😔

[Alzi]

After just retiring from education, I fully understand that safeguarding is everyone's business and how it works. Unfortunately, I have had to make safeguarding referrals on several occasions. Yes, this tragedy happened during the lockdown and the usual support structure was not in place but, the child's grandmother reported and showed social services pictures of bruises on his back the week before he died and social services failed to act.

I understand that social services are stretched

I've already mentioned further down from the post you quoted that social services are stretched and that they would benefit from extra funding. The question I would like answering though is why didn't they didn't act on the verbal and photographic information supplied by his grandmother.

I wouldn't say my anger is aimed at social services but they do have questions to answer.

We don’t know the specifics but they will deal with 100s of similar referrals every month. Often they do get it right and protect children from abuse (you don’t hear about those cases) but it’s not an exact science and things can me missed, especially when extremely manipulative carers are involved.

 

[Norman_Conquest]

We don’t know the specifics but they will deal with 100s of similar referrals every month. Often they do get it right and protect children from abuse (you don’t hear about those cases) but it’s not an exact science and things can me missed, especially when extremely manipulative carers are involved.

I totally get that and have had to deal with manipulative/parents in the school setting.

 

[Habibi]

The same old **** being rolled out "Lessons must be learnt"

Well I want to know

What lessons were learnt from the tragic death of Daniel Pelka?

What lessons were learnt from the tragic death of Keanu Williams?

What lessons were learnt from the tragic death of Keegan Downer?

What lessons were learnt from the tragic death of Victoria Climbie?

How did we fail poor little Arthur when we have supposedly learnt so many lessons from the tragic deaths that had come before?

It’s a very fair question that you ask. Part of the problem is the messaging of the key learning points from the reviews you mention and so many others reviews . So often these are hidden behind the same old recommendations. How do these translate to frontline practice? A culture of supportive learning is sadly lacking and the blame culture will not encourage better practice. The learning will only be effective if an individual practitioner can relate this to their specific practice. In this case Covid was a wider issue for some agencies in having access to Arthur. That said there were clear missed opportunities and a lack of professional challenge to the information being supplied by Arthur’s carers. Also there needs to be greater consideration to be given to family members who raise concerns which they don’t do easily. No social worker goes to work to do a bad job. They need effective supervision and challenge by managers. Arthur was sadly failed by the system and even sadder is the so many other children who are not in the public domain who have also suffered due to being ‘missing’ from agency sight in the covid period. We must do better

 

[boroboy6872]

Just read the sentencing remarks - Judges remarks

Painful to read

It’s a very fair question that you ask. Part of the problem is the messaging of the key learning points from the reviews you mention and so many others reviews . So often these are hidden behind the same old recommendations. How do these translate to frontline practice? A culture of supportive learning is sadly lacking and the blame culture will not encourage better practice. The learning will only be effective if an individual practitioner can relate this to their specific practice. In this case Covid was a wider issue for some agencies in having access to Arthur. That said there were clear missed opportunities and a lack of professional challenge to the information being supplied by Arthur’s carers. Also there needs to be greater consideration to be given to family members who raise concerns which they don’t do easily. No social worker goes to work to do a bad job. They need effective supervision and challenge by managers. Arthur was sadly failed by the system and even sadder is the so many other children who are not in the public domain who have also suffered due to being ‘missing’ from agency sight in the covid period. We must do better

Can`t disagree with any of the above post
I`m stunned at how easily the Grandmother, Uncle and the murderers Stepfather concerns have been brushed off, considering steps introduced after previous reviews....i.e See the child, listen to the child, hear the child.
You're right it`s not easy for family members to raise this and when they do it needs to be thoroughly assessed, but for the Police to turn round to the Uncle and say "he will be convicted of breaching Covid lockdown rules if he tries to visit the home again", beggars belief