It is not necessarily in the best interests of vulnerable children to leave them with with their parents, says Martin Narey, head of the charity Barnardo.

Anonymous Wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4332865/More-neglected-children-should-be-ta ken-from-their-parents.html

More neglected children should be taken from their parents
It is not necessarily in the best interests of vulnerable children to
leave them with with their parents, says Martin Narey.

By Martin Narey
24 Jan 2009

I recently spent time with some remarkable Barnardo's staff who were
working with mothers whose children had been taken into care. They
were, on behalf of the local authority, assessing the mothers'
competence and motivation to resume parental care. It was clear that
the welfare of the child was the overwhelming consideration of my
staff. But, nevertheless, the optimum solution was for natural parents
and child to be reunited.
I heard of one family whose care had been scandalously neglectful. In
foster care, the children were beginning to do well: their health had
begun to improve and they were, for the first time in many months,
attending school. But the whole direction of statutory and voluntary
sector effort, it seemed, was directed at whether the family could be
fixed. In time, that would probably involve the children returning to
a home which might again descend into inadequacy and neglect. Why
would we want to take that risk? Why would we expose a child to the
possibility of further neglect?
One reason is that we despair of putting children in care. The
philosophy is that we should do everything possible to deflect
children from the dreadful consequences of being looked after.
Regrettably I have contributed to that. Shortly after I arrived at
Barnardo's from running the Prison and Probation Services, and after
meeting so many prisoners who had been in care, I spoke scathingly
about its inadequacy. Three years on, I regret having been so
simplistic. I knew little of the challenges facing local authorities
and I was yet to recognise the very high calibre and commitment of
those who lead children's services. The predictable and opportunistic
castigation of the men and women dedicated to this task leaves me
nauseous.
In fact my then, rather glib, dismissal of local authority effort
matched the orthodoxy about children in care – that, particularly in
the voluntary sector, being in care and more particularly being in
residential as opposed to foster care, is always the worst possible
choice.
In 1981 there were 92,000 children in care, two thirds of whom
(58,000) were in orphanages. The cost of caring for so many in that
way was unsustainable and when a number of high profile abuse scandals
brought these mammoth institutions into disrepute they began to close
and the voluntary sector rapidly abandoned residential care. By March
of 2008, there were many fewer children in care (about 64,000), and
only 10 per cent in residential homes. Such a transformation was a
triumph.
Tasked by Beverley Hughes in 2007 to see whether we might further
reduce the numbers in care, and despite being keen to do so, I found
it hard to deliver. I was challenged by troubled social workers, who
whispered to me in tones which suggested they were struggling with the
guilt of heresy, that the best outcomes for many children would often
be much speedier separation from inadequate parents followed by early
adoption. Eventually I concluded that there were as many arguments for
taking more children into care as there were for getting more children
out of care.
It is important not to overreact in the aftermath of Baby P's tragic
death, the horror of Shannon Matthews's dreadful childhood or the
recent concerns over Doncaster.
But I wonder whether we need to reassess our approach to care, and to
residential care in particular. The orthodoxy that says that care is
always to be avoided but that when it is resorted to, care needs to
mean foster care, leaves me feeling very nervous.
I recently had lunch with some foster carers. They were remarkable
people. But I fear that we sometimes pursue fostering long after it
has ceased to be the best outcome in terms of stability. I met one
carer who for two years has persisted with a young girl who –
shamefully – had suffered 41 previous placements. What are we thinking
of?
And on a visit to one of the handful of small homes Barnardo's still
runs, I met an 11-year old-boy. On the autistic spectrum, and with
challenging behaviour, he was beginning to thrive in a caring unit
where there were enough staff to cope with him. But he was about to
move to his thirteenth foster placement. Staff told me he might last
six weeks; he lasted four. Yet again, he was too much for willing
carers. Is such a case an exception? Certainly not.
We need to have an honest debate about the potential for residential
care, not based on the failures of the past, but on the possibilities
for the future. The reality is that when the wake of Baby P has
disappeared we shall return to a status quo where social workers who
intervene to remove children from parents face vilification. The
emphasis is – too much in my view – on fixing families. Social workers
cannot continue to be vilified when that fixing breaks down, sometimes
tragically.
Martin Narey is chief executive of Barnardo's. This is an abridged
version of an article to appear in the next issue of 'Public Policy
Research', the journal of the IPPR think tank.