Our misgivings about child protection social workers were pretty-well confirmed last Monday 30th Jan 2012 with a fly-on-the-wall documentary following a child welfare case in Bristol. You can catch the next episode on BBC2, Monday night at 9.00pm (not Scotland) and/or view episodes HERE.
Called ‘Damned if they do, damned if they don’t’, last Monday’s progranmme followed a seemingly inexorable chain of events in which an uneducated couple lost their son, and then their newly-born daughter, to the care system. The couple went to Bristol Social Services for help, as many do.
We realised afterwards that, except for a hand-out of a bed for their son, there was no help from Bristol SS, only a series of directives and ultimata which the inadequate parents would always be hopeless at fulfilling. These lost souls needed a training course in nutrition and house-management for a start, and a basic all-round education would not have come amiss either.
On ITV’s This Morning yesterday, towards the end of the programme, two high-ranking Bristol social workers, including the one pictured, said they were ‘taking a risk’ by allowing the programme to follow them around. They were right. Even though the family in the programme were an obvious ‘hard case’, the outcome still left a bad taste in the mouth.
They reminded us of the source of their philosophy, which appears to be: ‘If in doubt, take the child out’. It all stems back to the Children Act 1989. This Act made the ‘welfare of the child’ the paramount consideration of the family Court. Keeping a family together is not remotely a consideration. For those who believe the Family has equal status with the State as social institutions of Almighty God, this approach takes some getting used to.
Even knowing what we know about the dangers of the Care System (with apologies to all you good Christian foster parents out there) the Court will still have a default position that the child’s welfare is best served by being in care.
So if they are ‘Damned if they do, damned if they don’t’, why do they not lean towards ‘Don’t’ rather than ‘Do’? (This was a question that the naive Eamonn Holmes was never going to ask.)
The answer is that if they ‘Do’ take a child and get it wrong, then owing to the secrecy of the family courts (in the ‘best interests of the child’ of course) no-one ever gets to hear of it. If they ‘Don’t’ take a child and it all goes sour, the child’s fate ends up on front pages of the newspapers and social workers lose their jobs.
Oh, yes. Because the Bible is so full of positive things to say about families and children. Including those paragons of brotherly love, Cain and Abel, and such family-friendly and child-loving advice as that recommended in Proverbs 13:24.
Your point on the article being?
I should have thought that was pretty obvious. That the Christian bible is hardly a good guide for how Christians should behave in family matters.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/fv/long.htm
“…with apologies to all you good Christian foster parents out there.” Care to explain what (in your opinion) sets apart Christian foster parents from non-Christian foster parents?
Based solely on your prejudice against corporal punishment and a cautionary tale about sibling rivalry? Is that it?
I didn’t, I just didn’t have time or room to include all the examples which show that the Christian bible is a bad guide for family values. Shame the link didn’t work, but the SAB is available for all to see.
“…with apologies to all you good Christian foster parents out there.” Care to explain what (in your opinion) sets apart Christian foster parents from non-Christian foster parents?
The fact that you have specified ‘Christian’ foster parents intrigues me, hence my question.
What sets Christian foster parents apart from non-Christian foster parents? For a start, they are more likely to read this website.
For a start. But that means there’s more behind the comment. Care to expand?
And given the fear of God before their eyes, and the history of Christian philanthropism, they are more likely to care.
Christian foster parents are more likely to care because they live in fear? Are their wards also expected to live in such fear? What’s to fear from a supposedly all-loving, all-forgiving deity anyway? Is this really the best you can do after two days?
And why is my ‘prejudice’ against corporal punishment a bad thing?
The fact that some Christians in the past have cared for others means that Christians today care for others more than non-Christians? What a ridiculous idea.
“Christian foster parents are more likely to care because they live in fear?”
One is more likely to refrain from the maltreatment or neglect of others if one fears the consequences of so doing. Surely you can see that?
“Are their wards also expected to live in such fear?”
“…to live in such fear”?! You make it sound as though Christians spend their existence cringing and creeping around like whipped dogs! As for being expected, it is more a hope rather than an expectation. Children will simply make a choice either to fear God or not, just as you have done and just as everyone else here has done.
“What’s to fear from a supposedly all-loving, all-forgiving deity anyway?”
Who says he’s all-loving & all-forgiving? …Go read your Bible. Maybe you might come to fear him too. 🙂
“Christian foster parents are more likely to care because they live in fear?”
One is more likely to refrain from the maltreatment or neglect of others if one fears the consequences of so doing. Surely you can see that?
Again, what makes Christian foster carers different from non-Christian ones?
“Are their wards also expected to live in such fear?”
“…to live in such fear”?! You make it sound as though Christians spend their existence cringing and creeping around like whipped dogs! As for being expected, it is more a hope rather than an expectation. Children will simply make a choice either to fear God or not, just as you have done and just as everyone else here has done.
You hope that children grow up fearing your deity? As if these poor kids haven’t suffered enough. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that I believe Christians are as likely to make good foster parents as non-Christians, your comments would worry me.
“What’s to fear from a supposedly all-loving, all-forgiving deity anyway?”
Who says he’s all-loving & all-forgiving? …Go read your Bible. Maybe you might come to fear him too.
Just another reason not to believe in your deity then.
So we establish that Dave is more likely to believe in God if he is cuddly and inoffensive than if he is awesome and terrifying. Seems a little irrational to me, that does.
I would be more likely to believe in any gods if there was the slightest hint of a possibility of there being any proof that any existed. Which is not to say I would like him/her/it
Besides which
a. My post suggested nothing of the sort
b. Why would wanting to believe in a cuddly-wuddly god any more irrational than wanting to believe in the vile thing you believe in?
Because you said that if God was an object of fear that was all the more reason not to believe in him. Which is as irrational as I should expect you to be.
It would be rational to want something to exist so that I could be afraid of it? I have a fear of spiders. Would it be rational to want my house to be overrun by tarantula and black widows?
Social Services don’t always get it right, but the reason they lean towards “Don’t” rather than “Do” is that some children really ARE in physical danger in dysfunctional families, so Social Services operate on the basis that it’s better to be Safe than Sorry.
But even taking those comments at face value, it assumes that children are ‘safe’ in care, which the evidence is strongly against. Children are taken from parents without any evidence of physical abuse at all.
The real reason they lean towards ‘Do’ take the child rather than ‘Don’t’ take the child (which I think is what you meant) is that if they ‘Do’ take a child and get it wrong, then owing to the secrecy of the family courts (in the ‘best interests of the child’ of course) no-one ever gets to hear of it. If they ‘Don’t’ take a child and it all goes sour, the child’s fate ends up on front pages of the newspapers and social workers lose their jobs. So ‘Do’ take the child is the safer career option.
That’s a very shallow remark, Dave. The existence of one murderer (Cain), and the fact that there are a few abusive parents, does not invalidate the millions of good, happy families.
This documentary showed how hard it is for social workers to do their jobs, and that they do care. the problem is not a lack of faith, it is the laws that define what a social worker can and can not do. And as for giving the parents an education in how to raise a child, well, who would do this? of course it is a great idea, and such a thing should be put in place, but its expensive and takes a lot of time, and the child would still need to be removed while the parents took the courses, for the childs safety. The social workers did everything in their power to help that family. And are you taking the childs condition into account here? That child had learning disabilities, and needed propper one to one care in order to develop and improve. it is obvious to anyone that his parents could not provide that. and please dont forget that the mother chose to give up her children. sometimes, the birth parents are not the best parents.
I worked in care for 5 years, and worked with many social workers. they are good people who try to make a difference to vunerable peoples lives, but i have seen first hand that thats not always possible due to the laws, the laws that are apparently based on your christian faith. so instead of complaining about social workers, maybe you should be sending a letter to your local MP and trying to get the laws changed to help these poor social workers do thier jobs and help millions of vunerable people to have the life they deserve.
No Laura,
The problems atart when laws are passed against the Christian faith. In this case, that largely means the Childern Act 1989 which directed that ‘the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration’. Not keeping a family together, not justice, just ‘the child’s welfare’ is the court’s only thought. We know from all the studies that child’s welfare is best served, except in the most extreme circumstances, by being with his/her parents. But social workers and the courts define it as being taken away from his parents and placed in what we call ‘care’ which can range from loving foster parents to abusive children’s homes.
And now we have a couple in Crewe being told that their children, who are in care, cannot return to their mother because she was in care as a child.
The Children Act 1989, S2.4, also overturned centuries of understanding by declaring: ‘The rule of law that a father is the natural guardian of his legitimate child is abolished.’
How sad. How very, very sad.
Duncan writes:
That paramountcy principle, section 1(1) of the Children Act 1989, is simply a restatement of the court’s approach to questions concerning a child’s upbringing that has been consistent now for almost a century.
See, for example, section 1 of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1925: “Where in any proceedings before any court . . . the custody or upbringing of an infant, or the administration of any property belonging to or held on trust for an infant, or the application of the income thereof, is in question, the court, in deciding that question, shall regard the welfare of the infant as the first and paramount consideration.”
The abolition of the status of guardian by section 2(4) was necessary because the 1989 Act introduced the concept of “parental responsibility” which replaced the law of guardianship, itself an unhappy portmanteau product of common law, equity and statute. Given that all fathers of legitimate children have parental responsibility – section 2(1) – I’m struggling to see the disbenefit from a commonsense point of view, or even from a Christian one.
It rather looks as if the demise of a father’s status as guardian under section 2(4), and its replacement with a codified but equivalent status, has either been misunderstood by you, or else is being misdeployed to make a point.
IN REPLY, I think we could say that what is regarded as being in the best interests of a child today (as in taking him away from his parents and putting him in the gulag of council care) would be viewed with horror by those who framed the 1925 Act.
The father used to be the natural guardian of his legitimate child. That was abolished in favour of the ‘shared responsibility’ idea. Either you view the role of father with respect or you don’t, I guess.
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I know this point has probably been made already. I’m training to be a social worker. My intentions are not to safeguard my job, but to safeguard children and other vulnerable people. If a child is not removed and they are at risk, yes – the papers have a field day – but the most important and pressing thing is that a child can be harmed, or even die. That feels to me like a big enough reason to err on the side of caution rather than risking what could be devastating consequences.
Jess,
To disrupt a family, to wrench a child away from loving parents, is not to ‘err on the side of caution’.
It is to impose a draconian penalty with its own devastating consequences for the parents and the child.
If it is to be done, it should be on cast-iron evidence of abuse. Scandals like Baby Peter happen when social workers ignore that sort of evidence, not when parents cannot explain how a child got a minute bruise on his forehead.
As for children being taken away, as has happened in Durham and Rotherham, because the parents have political views not shared by the social workers, such cases should scream at politicians to stop the arrogance and inhumanity of child protection social workers right now.
[…] Social Workers on TV – where is the Church? […]