Social Issues of Britain

This week has been a big one in the world of social work; and is one that could reform many inept and insufficient laws.
The whole “Baby P” case has made my blood boil. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Baby P is a child that died at 17 months old from negligence and abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s best friend. Info can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/18/childprotection-ukcrime ).

The main body of the argument (and this is what pisses me off, other than the fact that there are some EVIL people in the world) is that the social services are to blame. Well... yes, I suppose they are, but not 100%. The police, teachers, doctors, and a wide range of academic or municipal service people are at liberty to tell the social services what they can blatantly see or hear, but they don’t. Nothing can be done if people just don’t know, right? Maybe I’m arguing the case because my dad recently became a social worker (and he’s a good man damnit) but I personally think that, even though the “Every Child Matters” document, among others, is seriously outdated and no longer protects children the way it was designed to, it’s not necessarily the fault of the people who deal with these cases every day. Think about what you would do in a similar situation; it’s easy enough to say yes, you would take that child away – but honestly, what if you were misjudging the scene? There are so many doubts you could face that you might even be fabricating all these pieces of evidence. So in the end... you tell somebody above you, and they can handle it. That way, you’re not responsible for removing the wrong child from the wrong home. Unfortunately, the pen-pushers at the top of the chain have little time and little care for these matters. “I’ll sort it later”.

This is understandable, but it’s still not solving, or saving anyone. According to the guardian, there are 69,000 known children that are being neglected or abused, and are still living in that home. Why?! I guess the cynical answer to that would, there’s no space to put them anywhere else, not enough people becoming foster parents, not enough money, etc etc. Which, in my opinion, is pretty piss poor. (Despite the lack of space for children, I’ll bet there’s still plenty of cells waiting for these people that think torture is fun... if not cells, then there’s plenty of ground left to create graves.) Another thing that I find outrageous is this; councils are reluctant to act on the claims made by teachers on behalf of neglected/abused children, because OFSTED lower the reputation of a school district if it has children on the child protection register for more than two years. Heaven forbid children showed up at school bruised and wishing someone would love them, Christ...

All these stories I’ve ever read; Victoria Climbié, Dave Peltzer, Baby P... They trigger two reactions. The first is to grab a bat, and go on a bludgeoning spree. These are the kind of people that don’t deserve to live and the only saving grace is that even the cut-throats of prison hate these kinds of people and will make their lives in prison a living hell. It makes me so angry!

The second (which is slightly more positive) is that i want to help. Initially, it makes me want to seek out these children personally and take them somewhere where they don’t have to worry about what they say or think; show them that not everyone in the world is heartless and brutal. So... who knows, maybe once I’ve finished THIS degree... I’ll follow my dad into the world of social work and change things. I for one, would rather be safe than sorry, and take a child from a home by accident where it was unnecessary. After all, you can remove a cared-for child from a loving home and return them. You can’t save a child once it’s dead.