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child protection

children

A tragedy wait
Budget cuts are leading to higher thresholds for safeguarding cases, endangering children and putting great stress on social workers. Judy Cooper reports on practitioners mounting alarm
m afraid these children will have to remain in animal-soiled beds, with hunger in their bellies, being abused by adults who are meant to care for them, crying themselves to sleep at night in fear and desperation because nobody will recognise how sad their little lives are due to a lack of money. These are the words of Denise*, a newly qualified social worker who responded to Community Cares child protection survey. The survey revealed that 82% of the 170 social workers who responded believe child protection thresholds have increased in the last year. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of those who said thresholds had increased say this is the result of budget cuts, with 60% of respondents reporting pressure to reclassify

edited by Judy Cooper judy.cooper@rbi.co.uk

InsIde thIs seCtIon 20 Support for young runaways in Scotland 21 Good managers are crucial to child protection
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Social workers will feel like the children theyre trying to protect believing theres no hope and no point
child protection cases as children-in-need cases to save money. While most councils claim they are protecting child protection services from cuts, frontline social workers say this is being undermined by cuts to early intervention and administrative support. Our children-in-need budget was slashed by 50% overnight, explains one social worker. Removal of reception staff means phones are going unanswered and messages left unchecked for weeks at a time. For a child protection team this is dangerous, adds another. Many social workers told Community Care that cuts to local domestic violence, drug and alcohol services are increasing referrals to them. Ali*, a child protection assessment team social worker in the East Midlands, says her team has already had to stop taking new referrals because it is overloaded, leaving other childrens services teams, such as those

Carespace debate on proposals to Munro Review, www.communitycare.co.uk/ munrodebate co.uk/

COMMUNITYcare

Working with Highly Resistant Parents 11 May, Birmingham, www. communitycare conferences.co.uk/

CONFERENCES

For more information on the evidencebased article Problematic Parental Drug Use, email kim.poupart@rbi.co.uk

in looked-after children, and agency workers to handle new cases. No long-term solution has been proposed. Managers in some teams are resorting to bullying and threatening behaviour to get social workers to toe the line, says Jane*, a child protection social worker in London. In one meeting we were basically told that if we didnt like it, there was the door. There were unqualified workers holding caseloads and making unsafe referrals. We had cases being picked up three weeks after a referral had been made. There were no social workers to deal with children-in-need cases, so they would go to a family support worker. But if a family doesnt engage, a support worker will simply close the case whereas a social worker will think that that is actually a concerning sign. I was starting to feel more and more incompetent as a social worker. Ali agrees: What none of the policies on cuts take into account is the effect increased workloads will have on the emotional health of social workers. They will start feeling like the children they are trying to protect believing theres no hope and no point. Many in social care are hoping that Professor Eileen Munros soon-to-be published review into child protection will help tackle these issues. But she faces an uphill battle. Munro has already indicated that social workers need to spend more time reflecting on their practice to improve their decisionmaking skills. But this requires social workers to have lower caseloads to enable them to spend more time with families, and as one social worker told Community Care, at the moment, decisions are expected after only a 10-minute visit to a family. Meanwhile, Denise says she is considering leaving child protection due to the massive pressure on her to hold too many high-risk cases. It is only a matter of time before something serious and avoidable happens on my patch. The only way to make children safe is to increase early intervention and the number of social workers, and that boils down to money, she says. * Names have been changed.
See news, pages 4-5

www.communitycare.co.uk 14 April 2011

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