Quality | 2009.11.10
Children's services one year on
Social workers and experts give their views on how much progress has been made in children\'s services since the tragic case of Baby P
A voluntary sector community social worker, London
Since Baby P there has been an increase in referrals and the public\'s awareness around child abuse has heightened. People are realising the extent of abuse, especially because since Baby P other child cases have made the headlines. Sadly, even with this awareness the public opinion of social workers remains poor. People still tell me that social workers take children away and destroy families.
Many social workers are leaving the profession because they feel overworked and underpaid and spend more time sitting in front of the computer rather than out with families. I know that the recording procedure is necessary, but the system is cumbersome and repetitive. For example, if I am doing a write-up on four or five children in the same family, I can\'t copy and paste certain information, I have to fill out separate forms for each. This takes time away from the real social work. We need more tools and resources at the grass-roots level; if we had that, then Joe Public would have more faith in us to do the job.
A social worker in child protection in a London borough
One year on, the caseload has increased and we still have to finish our work within a timescale set by the government, such as having 72 hours to get a core assessment form filled in. I normally have about 22 cases in my tray and they need turning around in a three-week period, which is not possible when you factor in annual leave and time off for training. We need people to realise that this is impossible, and help us to put it right.
It is obvious to social workers that the orders from above are focused on a social worker\'s ability to fill in forms, rather than whether we have time to sit down with the family or sit and think about how that family functions for the child. Social workers are then being disciplined for not meeting the deadlines.
There are problems at managerial level, too, because you have cases where a good social worker ends up in a managerial position, but can\'t manage the task or the people. Managers are also quick to pass the workload on, knowing that there are no staff available to deal with it. When a case comes in, it is assigned to a manager and the manager\'s name is placed next to it on the computer system. He or she wants to get rid of the case as soon as possible, so will assign it to a social worker who already has an overflowing workload.
We also have overseas workers who don\'t complain about the heavy workload because their work permits will be affected. Then there are the agency staff who come in because there aren\'t enough qualified social workers available. Agency staff earn more money that the permanent staff, but they have no investment in the organisation. They will often leave halfway through working on a case and it gets put back into my in-tray. There are also a huge number of inexperienced social workers, who are very naive or, in some cases, haven\'t yet grasped British culture. Because of this, well established social workers are given the majority of the complex cases and get burnt out very quickly.
Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo\'s
For some years now, ever since leading a study of looked-after children for Alan Johnson, I have been suggesting we need more, not fewer, children in care and that we need to increase the number of adoptions from care. They have been falling fast in recent years.
Until recently, that view has generally been met with derision. Baby Peter changed that and there is now a serious debate about the extent to which we might try too hard to fix the worst families.
I am not, repeat not, saying we should not try to fix families first. That is what Barnardo\'s does and we do it successfully on most occasions. But we cannot allow neglect of a child to descend into abuse before a child is removed. Some of my critics – and some who should know better – have said my view is "simplistic" and fails to balance the rights of the child with the rights of the parents. In law, there is no such balance to be pursued. Quite rightly, the law states that all that matters is what is best for the child. That is what we have to remember.
And when the furore over Baby Peter has abated, and once again social workers are vilified for "snatching" children, we need to remember that they remove a child only after scrupulous consideration. They need our support, not our contempt, when they take such courageous decisions.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and director of Kids Company
I think that children\'s social care provision in this country is not fit for purpose, and that is not a criticism of the workers, many of whom are phenomenal. The problem is that the structure of child social care cannot deal with the volume of child abuse and neglect cases that exist.
The challenges we are facing have changed, a child now has risks coming from all angles, drug dealers with firearms, parents with substance-abuse problems, peers and older siblings who are disturbed and angry. In response to these changes and the volume of child abuse cases, either we go to court and solve the problems properly or we put a huge plaster on a gaping wound, which eventually collapses. When we are at the stage where Cornwall\'s children\'s services is failing, we have a deep problem.
Child abuse is a complex issue, on a par with climate change. It needs our attention. Unlike adults, children are not in the position where they can hold politicians and decision-makers accountable. So children\'s social care becomes an afterthought, rather than being firmly on the agenda. Both Labour and the Conservatives talk at length about education and attainment, but when you hear them speak about children\'s social services, it is the "invisible topic". This is a problem, because 1.5 million children in the UK face some type of neglect and abuse. Even while the Baby P case was attracting attention, there were children across the country with horrific stories of abuse, it\'s just that the newspapers hadn\'t got a hold of them.
Fundamentally, the children\'s social care structure was created to deal with a smaller volume of child abuse cases. In response to that, we have a government that genuinely cares and so creates a policy like Every Child Matters. The government then looks as if it has played its part, but in practice the idea is not followed through because of dilapidated local authorities that can\'t cope with the number of referrals and individual workers with overflowing case loads. It is clear that the system needs to be radically improved.
Owen Davies, head of policy and research, General Social Care Council
Since Baby P, one of the main actions we have taken is to improve our links with employers. At the GSCC we have codes of practice, one for social workers and one for their employers, the former is mandatory, the latter is not. Haringey Council did not inform us about what had happened in the Baby P case until the outcome of the court hearing. We say that Haringey had a duty to inform us when the problems first came to their attention, but they did not follow through on this. So one of the recommendations we have made, and it was backed by the Laming report, is for the employers\' code to be made mandatory. We are also holding meetings with employers across the country to explain the responsibilities they have and to encourage them to comply with the code.
Another recommendation we have made is about improving the training of social workers. In our role as a regulator of social workers, we advocate better initial training at BA and MA degree level, and better ongoing training, looking at a new boost for continuing professional development.
John Coughlan, director of children\'s services at Hampshire County Council
One of the most effective things we have done within our children\'s services is to use some of the money put forward by the council to hire extra staff social work support. The support ranges from administrative help to organising transport for children. This frees up more time for qualified social work staff to do what they do best – field work. The employment of these additional 27 staff across the county was a response to national concerns about the pressures on social workers.
I think that the main challenge social workers still face is the juxtaposition between protecting vulnerable children and respecting a family\'s right to privacy, which is why social workers are often damned if they do and damned if they don\'t. The other problem is the structural staffing arrangements; there are simply not enough qualified social workers nationally, which brings into question the stability and sustainability of the profession. Then there is what has been called the "post Baby Peter" effect, which has contributed to more referrals and an increase in case workload, in some places up to 30% or 40% increase.
I think Contactpoint [an online directory] will be hugely beneficial when it comes into practice. It is being piloted at the moment, and although there are some complaints that it is too costly and a breach of privacy, I think it will work as a real cohesive, inter-agency system.
Let\'s not forget that this is a challenging job and the majority of social workers do a brilliant job. We should all be stronger in supporting social workers and the status of their work needs to be properly recognised. We can\'t allow local practitioners to feel under siege. In my view, social work needs the same transformation that the teaching profession had from the early 90s to now – a radical journey, so that social workers are respected.
I genuinely think we are in a better position in terms of children\'s social care than we were over a decade ago. I acknowledge the problems we face, there are real challenges, but there is also better-quality information available, better-quality resources, more support in health and education, and a better integrated children\'s service.
Hilton Dawson, former social worker and chief executive of the BASW [British Association of Social Workers]
There is a crisis going on in social work at the moment, and I don\'t use that word lightly. Social workers are under incredible pressure from the volume of records and data that is required by local authorities. Anecdotal evidence shows us that social workers can spend 80% of their time serving the bureaucratic machine, rather than protecting children and supporting families.
At the most basic level we need to have proper teams, properly supported. Around the country I am regularly coming into contact with people, young women in particular (because it is a very female-led profession), who are burnt out after 18 months in the job. Social workers are literally serving the machine in office hours and then doing their proper field work at evenings and weekends, all the while facing a barrage of negative press.
Local authorities are in a panic, too, partly because of the frequent inspections and also because of media scrutiny. In response to this, the authorities are incredibly defensive and they discourage social workers from speaking out, disciplining them when they do speak; this in turn disempowers social workers.
In recent times, and especially in the last year, social workers have failed to stand up for themselves. Now the BASW is working hard to recover its voice, speaking out clearly and loudly for social workers. This will be the focus of a rally we are holding next Thursday [12 November]. I am fed up of the government and other agencies funded at public expense telling us what social work is about. We can transform social work if people back off and let us take back our profession. We need the respect afforded to other professions such as medicine, law and education. We do a really challenging job necessary to protect children and older people, and yet it is far too convenient for other professions to scapegoat us.
Eileen Munro, professor of social policy at LSE
I think that the government doesn\'t understand the root of the problem. Yes, accountability and the recording of cases is important, but the nature of how this is done needs to change.
Take the ICS [integrated children\'s system] for example: from this, social workers should be able to access the full picture of a child\'s history, but instead they get data boxes and lots of fragments in different places, which makes it harder to find the information needed. So the social worker is faced with an electronic child, not a comprehensive background to a real child.
The government\'s well intentioned actions, such as audit systems to promote good practice, have resulted in social workers spending less time with families, which is a fundamental part of the job. By encouraging and rewarding certain behaviour, such as filling in forms on time, social workers start to see that as the priority rather than spending time with children.
In the wake of Baby P, I think managers are making steps to improve morale, but I think that the retention figures for social workers in London boroughs are appalling – there is still a huge turnover.
The public maintains a very vindictive attitude towards social workers and social work failings have become an easy story for the media, with the heat only coming off recently thanks to the MPs\' expenses story. There is a freedom to insult social workers in a way that there isn\'t with anyone else. Ed Balls recently said that social workers need to just go out and do the job, suggesting that they weren\'t already. I think that establishing a Royal College for Social Workers, or something similar, to build the prestige and esteem of the profession is a good idea. There needs to be someone who speaks up for social workers and challenges politicians. With the Baby P case, one of the obvious problems afterwards was that social workers lacked a clear spokesperson.
Helga Pile, national officer for social care workers at the public services union Unison
When I speak to social workers in child services, excessive workload is the top problem they face and a big part of this is the integrated computer system, which is making work very difficult.
There has been some response to this, with interim recommendations coming from the social work task-force, such as relaxing the number of forms that need to be written up, streamlining the paperwork.
Other local authorities have been given grants to improve their computer systems, but even with this assistance, the response from our branches is that there is a lot of tinkering going on, but the computer system is still flawed.
The pressure on social workers is still there and it\'s getting worse with the big jump in referrals we have seen in the last year. I speak to a lot of social workers who say that they end up doing their court paperwork or field work at home, after work or at weekends. Basically, there is not enough time in the day to do what is required.
There have been some positive changes in the last year, with some branches telling us that they have been able to get employers to increase administrative support to relieve the pressure. Others are finding that employers are agreeing to provide additional funds for more staff to be taken on, but this is patchy and there are different levels of progress in different places.
Also, extra money often has to come from another service area, so more money for child protection can mean cuts from those social workers dealing with early intervention work, and social workers dealing with adults.
Unison is speaking up for social workers and supporting those who want to try and let the public know about the importance of the work they do and the pressures they deal with. But many face the threat of disciplinary action from bosses if they try to speak out. If they were allowed to speak out more, social workers would be revealed as the ordinary hard-working staff they are; the more they remain anonymous or have to give interviews in a blackened room, it gives the view that social work is a profession under siege.
A school-based social worker, London
Since Baby P, good social work has come under threat. In the past you would advise parents to make some changes in their home in the interest of the child, and now social workers are being reprimanded because of this and parents are quicker to make complaints. So morale in children and family services is very low, because social workers are constantly under scrutiny and, in a lot of cases, unfairly disciplined.
We no longer feel as though a social worker\'s opinions are valued. No one wants a Baby P case on their hands, and this fear stops social workers from speaking out. We all felt sorry for the social workers in Haringey, but we felt sadder for the children in that borough because it meant that the already understaffed department would find it hard to recruit new social workers, and more children would be at risk. A general shortage of well qualified staff in the profession has affected training, too. Managers are reluctant to free up social workers for training, which is preventing continuing professional development.
This has been a particularly challenging year and in the future I would like to see some good stories about us in the media. While bad press is all too popular, it would be nice to counter this with more success stories, for example an interview with a young person in care who went on to university thanks to the support of a social worker, rather than this constant demonising.
Rosalyn Proops, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
The effect of the tragedy of Baby Peter has been to increase the profile of child maltreatment, which is helping the general understanding of the considerable size and complexity of the problem.
I hope this will help us to move forward in protecting children and increase the pace of response and the pressure to ensure that the changes we have put in place continue across the country.
It needs to be recognised by the public and by the government that child maltreatment is rarely a one-off event, but describes a chronic, often ongoing serious problem for children\'s health and development. It is very common and is a public health crisis. Baby Peter was, sadly, an extreme example of the problem.
We must continue to improve our understanding of how to identify children who are in need of protection. We must ensure that all professionals are properly trained and supported. Peer review and supervision are very important in this complex area and should be included as part of good clinical practice. We need to improve our relationship and communications with other agencies involved in protecting children.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has completed several child protection programmes and is working with the Department of Health to develop child protection networks, which will hopefully be rolled out nationally and improve the overall standard of care given to children.
Sue White, professor of social work, Lancaster University
The problem with the integrated children\'s system [ICS] used by social workers is two-fold: First, aspects of the computer system are poorly designed, which can create more work. Second, and most important, the system comes with performance management criteria imbedded in it. The computer system is geared towards filling in the forms within rigid timescales, 100% of the time, or risk scoring poorly when the inspectors call.
There needs to be research into the appropriate time that it takes for a social worker to do an assessment, taking into consideration distance in rural areas, or what happens when a parent isn\'t home, or there are multiple children to be seen. At the moment, there is no flexibility for this. There is an understandable preoccupation with filling in data on time and shifting the case from one part of the workflow onto another before it "times out". What we have is a situation where social workers may say things such as "I\'ve work-flowed the case", which doesn\'t necessarily mean that good outcomes have been achieved for children and families. Team managers need to be given more discretion about what constitutes a timely and appropriate response for individual cases, and we need a much more sensitive and nuanced inspection regime.
Kim Bromley-Derry, president of ADCS [Association of Directors of Children\'s Services]
One of the positives outcomes from the Baby P case is the increased public awareness around child abuse, neglect and the need for child protection. Until a high-risk case like this is highlighted, most people in society find it unbelievable that this can happen within a family. Now the public is aware that these occurrences are common and they are beginning to understand the task faced by social workers and those working in children and family services.
There has also been an increase in the number of referrals across the country, which shows that people are taking the task of child protection seriously. Without an increase in resources the job is made very difficult. Across the country we are still several thousand social workers short, and it takes time to recruit and train new staff, so to have the system we want is likely to take a number of years.
However, we are in a place where social work and social care is now firmly on the agenda with national government. In the past, it simply was not the highest priority. The social work taskforce is working to increase clarity around caseloads and the thresholds for intervention.
The issue of inspection and regulation in social work also needs to be addressed, because it has become a spectator sport. Services and workers are being labelled inadequate, when actually they are great practitioners who didn\'t complete a process well, such as not filling in a form correctly.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/11/baby-p-vox-pops
