularly those who have been through an encounter in court are left violated, traumatised and alienated (Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10 and Department of Health: 2000a; 76-77). They use terms like “Gestapo” and “Stasi” to describe the practitioners (Parton:1991;81, Kauser: 2003). Indeed, these views are now significantly held by the general public (Woolf: 2001, Staff & Agencies: 2001). Furthermore, Britain is alone in the European Community in choosing authoritarian approaches over therapeutic approaches to children’s welfare.
In a civilised society it should be possible to ensure that children and families are able to access the resources and services they require, without resort to this destructive labelling and coercive practice. If the issue is rationing, then a more appropriate methodology for allocating scarce public resources should be developed. The current system of rationing, in which “services” are made so unattractive that few people would voluntarily choose them, is too crude a methodology.
The labelling of the discourse has been very effective in disempowering service users. The extremely patronising and condescending tone of most Child Protection literature and practice is highly offensive to many families, particularly where the parents are more professionally qualified or better informed than the Child Protection practitioners. The unquestioned assumption in this literature is that the parents are uncooperatve rather than innocent.
The Department of Health report from 1995, Child Protection: Messages from Research, documents many of the adverse consequences of using the “Child at Risk” strategy. These include the traumatisation of the family and the increasing isolation of the family, as other professionals become alienated from the process.
As a result of the “Child at Risk,” strategy, families are effectively discouraged from accessing services. They are disempowered in the extreme by this approach. Many families are intimidated out of effective representation of their child’s interests, by the threat that Child Protection procedures may be used against them.
As a matter of routine, anyone who requests assistance from Social Services, in relation to a child, or someone who cares for a child, is likely to trigger an investigation of all who are involved with the child (Department of Health: September 1999; 1). The investigation focuses on whether there is any reason to suspect that the child is being abused by anyone. It also focuses on whether the parents and carers are able to appropriately care for the child. Practitioners are urged to err on the side of interpreting unknowns, as risks. This first level of investigation can then trigger a deeper level of investigation and surveillance even when the initial concerns have been shown to be invalid.
Serious levels of anxiety are aroused in applicants for services and members of their social milieux (Lamb: 27.11.2002). We now have the hypocritical situation that stress is thought to predispose child abuse, yet the prescribed solution is to cause traumatisation.
The history of Child Protection in Britain is one which has gained an international reputation for questionable judgement. The anal dilation test, the removal of children with M.E. from their homes, large scale institutionalised abuse and the convictions for murder of Mothers’ whose children arguably died of SIDS, as well as numerous child deaths, have all raised concerns about the functioning of the Child Protection discourse in Britain. Confidence in the judgements undertaken within Child Protection has been compromised to such an extent, that the discourse is now dysfunctional.
Health workers and parents have become reluctant to refer to Social Services, due to the arguably draconian responses of the child protection discourse. Under the current framework, Social Services brokers access to most services. This results in many children not receiving the services they need, making a mockery of the stated aim of early intervention. The ability of the discourse to appropriately address the needs of children and their families has never been more in doubt.
The government’s agenda of reducing social exclusion cannot be delivered by a framework which links the Child Protection discourse to everyday service provision. Ordinary families with needs, are not criminals and should not be treated as such. The erroneous idea that they are on a continuum along which they could slide into becoming abusive or neglectful of their children (Leadbetter, cited in Carvel & Batty: October 16, 2002) is distorting service provision to the point that it has become ineffective in significantly tackling social exclusion and in meeting the needs of ordinary families.
The current framework is focused on detecting and predicting abuse and neglect. It is the prediction function which raises the most serious Human Rights concerns. How is a potential Marie Therese Kuou, a child murderer, to be distinguished from a potential Mother Theresa, a “child-saver,” before the fact? There are those who would argue that the exercise has much to do with fortune telling, and little to do with accurate judgement (Cohen: 1984, Sanders: 1999,78-79). Highly inaccurate indicators are resulting in a massively high number of false allegations and unnecessary investigations (Senate Committee on Labour and Human Resources, Subcommittee on Children and Families Hearing: 1995, Oliver, Pragnell: 1997-2003, Wexler: 1999). In this climate, the new assessment framework is intended to get a better press for what essentially remains an act of fortune telling. We would argue that prevention should replace prediction.
The current framework is a matter of particular concern for families of children with a disability. The Children’s Act 1989 defines as a matter of law, all children who have a disability as “Children in Need.” Many of these children are experiencing inherited conditions. So it is often the case that the health of a parent or carer is affected. For these parents and carers to be investigated to see if they are abusing their children and are capable of continuing to look after their children, risks invoking very serious impacts. It should not be occurring as a matter of routine. However, the Act is open to interpretation on the extent to which the child’s circumstances can be coercively assessed. Local Authorities across England have been authoritatively accused of extensively using “assessment,” to harass service users out of accessing services (Howe:2003, Blakemore-Brown: 2000-3) .
In order to obtain services from Local Authorities, the child is assessed. The price of being awarded the assistance then, is that the parents and their children are increasingly drawn into the labelling process. Children are labelled “in need” or “at risk,” rendering them vulnerable to systematic abuse. Parents are labelled as potential or actual abusers and neglecters of children, reducing their ability to advocate for their children. Warnings are not normally given about the labelling which is occurring and about the consequences which could follow. Workers themselves may be unaware of how their records will be reinterpreted.
That the assessments are extremely traumatic has been well documented (Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10 and Department of Health: 2000a; 76-77). And the appropriate services are frequently not provided at the end of it (Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10). The applicants for welfare are effectively being punished for asking. They are Oliver Twists in a whole new system of “Poor Laws.”
A core assessment may follow upon initial assessment. In this process, trivial matters are counted in the risk assessment scales. Examples are, dust on surfaces, crumbs on floors and untidy gardens. (Department of Health: 2000b; 24-25). Of a far more sinister nature, is the fact that information is collected on ethnicity and ethnic networks. A child from a persecuted ethnic minority is assessed as being more likely to be abused and neglected. The parents are labelled as more likely to abuse and neglect their children. All this, in a context where local councillors who oversee the process, are increasingly elected from the British National Party.
Parents and carers are frequently placed in double jeopardy. If they stay at home to look after the child, they can be said to be unemployed and therefore the child can be said to be at greater risk of abuse. If they go out to work, assessors are encouraged to ask whether the child is neglected. Female carers are particularly vulnerable to being placed on this kind of “ducking stool.” It is one of literally hundreds which litter the initial and core assessment processes. Bateson (1956) documented the enormous psychological and social damage which can be done by placing people in double binds, i.e. on “ducking stools”.
In the massively intrusive core assessment, the family may be subjected to up to 35 days of surveillance. Much of this may occur within the family home. In earlier years, children with disabilities and other non conformist children were frequently institutionalised and subjected to the most terrible abuses and violations of their Human Rights. In contemporary policy the child is used as a virtual hostage to police the lives of entire families (Meyer: 1977, Picton & Boss: 1984).
Arguably, the Child Protection discourse has become a “Trojan Horse” carrying all manner of agendas into the family home, which have little or nothing to do with actually enhancing the lives of children. The misuse of social welfare in all its forms, to take away rights, is now a well known phenomena (Garland: 1981).
Those who support this type of “house arrest” do so on the arguments that children with disabilities, or other issues are more likely to be abused and stressed parents are more likely to engage in abuse. Yet it is arguably the Social Services employees and sub-contracters who have been responsible for most of the abuse (Hobart, C. 1998 McDowell: 2002, Howarth: 2002, Beckett: 2003, Sobsey: 1994 cited in Briggs: 1995). The Child Protection discourse which does not protect children in their own homes, has been unable to secure better outcomes when children have been removed (Sanders: 1999, 134-135).
For children with disabilities to be routinely assessed by child protection workers, rather than by people with expertise in disability, is seriously problematic. False allegations of abuse are occurring and children’s real needs are neglected. (Blakemore-Brown; 1999-2003, 2001, 2002) At times this has allegedly resulted in children’s deaths (MAMA website) It would be difficult to find a contemporary discourse with less credibility. British Child Protection Workers are amongst the least qualified, and least educated, of all the disciplines involved in the care of children. Yet their statutory powers and Guidance allow them to out gun all the qualified professionals. It is this tragically failing discourse which has jostled it’s way into a position of power over all the others.
On the one hand, Child Protection powers deter access to services. On the other hand they can be used to enforce purchase of inappropriate or poor quality services. The issue of “captive consumption” merits serious concern. There is a commercial interest in the misuse of statutory powers to enforce particular patterns in the consumption of services. Rather than services going where they are most needed, there is an incentive for them to be oversold to those who are deemed able to pay. The statutory powers are available for extremely high pressure sales techniques: buy this service, or you’re at risk of losing your child.
That Child Protection powers have been misused, is known by the Health Department (Department of Health, Home office, Department for Education and Employment: 1999; 10-11, Blakemore-Brown: 1999-2003). Often though, there is a naivety about the motives. Unfortunately, there are vast opportunities for misuse in connection with commercial interest, political bias, inter-professional turf wars, concealment of malpractice, bullying, discrimination, repression of dissent, interpersonal manipulation, common scapegoating and the avoidance of financial responsibilities (Pena and Grant: 2.6.2003, Hayward-Brown: 2003). Child Protection powers may be misused to force women out of the workforce and into a full time carer role. Child Protection measures are also being used to take decisions pertaining to matters of legal liability which might be more appropriately settled through civil litigation and mediation.
There is evidence that the use of Child protection powers against families of children with Special Educational Needs is occurring for sinister motives (Howe: 14.2.2003, Blakemore-Brown: 1999-2003). Families have alleged that truancy, under-achievement and other social and health problems are often the consequence when inappropriate social care is substituted for appropriate educational provision.
Child Protection powers must no longer be available for misuse in agendas of a discriminatory, exploitative or malicious nature. These powers should no more be left lying around in local offices, than guns or other weapons. The temptation for them to be mis-used in interpersonal and social conflicts is too great. The potential for them to be used to cause great harm is too high.
In Australia, extensive removal of indigenous children, resulting in widespread abuse and exploitation is still the subject of claims against the state for compensation (Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission 1996). In the United States, child removal has become a major commercial activity, allegedly resulting in extensive loss of life and serious trauma for entire families (Senate Committee on Labour and Human Resources, Subcommittee on Children and Families Hearing: 1995, Oliver). In Argentina, the removal of the children of political dissidents is still a source of national tragedy and shame.
In Britain, if funding for Social Services and for “out of home placements” continued to increase without major change to existing policy and practice, the outcomes are likely to be very serious indeed. Social Services placements confer a very high level of risk (Modernising Social Services: 1998, Hobart: 1998, McDowell: 2002, Howarth: 2002). The traumatic health and social impacts are known to be extensive (Modernising Social Services: 1998), though they have not been audited. All the available evidence is that most children, especially younger children are safer when cared for by biologically related intimates, in a context of high quality resources and services (Strang:1995, NSW Premier’s Dept. 1988).
Conclusion.
Those who support an expansion of the Child Protection remit often do so on the argument that there is a need for prevention. Good prevention work is desperately needed, but it cannot be done from within the Child Protection discourse or by agencies too closely connected with it. The current system needs to be replaced by a system which trusts families to make appropriate decisions about the welfare of their children in a context of high quality service provision. We need to be able to trust that families will access services which actually meet their needs. The current practice of coercing families into regimens of captive consumption is resulting in extensive social exclusion.
The policy of mainstreaming Child Protection is not achieving its stated aim of linking families into service provision. On the contrary, it is producing ever more stigmatising labeling and traumatisation, resulting in social exclusion and other adverse health and social impacts. Furthermore, the mainstreaming of Child Protection has distorted service provision to the point that quality has been compromised to an unacceptable degree. Services relying on captive consumption have no genuine incentive to meet the real needs of service users.
We also need to be able to trust that children are able to assess the quality of the services they receive. The Cleveland Report and the 1989 Children’s Act which followed from it, rightly recommended that children be more involved in decision-making. For this to be given an effective basis, children must be given real choices about who advocates for services on their behalf. An advocate who cannot be selected, and if necessary, replaced, by the client is not much of an advocate. Captive consumption of “services” by children cannot deliver the quality of service which children require. For children’s needs to be effectively protected, it is imperative that children’s social care advocates have the independence to be able to defend their clients instructions and to repel agendas which are alien to their clients best interests. Unless children have the power to choose their own advocates, the principle that the children’s needs are paramount remains a political football to be kicked around by competing interests. A similar argument would apply to young people.
The role played by Social Services as monopoly and coercive broker of access to service provision has become unnecessary and counter productive. This brokerage role should be replaced with a model more attuned to the needs of service users and a broad based constituency of stakeholders. Self-referral of service users should be the usual form of access to services. A system of Independent Health and Social Care Advisers, operating in a manner similar to primary care medical practitioners should be available to inform client choice and advocate of behalf of clients. These advisers can organise themselves into Trusts of their own design, to respond to local, national and international contingencies. Paper based and web based directories of services should also be made publicly available.
Where public subsidy of service provision is envisaged, auditing can operate in a manner similar to that deployed in relation to medical and educational institutions. Auditing all too often though, loses sight of the interests of children and families in the battle amongst the stakeholders. Children and families, not professionals, are the most important part of the equation and legislation, policies and services should be focused on understanding their needs. Client focused services are really only likely to develop authentically if the opportunities for service users to express their unique knowledge are expanded at all levels. Services should be funded to the extent that they are able to attract service users and to establish public credibility surrounding the service they provide. Ultimately, these are the best tests of the quality of the service.
The erroneous idea that force alone can command respect and achieve worthwhile outcomes must bend to the realities of history and contemporary politics. Empire building by force will only incite resistance. And re-naming everything which is done, as a “service,” isn’t really fooling anyone. The British state must give up it’s cultural love affair with discipline and punishment. If parents must be encouraged to find alternatives to overly harsh discipline, then the State must do likewise. Anything else is an hypocrisy which is all too visible.
We urge you, for the sake of children, and hence in the interest of our own future, to take the stick away.
Coordinator: Dr Lynne Wrennall was awarded her doctorate for work in child welfare. She has worked as a government adviser in NSW, responsible for reducing the extent to which indigenous children were removed from their homes by welfare authorities. Her critiques of authoritarian social welfare have been well received in the media and in academic citation. Most of her working life has been spent educating social workers and she currently works as a Public Health academic at the University of Liverpool.
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