Because It's WRONG! (Part 3)

A further postscript on the ever-depressing subject of child protection from the news this morning (Friday 13th March - how appropriate). The eminent Lord Laming complained that his recommendations for improvements in Social Service child protection had not been implemented. These recommendations were made years ago after the horrible death of a little girl, Victoria Climbie, in London. The occasion for his protest was a further investigation after the more recent and equally horrible death of a little boy, Baby P, in London.

With all respect to the good Lord, one of his well-meant recommendations was that sufficient resources should be devoted to child protection. Given the scale of the problem, do you think the entire Gross Domestic Product might make up for the failures of parents? The inefficiencies involved are mind-bending.....not to mention budget bending.

One social worker described the follow up to a family visit. If she spent a hour with a problem family, on return to the office she might spend anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours on electronic paperwork and other actions. There has to be a full accounting for all actions; even telephone calls to other agencies (e.g. police, schools, National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, etc) have to be recorded. And that is excluding other "downtime" such as travelling to and from families, team meetings, training, sick leave, holidays, etc.

A classic theme in past inquests into the horrible deaths of battered children has been "failures of communication" between the numerous responsible agencies. Teachers' worries about a neglected child did not get passed to Social Services, Social Services' communications to the police got buried in police files, the hospital staff hesitated to breach medical confidentiality, etc, etc. So the remedy for bureaucracy is super-bureaucracy.

And of course while the social worker is covering his/her backside in the case of one family, he/she cannot give attention to the other problem families in the desk. A totally perverse set of incentives encourages the social worker to spend more time protecting himself than protecting little children.

But given the way in which Social Service departments, from the most senior to the most junior front-line worker, have been mercilessly vilified in the media every time another disaster happens, such self defence is inevitable. And the witch hunting media are not going to indulge in any self-criticism about the way in which they have promoted the sexual liberation agenda and hence the mass abuse of children.

One of the few thoughtful articles I have ever seen on the subject is in the ever-superb "Touchstone" magazine:

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-03-031-f

Carson Holloway's article "Dare We get real about sex" argues forcefully that you cannot promote the sexual liberation of adults without promoting the sexual abuse of children.

Which is why well meaning but unreflective politicians like Tom Harris are caught on the horns of a dilemma. He is rightly horrified at mass bastard breeding by vulnerable girls who are hardly more than children themselves. But to coherently argue for reform means far more than condemning such behaviour, however cautiously and diplomatically. You have to reject extramarital sex among consenting adults....and the gay agenda....and contraception...Er, hold on, Holy Cow, I want a few voters behind me come the next General Election. And the next General Election in Britain is barely a year way. All the New Labour chickens, from years of schmoozing bankers to PR spin to illegal wars to lying about education, are coming home to roost in quick succession.