A cracking life

The Big Questions

Ok... so this is not the right place for this but I have to get this off my chest now before I forget the points made and then I can use later to write to the BBC or a Newspaper and tell 'em exactly what I think about their 'investigative, open and fair debates'... Yet again, the Baby P case has been brought up as an example of appalling and ineffectual social workers. Yet again the media choose to ignore that there were many agencies involved in this child's case... yet again the media choose not to query those agencies' role in his death... and on this point yet again the media choose to imply that it is the Social workers who killed this baby and not his mother, her boyfriend and their lodger.
I am really disgusted that Nicky campbell asked why 'bad mother's and their boyfriends' should be allowed to carry on looking after their children... I think he should remember that those 'boyfriends' are often BAD FATHERS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN... still it is acceptable to blame mother's for the ills of society and social workers for the ills of society, most of whom are women.

In addition to this James O' Brien...a media presenter... cos of course HE would know all about the workings and day to day work of social services! .. said that keeping children at home is the holy grail of social workers. This is absolutely NOT the case. Most social workers are firmly fixed on the child and their needs, but they are thwarted by the governing bodies and procedures that prevent them from taking action to protect those children It is usually getting anyone else to take the investigation, enquiry, assessment seriousl;y that causes alot of social workers problems, not just even the over work and lack of resources and the ever changing rules, most of which are made by politicians who want to evade taking any responsibility for their party's ill informed and manipulative policies... but the programmes biggest sin is to do the usual hypocritical and unbalnced stance... that of not having ANY SOCIAL WORKERS PRESENT ON THE PROGRAMME to state what is going on... Oh yes plenty of 'writers' plenty of 'QC's'... incidentally who are the very people who make decisions NOT to let the local authority remove children from damaging and abusive homes!... plenty of 'CE's'... plenty of people saying 'oh yes if there were parenting classes every thing in the world would be rosy!' NO IT WOULD NOT.. There are many many parents who just cannot change... this is one of the key areas that Social workers need to assess... whether the parents have INSIGHT and the CAPACITY TO CHANGE... we do this day in day out... i work hard to be objective, looking at the needs of the child... who cares??? No bugger cares! I am not regarded as having knowledge or experience I am regarded as not even worth asking my opnion.. everytime a case goes to court the lawyers who see it all as a big game and get paid a fortune for prolonging the agony for these families... then get experts in to asses the family, many of whom who have no knowledge of this family prior to this! The irony of all of this is that if there were enough time and resources to carry out proper assessments, the social workers would be able to do their jobs properly... No wonder departments can't get the staff and Social workers leave in droves... we are sick of being insulted, rubbished treated like 3rd class subnormal professionals.... You and You and YOU... take a look at your society, make yourselves responsible for finding out what is going on, what your legal system is doing, what your politicians are doing, what your local authority managers are doing, what your police are doing, what your church is doing... what YOU are also doing to help protect children in your community... stop washing your hands of the problem and blaming the individual social workers for everything you find uncomfortable and want to wash your hands of.. It is a difficult job, people lie, people cover up, there will always be people who slip through the net... it does not mean that we are not worth talking to, taking notice of... listening to... If you want to 'debate' the death of a child known to ALL SERVICES... talk to all services not just the ones who are gonna slag off the likes of me and my colleagues, most of whom who work really really really hard!