Nov
24
2008

The Baby P aftermath

I was just listening to the news and they stated that there has been an increase in the amount of children removed into care since the end of the Baby P trial – about a 30% increase.

This I am not surprised by. I spent part of my morning in a child protection meeting trying to plan what is going to happen to one of my clients when she has her baby. Whereas before the media reaction to Baby P (in my professional opinion) there was little interest in my client other than the usual, “oooo we must monitor” blah blah blah, suddenly we are all being railroaded into a very heavy-handed approach to child protection. I sat in this meeting and by the end of it I had been channeled in the direction of considering residential rehab for mother and baby… at an extortionate cost. Money that we don’t have, and if social services want to go down this route then they can fork out for it.

It just seems to me that instead of being measured in responses and considering families on a case by case basis everything suddenly is blown out of proportion. I understand it and yet it makes me quite cross. We fight and fight to get appropriate services to support clients and yet the minute something terrible happens they aren’t even given the option of trying to be a good parent. I have no doubt that under that much scrutiny many parents would make monumental mistakes.

I am not sure we will get any balanced response in the next few months. The icing on the cake was the suggestion (however “unsaid” it was) that I was being unprofessional in suggesting that my client should be given the opportunity to parent before she is cast in a negative light.

In my experience, I just can’t win!

1 Comment »

  • Will residential rehab be cheaper than foster care, bounce back to mum, foster care again, hopefully permanently with mum again but then special needs services for child when they reach school?

    Comment | November 25, 2008

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