Glasgow needs more foster carers

It is no surprise to read the article in the Daily Record stating that the Glasgow City Council is urgently in need of more foster carers - but not for the reasons which are reported.

It is no surprise because all systems have been set in place via GIRFEC and the standardisation of child procedures across Scotland to allow early interventions (child protection procedures) to be initiated between 28 and 32 weeks of pregnancy. So there are going to be many more babies and young children in the child protection system. It should be noted that babies and young children first need to go to foster carers whilst a case against the mother is formulated and the adoption process is rushed through its course.

See the previous post about the `Right from the start` scoping study which shows how GIRFEC is working in maternity care, pre-birth, and how nurses are celebrating the fact that court orders can be set up pre-birth.

http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/decision-making-on-whether-to-take.html

The Daily Record article is no surprise because the Children`s Minister in Scotland is already on the record as stating that tangible progress in decision making about whether or not to take children into care means there will be a large increase in the proportion of younger children becoming looked after, and the doubling of adoptions from care - always easier for babies.

Aileen Campbell Children`s Minister for Scotland



   Here are snippets from the Daily Record article:.

Councillor Malcolm Cunning, executive member for social care, said: "The contribution that foster carers make to the well-being of children in Glasgow cannot be underestimated.

"We urgently need foster carers and adoptive parents as they play a vital role in supporting the vulnerable children of Glasgow.

"The number of children who need to be cared for by the council shows no sign of easing."

He stressed that more people are now able to become foster parents. [All you need is a spare bedroom]

A fostering agency has opened a new office in Glasgow to try to address the shortage. That is no surprise given the fact that the fostering and adoption business has just received a boost from GIRFEC and the Children`s Minister.

Matt Harrison, Foster Solutions’s regional service manager Scotland, said: "Our doors are open to all and we welcome everyone, whether they are an existing carer or just looking to find out some more information on foster care."

Welcome to GIRFEC and what this really means for the children of Scotland - they are now commodities in a growing industry. See the Daily Record article below:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/urgent-plea-more-foster-parents-3000926

Mental Health Problems?

Angela Harrison, Education correspondent, at BBC News  refers to an article for the  British Medical Journal, in which Simon Nicholas Williams argues that screening pupils for mental health problems as young as seven would mean conditions could be diagnosed and treated earlier. This would prevent more serious social and economic problems developing in adolescence and adulthood, related to crime, unemployment, and suicide. He argues that this would be a more cost effective strategy than dealing with these conditions later.

This reminds me of the Early Years Collaborative and Scottish Minister Aileen Campbell who has said: “I want to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up and give every child the best start in life... Getting it right in the early years is the right thing to do for children and parents. By investing in development from the start, and preventing problems later on, the benefits go beyond families..."

Mr Williams has put another twist on this idea by recommending screening 7 year olds for mental health problems: Get involved with children earlier because it`s cheaper and will prevent serious social problems later. (For which there is not a shred of evidence.)


Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education probably got it right when he said that this new initiative would be more likely to cause children and parents stress and anxiety than solve anything. Then there are the problems of labelling and the social stigma which follows a diagnosis and the fact that psychiatric services have a very poor record of successfully treating anybody with a serious mental illness. It is admitted by Williams in his article that a recent BMJ study suggested that school based cognitive behavioural therapy programmes may not be effective in reducing depressive symptoms. Regardless, he still puts forward his view that schools are the best place to screen for mental health issues and that socially there is much to be gained from that.

It is revealing that NICE has also got involved in the same narrative: The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) estimates that 80,000 children in the UK are now suffering with depression, and some of them are as young as five.

What is remarkable is that NICE arrived at this figure before any screening has taken place in schools, all of which leads me to believe these articles are full of spin.

Will the new bill aid children and young people?

A new bill is being pushed through the Scottish Parliament, The Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. The most interesting parts of the proposed bill are in connection with the named person.

Provisions relating to a ‘named person’ will:

• Place a duty on NHS Boards to allocate every child with a named person from birth to school age
• Place a duty on local authorities to allocate every child with a named person until they are 18 or leave school, whichever is later.
• Oblige all relevant authorities to share information with the named person if it is necessary to safeguard, support and promote the wellbeing of the child.

What this means is that parents will no longer be the guardians of their children`s wellbeing and will lose their right to a private and family life. (Article 8 Human Rights Act). Parents will be snooped on throughout their children`s lives, as will children, so that the authorities can swiftly intervene as they see fit.

Given the collaboratives being built incrementally amongst key professionals at the moment the net closing around families and children is going to be truly suffocating -  and with no opportunity to opt out.


New bill will aid children and young people 


Ms Campbell , Minister for Children and Young people said:

“There is excellent work being done across Scotland to support parents, carers, children and young people. This Bill will improve levels of care and support to children and families across the country through an increase in free and more flexible early learning and childcare from 475 to 600 hours, as well as more joined up services to support the wellbeing of all children and young people through a named person.

• Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill

Early Years Collaborative

Eary intervention or a self fulfilling prophecy ?

The Children and Young People Bill stipulates that there should be a named person overseeing the wellbeing of each child in Scotland for the first 18 years of life, ready to spot concerns at an early stage. The role of the named person will be to mobilise services and instigate early interventions. The child plan will be preventative rather than reactionary. One of the ideas behind the proposal is that health issues and social problems such as criminality, substance abuse, unemployment and the like can be identified potentially in children as young as three, and therefore the most effective way of reducing the overall cost to society is to target the child and family early. No longer is the family to be seen as the lynchpin of society but rather the breeding ground for all social ills.

It is not difficult to see stereotyping at work in these ideas which tend to produce cultures of blame and oppress the poor.  Perhaps all totalitarian regimes begin by finding a scapegoat.  Be that as it may, this is social engineering on a massive scale and there is no evidence to show that surveillance of a whole country will produce the results claimed by the Scottish Government because nowhere has the experiment ever been done quite like this before. It is also rather simplistic because social problems tend to have social, cultural and economic causes.

Moreover, there are organisations such as AIMS (Association for Improvements in Maternity Services) who have experienced the devastating effects of child protection work on public health. HERE. Given the role of the named person to assess potential harm and the underlying philosophy of blame there is no doubt that many families will come to see the named person as a hostile agent of the state. As AIMS has noted when parents come under the scrutiny of critical health visitors and social workers there is a tendency for families to pull up the drawbridge and go on the defensive. Parents will not take the child to the doctor out of fear of being blamed for the accident. Mothers with the `baby blues` will hide it from the health visitor because mental health issues can result in removal of the baby. The stress caused to families and their children by child protection interventions can last for years even when children are not taken away.

There is another issue which is quite alarming when considering the targeting of young children as future extremists, benefit scroungers and criminals, and that is the phenomenon known as a `self-fulfilling prophecy`. For an example see the Association for Psychological Science  Make negative comments about a child often enough and the child will start to believe them. Produce those negative attributions from a number of sources and the effects are cumulative. Under the GIRFEC scheme there will be no escape, regardless of whether or not the assessment was fair; data will be collected by the named person. It matters little how sensitively the intervention is handled; the same data will be collated, shared and follow the child for the next eighteen years. The idea of making a fresh start,  turning a new leaf,  getting a break from it all, will be no more. I would not wish the enormous impact of that on any child.

Early Years Collaborative
The Early Years Collaborative involves social services, health, education, police and third sector professionals beginning to work together to improve Scotland`s wider society and economy by investing in child development from the start and preventing future problems. So says the Scottish Government following the European guidelines. That a whole country`s problems have been reduced to childcare in the early years is truly staggering. Isn`t Europe collapsing under the impact of corrupt banks?

So here are the distractors/collaborators: a Coalition of Community Planning Partners, all working together on this very ambitious project which starts with such humble beginnings: invest in child development. It is surprising that the police have anything to contribute towards reducing stillbirths or reaching targets for the developmental milestone of toddlers. Did they manage to achieve a shared vision with health and education?  

But where are the parents and grandparents? Ah! they are the ones who are going to be the recipients of the collaborators` expertise and their early interventions. Makes sense that they shouldn`t be involved I suppose. After all we live in a democracy, don`t we?

From the Scottish Government Website

News

Listen

Early Years Collaborative  HERE

24/01/2013

More than 750 early years experts will - for the first time - gather in Glasgow today to help make Scotland the best place to grow up.
The Early Years Collaborative - a coalition of Community Planning Partners, including social services, health, education, police and third sector professionals - will start to work towards three ambitious aims to improve children’s start in life:

• By end 2015, reduce the rate of stillbirths and infant mortality by 15 per cent;
• By end 2016, ensure that 85 per cent of all children in each Community Planning Partnership meet all expected developmental milestones at the child’s 27-30 month child health review;
• By end 2017, ensure that 90 per cent of all children in each Community Planning Partnership have reached all expected developmental milestones by the time the child starts primary school.

The new approach to better support children and families, has attracted interest from America and Europe and will enable experts to learn, share and work together to the benefit of local communities.

Children and Young People Minister Aileen Campbell said:
“I want to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up and give every child the best start in life. Today marks the start of a new and ambitious approach to early intervention and investment in our children and families.

“Getting it right in the early years is the right thing to do for children and parents. By investing in development from the start, and preventing problems later on, the benefits go beyond families to Scotland’s wider society and economy”...