Who Really Cares For Children?

I listened to part of a course the other day. It was a course about improving children and parent’s involvement and understanding of child protection conferences.

Basically it seemed to be about encouraging social workers to consider innovative ways to show a child’s engagement in the conference as well as facilitating social workers’ understanding of the impact of trauma on parents. The result of which meant that parents were unable to retain information relating to the concerns of professionals and the contents of the child protection plan after the conference.

As with most training for social workers the main thrust of the ideas shared related to workers being more empathic, finding better ways of extending themselves further and working more effectively with their clients.

It occurred to me whilst listening to the presentation that there was a central theme that was absent from the discussion. A theme that was perpetually overlooked and yet was so imperative to the whole debate about how to improve the service offered to children and families.

When you look at any business or service, the goods or outcome produced are made via the use of machinery. Without the machinery being operated properly and being kept in good working order, production would be affected and or the quality of output reduced.

....Well in the world of safeguarding vulnerable children or people, social workers and care staff are the machinery and equipment necessary to safeguard children and promote their wellbeing and growth.

But social workers and those caring for others are not machines, they are living, breathing, sentient beings. Indeed, it is their capacity to feel and understand what others feel and experience which enables them to be effective as social workers and carers.

Yet it is precisely their human quality and feelings which are neglected when they are treated, I would argue, worse than machinery.

To use the analogy of a car, social workers are the vehicles used to ensure vulnerable children and adults achieve safety and healthy outcomes. But like all vehicles they break down if not serviced regularly and properly maintained.

If it is necessary to service and adequately maintain machinery, how much more essential is it to care for the people entrusted with the huge responsibility of caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our society?

How can we say as a society we care about children and yet constantly neglect to address the reality of the situation concerning their care?

The system which has been held together with sticky tape for years, as a result of the heroic efforts, blood, sweat and tears of social workers and carers, is buckling and on the verge of collapse.

When a child known to Children’s Services dies at the hands of a parent or caregiver, we blame and criticise social workers, as if the total responsibility for the child’s life was theirs, and then we hear those sad and all too familiar words: “this must never be allowed to happen again and lessons need to be learned.”

But the question I would ask is: “who is it that needs to learn the lesson?”

It seems that - as is so often the case - it is precisely those who most need to learn the lesson, who are perpetually not listening! ?