Powerful piece (£) in The Spectator this week by Matthew Parris on the Rotherham foster care scandal. Mr Parris was angry (as was I) by the Labour Council leader's response: ‘We are looking to make sure all the correct procedures were carried out before the decision was made.’ Mr Parris says: Oh what a bleak, […]
The Local Government Association have responded to the Rotherham foster care scandal with this statement in the name of Cllr David Simmonds, Chairman of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board, said: "Councils are committed to placing children in loving homes where they are safe and secure. We welcome with open arms people […]
Give me a student undertaking a three year social work degree, consisting of the most unadulterated Marxist rubbish, and I will give you a social worker who puts their warped ideology ahead of the interests of those they are paid to serve. There are 22,050 children's social workers in England. Nobody can join them without […]
On October 12th 2010 Laura Wilson, 17-year-old single mother in Rotherham was murdered by Ashtiaq Asghar. She was stabbed and thrown into a canal. She had been a victim of sexual grooming and was killed for informing her abusers families of the sexual relationships. Social workers on the council knew she was at risk but […]
There is a chilling account in the Daily Telegraph of children being removed from foster carers by Rotherham Council. The foster carers were doing an "exemplary" job and the three ethnic minority children were thriving. However the social workers discovered that the couple were supporters of UKIP, and on those grounds the children were removed. […]
Adoption Week took place from November 5-11. Among the messages to encourage people to come forward was to attack the "myths" that those who are white or above a certain age would be turned down. The problem is that all too frequently those encouraged to then apply discover that these aren't myths. In their case, […]
In a speech to the IPPR think tank last week, the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, spoke about the terrible delays that routinely take place before children facing abuse or neglect are taken into care. He also spoke about, what is perhaps an even worse scandal, the children then being returned, often repeatedly to their families, […]
If you were a paedophile what would be your perfect job? That's right – working for a local authority children's home. In recognition of this, various box ticking safeguards are offered. However, while these represent a nuisance and an insult to the innocent, they are ineffective in stopping culprits. Jimmy Savile would have passed a […]
I generally find that policy papers from think tanks have more credibility than reports from select committees of MPs. First of all a think tank report is usually written by an individual – which at least gives it a chance of being intellectually coherent. A report by a committee, especially a cross party committee, tends […]
Last month I wrote about the disgraceful opposition from three charities to the Government's proposals to help more children in care be placed for adoption. Decisions by the social workers and the courts are supposed to be made with the interests of the individual child paramount. Sadly, too frequently this is not the reality due […]
The Macpherson Report, which investigated the Metropolitan Police over their response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, defined "institutional racism" as: "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes […]
The news is not quite as bad as it sounds. The number of "Looked After Children", in other words children in care, has increased. As of the end of March the total was 67,050. That is 2% more than a year earlier. Each of these cases is a complicated personal tragedy. However, some of the […]
The Government is consulting on proposals to reduce red tape for foster carers. Often Conservatives think of cutting burdensome bureaucracy as something relevant to business or private individuals. Yet those working for the public sector are all to well aware of it as well. This includes the 37,000 foster carers in this country. Foster carers […]
There was a disgraceful letter (£) to The Times published on Wednesday. Written by Andrew Flanagan (CEO, NSPCC) Natasha Finlayson (CEO, The Who Cares? Trust) Robert Tapsfield (CEO, The Fostering Network) it included: It is critical the Government does not put a desire to increase the number of adoptive parents ahead of thinking how best […]
Localism means that different councils will respond differently to the Troubled Families Initiative. Their financial rewards are for succeeding – how they succeed is their business. Under the Troubled Families programme, the Department for Communities and Local Government will pay upper-tier local authorities up to £4,000 per eligible family on a payment-by-results basis, if they […]