A Highland Council official who drew up a controversial national strategy that gives every child in Scotland a named person said those who do not suport it have misconstrued his plan. Head of care and learning Bill Alexander said concerns by campaigners who claim it contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights were misguided.
Mr Alexander said it had proven to work well for children.
"We have fewer children being reported to the Children’s Reporter, we have fewer children on the Child Protection Register, we have fewer children offending. And we had an inspection by the Care Inspectorate in November and December where we got the highest grades out of any local authority in Scotland."
http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/News/Named-person-scheme-protects-children-council-chief-claims-09072014.htmMr Alexander goes on to say that with named persons in place bureaucracy has been reduced and that help for a child in need just happens. Given the amount of data being collected by named persons for every child in the Highland Council it is ridiculous that he should think so. Now one in five children in the Highland Council have a child plan HERE. As far as named persons circumventing the Children`s Reporter system and the Child Protection Register is concerned, perhaps Mr Alexander needs to think again. The Children`s Hearing system provides safeguards for children and families because cases are scrutinised by three lay people who are independent of the local authority and who use their common sense. Remove that, and children and families are at the mercy of named persons and their local authority partners who are encouraged to collaborate. Professionals, who are allowed to use their hunches and intuitions, do get it wrong.
See the following article which contradicts some of Mr Alexander`s findings, admittedly dated earlier. https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/uncategorized/26297/fears-of-north-abuse-surge/
It is worth re-reading this article from the Daily Mail (2009) in which Liz Davies, Senior Lecturer in Children's and Family Social Work at London Metropolitan University, talks to Eileen Fairweather. She criticises Lord Laming for his reforms in England and Wales which meant social workers were spending about 80% of their time with a mountains of paperwork rather than working with clients.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls ordered Laming's latest report following Baby P's death. It confirmed the crisis in child protection work. But it does not admit the Government's earlier 'reforms', based on Laming's recommendations, are to blame.
Laming was first asked to overhaul social services after the death of Victoria Climbié in 2000.
His report recommended the abolition of the Child Protection Register, and helped the then Children's Minister, Margaret Hodge, launch her controversial Every Child Matters agenda. This called for database profiling of all children, switching the emphasis from protecting endangered children to monitoring all children and providing 'family support'.
With a 30-year career in child protection, I know the register has been invaluable in flagging up those at grave risk. But it was wound down last April. The database replacing it aims to log intimate details about all children. Social workers say vulnerable children are now lost like needles in a haystack.It looks familiar but thankfully Every Child Matters was scrapped. What is wrong with the Scottish Parliament and its Care Inspectorate that nobody can see the dangers and apply the same logic to GIRFEC and the named person?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1179751/Why-soon-new-Baby-P-scandal--woman-tried-warn-danger.html#ixzz37uY7QCiB
I'm afraid the Every Child Matters is still very much on the go. It was re-branded as Helping Children Achieve More by the Coalition but :
ReplyDelete"These were just the big, public changes. It later emerged that an internal DfE memo was sent out after the general election specifying the new terminology that civil servants should use under the coalition. Instead of referring to “children’s trusts”, officials were supposed to talk about “local areas, better, fairer services”. Before the election, the department’s aim was that “England should be the best place in the world for children to grow up”. After 11 May 2012, it was to “make Britain the most family friendly place in Europe”. Perhaps most significantly, the “five outcomes” and Every Child Matters were replaced by “help children achieve more”.
In fact, although the terminology and titles had changed, in Whitehall much else stayed the same. The sprawling social policy empire created for Ed Balls when the Department for Children, Schools and Families was set up in 2007, with responsibilities for everything from schools and children’s centres to “families with multiple problems”, domestic violence and youth services, remains intact.
And that was exactly how it was planned, and privately briefed to journalists, in the run-up to the 2010 general election. The Conservatives were keen to get on with their school reforms and so did not want the distraction of a big departmental reorganisation. But there was to be a change in emphasis. The children’s agenda would not be publicly scrapped, but it would disappear from the foreground."
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6241724
Sorry, also meant to leave this link which is from around the same time:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slideshare.net/kiechelle/every-child-matters-17057561
Interestingly, the end of the presentation shows ECM as applied to a college where the Every Child Matters agenda has now become Every Citizen Matters.
- well worth googling
There are countless online examples of ECM in action currently...
I`m glad you brought this up. I hope the `No to Named Persons` campaign will succeed in their attempt to overthrow the named person provision in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act as illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights. Unfortunately that will not be the end of the matter, even if successful. As I see it at the moment, there is an agenda that will not be shaken off easily.
ReplyDeleteI`m planning to have a look at the links over the weekend. Thanks.
Just looked at `Social Care Institute for Excellence:`
ReplyDelete`Think child, think parent, think family`
http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/ataglance/ataglance09.asp
"Practitioners need to: routinely identify families with a parent with a mental health problem, involve them in the screening process as much as possible, and put them in touch with the right services, and reassure parents that identifying a need for support is a way of avoiding rather than precipitating child protection measures "
(Looks like forced help with menaces)
"Organisations need to develop new systems and tools (or customise existing ones) to routinely collect information about families and record the data for future use."
(updated 2014)
"
(updated 2014)