Birmingham Social Services oversaw some of the worst cases of child abuse, including that of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who starved to death at her home in Handsworth in 2008, and Keanu Williams, who was found collapsed in his mother’s partner’s flat in 2011.
These high-profile cases, following after that of baby Peter Connelly, who was murdered by his mother, her boyfriend and his brother in 2007 in London’s Haringey, which was already under pressure following the death of Victoria Climbié ten years earlier, caused social workers to put caution before common sense.
Children have been taken from their parents on the slightest whiff of abuse, which for today’s social workers involves any sign of corporal punishment. But what happens then? The BBC website is carrying a video of an interview with a girl called Danielle. She was taken into care in 1998 at the age of 11 after marks from a belt were seen on her back. If that were punishment, it sounds excessive, but what subsequently happened to Danielle makes it seem like the ultimate in compassion.
Danielle, who is now twenty-seven, says she was moved six times in six weeks and had twenty-nine moves by the time she left the care system aged just sixteen. She was raped three times whilst ‘in care’, in addition to an attempted rape when she was only eleven and in a children’s home. She ran away when she was thirteen but was brought back.
The outcomes of children in care make shocking reading. According to a Government study in 2013, ‘67.8% have special educational needs’. ‘Around half of all looked after children aged 5 to 16 were considered to be ‘borderline’ or ‘cause for concern’ in relation to their emotional and behavioural health’, the study said.
Their educational gaps ‘are still large, especially for key stage 4, where 15.3% of looked after children achieved 5 or more A* to C GCSEs or equivalent including English and mathematics compared with 58.0% of non-looked-after children’.
Even according to the NSPCC, which has an interest in providing care facilities, the mental health difficulties of children in care are four times higher than their peers.
The Government report did not mention the staggeringly high incidences of sexual abuse faced by children in care, but the Independent newspaper reported:
‘One in every hundred children living in care is abused every year in Britain, according to the most comprehensive study conducted into the issue.
The research by York University and the NSPCC is the first of its kind to uncover and analyse local authority records on abuse in foster and residential care.
‘Academics tracked abuse allegations – and their outcomes – between 2009 and 2012. They found that on average there are between 450 and 550 cases of proven abuse every year in foster care and between 250 and 300 cases of confirmed abuse a year in residential care.
I’n residential care the rate of substantiated abuse claims is significantly higher than for foster families, with an average of between two and three proven cases per 100 children.’
Would the children have done better and been treated better left with their parents under some kind of supervision with assistance in parenting? It is hard to imagine their outcomes would have been much worse.
There is little sign of social workers, whose jobs are under no risk if they take children from their parents, becoming more family-friendly. But with being in care leading to such horrifying abuse as Danielle suffered and the poor outcomes reported by the Government, surely a rethink is overdue.
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What does “non-looked-after children” mean ?
Children not in care. Children at home with their parents or guardians. Children not at risk of abuse and emotional deprivation ‘in care’.
So children who are at home, rather than in a home, are non-looked-after rather than looked after ?
Who on earth dreamed this one up ?
Most people over the age of about 60 and with no professional experience in these fields, have genuine difficulty understanding terms like “learning difficulties” and “emotionally challenged”, even “behavioural difficulties”. Because they tend to be euphemisms (as was even “asylum” originally, and certainly “workhouse”), one tends to underestimate what they refer to. I had difficulties learning Latin, but still managed to pass GCE Latin.
The best way to look after children is for them to live at home with a married mum and dad in a stable family.
Unfortunately, the “enlightended” age in which we live believes that a family can consist of 2 dads or 2 mums or a mum and dad living together without being married. The fruits of that social policy are all too obvious today.
The Bible, as always, gets it right.
I don’t think the Government would deny most of that. They are not declaring a preference for putting children into institutions, It’s just that they have come up with such muddled terminology as “non-looked-after children”.
Beware the Golden Age! According to one historian, in 1700 very few couples in England had any idea if they were legally married or not, or what might constitute a legal marriage. Most of them were not legally married, and I think we can safely assume that many arrangements were quite flexible, especially in London.
It’s remiss of Bob Hutton not to condemn an unmarried mother and children making up a household, or there could be two women; or even (conceivably, as it were) two men, which I agree is quite novel.
I’m not quite sure what “Rox” means by stating that it is “remiss” of me not to condemn etc. The Bible is clear – marriage is one man/one woman and sex should be within marriage. This automatically rules out homosexuality, adultery and fornication.
There you are, then, it is remiss of you not to mention all this. Remiss means “lacking care or attention to duty” (COD).
Jesus lived with a married mum and dad in a stable, full stop. At first, anyway, and “Dad” is debatable, so is “married”. I take it that Mary was only Joseph’s fiancée when he was born, a familiar circumstance .
But I have probably got this wrong,
What does the Bible say about decriminalising not paying the television licence ?
Yes. It’s good to remember (with the aid of Dickens, et al) the high standards of child care within stable marriages of former centuries.
The workhouse system ensured that the destitute were taken into care and properly provided for, and that boys found ready employment in the army & navy, or of course in the criminal underclass, while the girls were employed in service, until they were pregnant by their employers & were returned to the workhouse.
Increasing industrialisation provided low-paid employment as the only way for many get scratch an honest living after the agricultural revolution put the farmers out of work. Employers had no need to worry about the molly-coddling health & safety regulations we suffer today.
The transportation system successfully removed those offenders from society who were not hanged. e.g. Offenders who caught rabbits to feed their families. The transportation system continued after WWII to provide war orphans as slave labour for the Australian farmers.
Coming up to date, the Thatcher revolution resulted in the export of manufacturing industry & loss of the millions of constructive jobs, & the loss of affordable rented housing. The computer revolution provided opportunities for a few years, until for the youngsters it provides games to hypnotise into achieving “personal bests.” The banking revolution has results in banks “too big to fail” & the transfer of money from the common worker to the rich & multinationals.
What hope is there now for the youngsters of the article cited? Employment, marriage, home & family are becoming impossible dreams.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ certainly gives eternal hope, & a Biblical morality would reduce crime & abuse. The call by the prophet Micah is relevant today:
“Do justly, love mercy, & walk humbly with your God.”
The children in Dickens’ day were taught about the Bible, at least .
Its a pity that some of the responses to this article have gone off topic. How society treats its vulnerable citizens, in this case children, is an important issue.
The article fails to mention (as I understand it), that Section 1 of the 89 Children Act has as its guiding principle that children be removed from the family home only when necessary and it can be demonstrated that the harm of doing so would be less than if the child remained. In theory therefore removing a child should be a last resort.The article fails to mention, though it is left to the reader to infer that the abuse is solely carried out by ‘staff?’. I suspect it is a little bit more complicated
Statistics show that the numbers of ‘looked after’ children peaked in 1977, many of who were looked after in residential homes as apposed to fostering/adoption. The statistics have shown that there has been a move away from ‘residential care’ with alternatives being looked at preferred.
I myself was a ‘looked after’ child in the mid 70’s to early 80’s and I had three placements before leaving at 18 – childrens homes as opposed to fostering/adoption.I became a christian at 14 whilst ‘in care’. Although bullied by other children ‘in care’, I was never abused, physically or otherwise by staff. However, as a ‘looked after’ child I am acutely aware of the impact that being ‘in care’ can have on a persons self image/self esteem and on development generally. Although I stayed on in the 6th form, I left with few qualifications. It seems I am one of the ‘fortunate few’ educationally, as I did eventually attended university and gain a post grad qualification.
Without Jesus, I do not know how my life would have turned out, but I do know than in Christ I am becoming the person God has called me to be in spite of my past.
What a testimony. Thanks, kgb, and may God bless you.