Posts Tagged ‘child protection’
Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
The NSPCC has warned child neglect is not being taken seriously enough by local authorities.
A University of East Anglia report analysed 645 “serious case reviews” and found that of the children who died or were seriously injured, more had been placed on the child protection register for neglect than for physical and sexual abuse combined.
Cases of child neglect can be far more difficult to deal with than abuse cases, where specific incidents can be pointed to justify removal of a child from the home. Local authorities should ensure all front line professionals are given the training needed to spot neglect and ensure children’s files are not closed prematurely when a child’s standard of care is temporarily raised as a result of local authority involvement.
We are seeing an increasing number of ‘failure to remove’ claims where claimants allege they should have been removed from the family home earlier. These claims are expensive to investigate and nearly always require expert social care evidence.
Kate Bear
0115 976 6104
kbear@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child abuse, child neglect, child protection, failure to remove, Kate Bear, NSPCC, serious case review
Posted in employer/public liability, Employers & Public Liability, Insurance, Litigation, Local Authorities, Public Sector, Social Care | No Comments »
Monday, February 4th, 2013
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre have reported a growth in the sexual abuse of children online. Only 7% of the 1,145 online abuse cases reported to CEOP involved attempts to meet a child; a five percent drop since 2011. Instead the new trend is to contact, groom and abuse solely online.
Children can be faced with threats and blackmail if they refuse to partake in online sexual activity. Pictures and/or video footage of sexual abuse may be shared among paedophile networks which can have a devastating effect on victims and their families.
The recent high profile case of the Kuwaiti brothers demonstrates the need to continually highlight the risks of online grooming and sexual abuse. Education providers have an important role to play by developing and monitoring e-safety policies, ensuring both parents and pupils are educated on e-safety and the preventative measures they can take and who they can turn to for advice.
Posted by Hayley Roberts, who specialises in education law advice to schools and academies, including advice on teaching schools, collaboration models and partnership structures, school companies, and a wide range of pastoral issues.
Hayley Roberts
0121 237 3994
hroberts@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child education, child protection, childrens social care, grooming of children, Hayley Roberts
Posted in Education, Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, September 28th, 2012
A recent report looking at child protection in primary schools sets out a clear message that although many schools are well versed in child protection, the rapid changes to the rules on child protection have led to uncertainty among professionals.
The report and the accompanying practical tips have come at a time when the government is looking at revising Working Together to Safeguard Children and its guidance to ensure clarity in the area; this can only be a positive step in furthering this work.
Schools play a vital role in keeping children safe and raising concerns and the report makes recommendations for schools to achieve best practice and vigilance in this area. As schools are the front line in child protection their early responses to concerns could mean that many cases will avoid high end intervention, such as social services, later. Child protection should be a priority and creating a culture where concerns are raised early will be a key in developing excellent safeguarding practice.
Posted by Laura Richards, who specialises in: education law advice to maintained schools, independent schools and colleges, including admissions, SEN, safeguarding, governance, commercial advice on academy, free school and studio school projects.
Laura Richards
0115 908 4886
lrichards@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child protection, child safeguarding, Laura Richards, primary schools
Posted in Education | No Comments »
Friday, August 17th, 2012
A case where a 19 year old girl was pulled from her house by fire fighters because she weighed more than 50 stone has caused debates surrounding whether obesity should constitute “abuse” for child protection purposes.
It has been argued that allowing a child to become morbidly obese is analogous to under-feeding in terms of child mistreatment. The difference is that it’s usually very young children who are underweight or “failing to thrive”, whereas obesity is more common in school age children who have more personal control over their eating habits. Questions concerning how social workers should apply their professional judgment these cases also arise.
Obesity is on the rise. Finding the right balance will require social worker training and more involvement of healthcare professionals.
At least some professional negligence claims against social workers on this very topic should be expected in the next decade. But how simple is it for social workers to maintain that children have a reasonable diet when the parents hold parental responsibility?
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: abuse, child protection, childhood obesity, Sarah Erwin-Jones
Posted in Health, Social Care | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
Nearly half of all children in care homes (46%) are in ‘out of borough placements’, placing them at greater risk of running away and also falling prey to sexual exploitation. Government plans published today aim to make out of borough placements more difficult in an attempt to combat the exploitation of children by gangs.
In order to effectively challenge this problem the government will need to ensure that local authorities have the facilities to provide safe, nurturing care homes within their boundaries, eliminating the need to ‘export’ children.
However, these plans will only go part of the way to dealing with this problem; Barnardo’s state that 31% of children looked after through its sexual exploitation service were in care. While children in care are overrepresented in the sexual exploitation figures, the majority affected are looked after within the family home and plans are needed to address this issue alongside plans to improve conditions for those in care.
Kate Bear
0115 976 6104
kbear@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adult safeguarding, barnardos, child protection, children's services, sexual exploitation
Posted in Social Care | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Research by Action for Children shows half of social workers ‘feel powerless’ to stop children being neglected due to high thresholds and inadequate resources. 80% of social workers warned that cuts will make it more difficult to intervene in neglect cases.
It is obviously difficult to make meaningful cuts in expenditure without decreasing the quality of service provided. No doubt local authorities are monitoring this balancing act very closely, and clarion calls such as this should be listened to.
However, thresholds and resources are two very different issues, and there is real danger if they are conflated. If the threshold is too low, then it is too low whatever the resources position. A lack of resources should not be a reason to lower the threshold – it would be wrong to make it easier to remove a child from his parents because social workers have less capacity to investigate the home situation. The budgets cuts create real pressure, and clear heads are needed.
Kate Bear
0115 976 6104
kbear@brownejacobson.com
Tags: action for children, child neglect, child protection, local authorities, personal social care budgets, Social Care, social services, social workers
Posted in Local Authorities, Social Care | No Comments »
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
Later today the Government is expected to publish its Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan. The Government’s aim is to bring together the police, CPS, local safeguarding children boards, agencies, independent bodies and the voluntary sector in order to tackle this problem.
Emphasis is to be put on protecting children in care who are four times more likely to be victims of abuse. In order to do this councils will be asked to work together to prevent the trafficking of children within the UK.
These proposals will involve greater information sharing between different organisations and between different Councils. With current concerns regarding data security organisations will need to develop robust policies on what information to share and under what circumstances. These policies will need to strike a careful balance between ensuring that information is kept safe and secure but also that all relevant organisations have the information required to fully address potential exploitation and trafficking.
Kate Bear
0115 976 6104
kbear@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child abuse, child protection, child safeguarding, childrens social care, CPS, sex offences on children, sexual exploitation, sexualisation of children, Social Care
Posted in Education, Social Care | No Comments »
Monday, October 31st, 2011
A judge has ruled that four siblings receive damages after Buckinghamshire County Council’s Social Workers failed to protect them from very serious sexual abuse by their father. The highest award was £155,487; the lowest £12,000.
What makes this case unusual is the large discrepancy between the lowest damages award, and the highest award.
More significant still is the fact that this judge was prepared to find that, although social workers closed the file on 5 June 1993, a duty of care was owed to a child who had not even been conceived. Hampton, J pointed out that the risk posed by the father to “any child” in the family had been established. I do hope this finding is Appealed. If it is allowed to stand it could be the basis of broadening the category of people to whom social workers owe a duty considerably. There simply aren’t the resources to carry out risk assessments anticipating children who aren’t on the scene.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adult safeguarding, child protection, local authorities, Social Care
Posted in Local Authorities, Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement (29 September 2011) that only 60 babies were adopted last year, comes the news that the number of children in care in England has increased to 65,520.
Monitoring these placements is not easy, it involves social workers working with multidisciplinary teams and families to try and work out what is best for each child. We are seeing an increasing number of claims arising out of such placements (and indeed failure to make such placements). To defend each claim we have to read lots of paper and electronic documents. We also need to spend valuable hours with practitioners so that we can explain what Social Work Practice means on the ground, and why decision making is not simple. The amount of time this involves is breathtaking yet quite often the value of the claim relatively low.
Sadly my view is that Social Workers may, like health professionals, have to become used to the idea that giving evidence in professional negligence claims is simply part of the job. Employers can make that change of culture easier by providing regular training and support.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adult safeguarding, child protection, children in care, Claims, local authorities, professional negligence, professional negligence claims, Public Sector, Sarah Erwin-Jones, Social Care, social workers, training social workers
Posted in Professional Indemnity, Public Sector, Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, September 30th, 2011
DofE statistics show that around 4000 babies under the age of one were adopted in 1976 but this fell to 150 in 2007 and was down to just 60 in 2010. This is partly cultural, partly because the process takes over a year and partly because good practice requires social workers to try and keep families together.
Alongside all of this, local authorities are increasingly being asked to pay damages for failing to remove children from inadequate families early enough. Claimant lawyers often argue that delay means their clients have missed an opportunity to be successfully placed with an adoptive family, instead growing up in foster or institutional care. They say this part of the claim alone is worth at least £50,000.
Local authorities take heart – this latest report shows how difficult it is going to be to succeed in these arguments. Three quarters of children in care are placed with foster parents with a remaining 12% in residential accommodation. This suggests that only 10 to 12% are suitable to be even considered for adoption.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adoption, adult safeguarding, child protection, damage claims, fostering, inadequate families, local authorities, Sarah Erwin-Jones, Social Care
Posted in Local Authorities, Social Care | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
Today sees the launch of a consultation on changes to the inspection of local authority children’s services. Ofsted’s announcement flags the “No Notice” element of the scheme and reports that it is proposed inspection will include direct observation of services in action, including interactions with children and families.
Inspection will also consider whether the quality of early help could have prevented the child from entering the child protection system in the first place and the impact of the failure to provide such help might have had on the child.
It doesn’t take much to work out what triggers have prompted these developments, which, it is proposed, will be implemented May 2012. The consultation invites comment, but the closing date for this is very soon; 30 September 2011.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child protection, children's services, local authority, Ofsted, Social Care
Posted in Local Authorities, Social Care | No Comments »
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
In his report following the death of Victoria Climbie, Lord Laming speculated that medical staff felt uncomfortable investigating evidence of deliberate harm to children. He found that when the possibility of non-accidental injury was raised by one doctor, it was often not picked up by others because of poor handover of responsibility.
It was clear to Laming that the quality of information exchange was often poor, systems were crude and information failed to be passed between hospitals in close proximity to each other.
This matches our own experiences dealing with health and social care professionals who have child protection concerns.
The GMC is currently consulting on new guidance that may help clear this up.
The guidance proposes that any doctor who suspects child abuse must raise the alarm immediately and tell parents what action they will be taking. Doctors acting reasonably in response to concerns about abuse or neglect will not be subject to censure. Consultation on the guidance runs until Friday 14 October 2011.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: abuse, child protection, consultation, GMC, Lord Laming, neglect, Victoria Climbie
Posted in Health, Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
The National Policing Improvement Agency has launched a national database which will allow law enforcement agencies to share locally held information nationally.
It was recommended by Lord Bichard as part of his 2004 enquiry into the Soham murders by Ian Huntley and its creation represents a further step forward for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.
In his report, Bichard highlighted the need for centralised, accessible data – eight separate forces held key information about Huntley but it was not pieced together.
The database does not hold new information – all it does is ensure all law enforcement agencies have access to it, not just those local to where the information originated. All forces will now be on an equal footing and agencies including the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre and the Serious Organised Crime Agency can access this ‘soft information’.
The Independent Safeguarding Authority helps prevent unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults, the new database will add an extra layer of protection to this system.
Posted by Dai Durbridge, who specialises safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults in education, social care and health settings; defending claims against education, social care and health providers.
Dai Durbridge
0115 976 6578
ddurbridge@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adult safeguarding, child protection, national database, The National Policing Improvement Agency, vulnerable adults
Posted in Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Over eight years ago I acted on behalf of one of the local authorities involved in the tragic death of Victoria Climbie.
A public enquiry followed, and Lord Laming identified 12 key occasions when the relevant services had opportunity to intervene in Victoria’s life. He went on to say that “… There was plenty of evidence to show that scarce resources were not being put to good use.”
I was therefore disappointed, but not surprised, to read the news report of the review by Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children Board.
It is tough to deliver effective child protection services at times of limited resources, and my heart goes out to the professionals involved in this case.
It goes to show however that in this context, there is a danger that the same problems will arise over and over again. In this case, as in Victoria Climbie’s case, the problems were fundamental; poor record-keeping, ineffective inter-agency information sharing, and key decision-making at too low a level.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com
Tags: adult safeguarding, child protection, child safeguarding, Lard Laming, Victoria Climbie
Posted in Local Authorities, Social Care | No Comments »
Friday, May 27th, 2011
Sharon Shoesmith, the Haringey Children’s Services Director who was sacked in December 2008 after an investigation into the death of baby Peter Connelly found failings in her department, has today in the Court of Appeal won her claim that her sacking was unlawful.
This result will be welcomed by social workers. It highlights the difficult job child protection professionals have. It recognises that in these cases, it is extremely unlikely that one individual can be singled out and blamed, however tempting it may be for politicians in order to placate the media. Making a single individual the scapegoat is both unfair on the individual, and hampers a considered analysis of the issues which do truly arise.
Child protection is multi-agency in nature, usually involving input from schools, health and charitable agencies. The old lazy assumption that any failings must lie at the door of social workers should be consigned to the dustbin of history, and hopefully today’s decision will help to do that.
Posted by Chris Webb-Jenkins, who specialises in defending claims against education and care providers and their insurers; risk management, stress, information management and child protection issues.
Chris Webb-Jenkins
0115 976 6175
cwebb-jenkins@brownejacobson.com
Tags: baby Peter, child protection, children's services, Sharon Shoesmith, social workers
Posted in Local Authorities, Public Sector, Social Care | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Professor Munro has published her final report, reviewing child protection. She recommends, amongst other things, that local areas should have freedom to design their own services and that those working in child protection be given more scope to exercise professional judgment.
She has cautioned against cherry picking parts of her report. We deal with an increasing number of professional negligence claims against children’s services departments. One of the criticisms we often see is an assertion that social workers failed to meet timescales fixed in statutory guidance and policy. One of Professor Munro’s recommendations is that local services should be liberated from nationally prescribed ways of working, and should be free to re-design services.
If these reforms are implemented, it will be interesting to see how practice is benchmarked in future claims against social workers.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child protection, Munro report, professional negligence claims, Professor Munro, social workers
Posted in Social Care | No Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
Child deaths from abuse have fallen dramatically over the past 30 years. This is a testament to the improved understanding, education and practice of social workers working in child protection and comes as a welcome change to the usual onslaught of criticism and mistrust that we see in the press, as evidenced in the Munro Review earlier this year. According to Professor Munro this negative portrayal “undermines public confidence in the profession and puts children at greater risk“. We agree
We have been working closely with education and social care providers for the last 20 years and have seen a recent huge increase in the number of claims made against practitioners for injuries and assaults that were perpetrated by family members. For the most part we have had the pleasure to work with intelligent, committed professionals who want, where possible to keep families together insofar as it is consistent with keeping children safe. They have an incredibly complex and difficult job. It’s good to see their hard work recognised.
Posted by Sarah Erwin-Jones, who specialises in social services, the care sector, education and negotiating legal costs; advises on risk management issues including data protection matters.
Sarah Erwin-Jones
0115 976 6136
serwin@brownejacobson.com@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child abuse, child protection, families, Munro Review, Professor Munro
Posted in Social Care | No Comments »
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
A new report by senior civil servant David Norgrove sets out proposals for a large scale overhaul of the family law system. Prominent within the report is the proposal that grandparents are given legal rights to maintain contact with their grandchildren after a family breakdown or divorce.
The government is keen on this idea, recognising the vital role many grandparents play, but sound child protection practice will require consideration in each case of whether contact with the grandparents will truly benefit the child. In a few instances it will not. Often these matters are not straightforward.
The plans are to make the arrangements through parenting agreements drawn up with the help of a mediator, rather than through potentially confrontational hearings in court. However, these may prove difficult for grandparents to enforce given the reduction in public funding available for family matters.
How good is a right like this if it cannot be enforced?
Laura Richards
0115 908 4886
lrichards@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child protection, David Norgrove, family breakdown, family law, grandparents, Laura Richards, parenting agreements
Posted in Social Care | No Comments »
Monday, February 7th, 2011
In June 2010, the government requested Professor Munro conduct an independent review of child protection procedures in England. Munro concluded that professionals are constrained from keeping a focus on the child by the demands and rigidity created by inspection and regulation.
The current system puts too much emphasis on bureaucracy. Munro makes a series of suggestions to streamline the processes. For example, Working Together to Safeguard Children is 55 times longer than it was in 1974. She wants a shorter manual, containing a clearer set of the core principles and rules. The review is also considering whether, when a child is referred to children’s social care, an existing assessment could be continued, rather than the current system which starts a new bureaucratic process of initial and core assessments.
This is not the first time we have seen this type of recommendation. It is difficult to achieve in reality. A big help will be a government which allows a system to run without frequent tinkering.
Posted by Louise Wilbraham, who specialises in defending child protection claims against local authorities, including class actions; familiar with smaller group and individual cases; undertakes educational and personal injury work.
Louise Wilbraham
0115 976 6552
lwilbraham@brownejacobson.com
Tags: child protection, childrens social care, Professor Munro
Posted in Education, Social Care | No Comments »
