Liz Davies

Vernon Quaintance trial

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:46:59 +0100

http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Croydon-circumcision-campaigner-caught-child-porn/story-15866127-detail/story.html

Vernon Quaintance has been convicted. He was head of the Gilgal Society a group which supported the practice of male circumcision.

www.norm-uk.org is a group which campaigns against the practice of male circumcision and their website provides a wide range of information about this.

Phil Frampton: article about his childhood

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:36:22 +0100

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129073/Phil-understood-mother-abandoned-Only-unearthed-doomed-love-bigotry-decision.html

This article, by journalist Eileen Fairweather, describes Phil’s search for information about his birth mother and the brutal circumstances in which he was separated from her care.

My comment regarding the proposed drastic reduction of the statutory child protection guidance Working Together

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:00:15 +0100

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/28/03/2012/118112/fear-over-plans-to-slaughter-child-protection-guidance.htm

It seems that the Committee responsible for the revision of Working Together guidance has reduced this document from 390 pages and a number of supplements to just 60 pages and rumour has it that it may even be further reduced to just 10 pages. The release of the consultation document has been delayed until May.

This guidance was first published in 1988 and there have been numbers of revisions which extended the guidance based on the findings of serious case reviews and research (1991, 1999, 2006 and 2010). The guidance provides national consistency in policy and practice and forms the basis of local protocols. I remember the late 70s and early 80s when there was no such guidance and practice varied widely across authorities and different agencies making the protection of children very difficult indeed.

The guidance is detailed but it needs to be because protecting children is a complex and skilled process. Many practitioners who refer to this document cannot access child protection training and supervision and they rely on the information provided.

Eileen Munro in her review cited the need for a reduction in bureaucractic procedures and more emphasis on professional judgement. However, she was in the main referring to the assessment procedures and made little reference to the multi agency investigation of child abuse. She made reference to an article by Professor Nigel Parton which provided a historical overview of the working together guidance and made reference to the increase in length of the document over the years. He recommended a pocket version for practitioners and an easily navigable web version. He did not recommend changes to the investigative protocols.

A page cutting exercise by civil servants under government directive will have very serious consequences for the safety of vulnerable children. There must be every effort made to challenge this development.

Protecting Our Children

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:05:27 +0000

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/1115564/bbc-social-work-film-prompts-calls-early-police-support/

This is a summary of an article written by Mark Williams Thomas and myself in criticism of the BBC documentary about social work.

CEOP advice link for young people: with short film

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:41:20 +0000

http://ceop.police.uk/missing/Young-people/My-Choice/

LETTER IN GUARDIAN 15th NOVEMBER 2011

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:29:50 +0000

• Your article (Nurse jailed for killing baby by force-feeding through jug, 12 November) noted that, although Diamond was taken to see doctors, she was not on the “at risk” register. Diamond was born mid-2009, more than a year after the child protection register had been abolished – so there was no register for her name to be on. After April 2008, vulnerable and abused children no longer gained the protection that was so effectively afforded by this specialist and high-status multi-agency protocol.

Very few children who died from abuse had gained the protection of this protocol. Like Victoria Climbié they had often been defined as children in need of services but not in need of protection from harm. There was no co-ordinated child protection plan to keep them safe.

Professor Eileen Munro, in her recent review of child protection, did not mention this cornerstone of good practice and saw no need to recommend the introduction of a national “signposting” service. However, Waltham Forest Local Safeguarding Children Board, in the serious case review relating to the death of Diamond, quite rightly recommend that Munro should revisit child protection protocols and their impact on the quality of investigation and risk assessment. The return of the child protection register should have been a clear priority of the Munro review. The register enabled a proportionate multi-agency professional focus on children identified as at high risk of harm. It also provided an essential alarm system to the emergency services which is now so often lacking. If Diamond’s name had indeed been on the child protection register, professionals would have been working within a strict formal process which had been tried and tested over many years, and this may well have saved her life.
Dr Liz Davies
Reader in child protection, London Metropolitan University

Child migrants website - Scottish children sent to Canada

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:32:41 +0000

http://content.iriss.org.uk/goldenbridge/exhibition/think.html

This website traces the history of the child migrants from scotland children’s homes to Canada.

on of Children

Children were migrated to Canada between 1869 and 1939
Small numbers were migrated before and after these dates
100,000 children were migrated to Canada from the United Kingdom
10,000 of these came from Scotland
Quarrier’s homes migrated 7,000 children
11% of today’s Canadian population are descended from home children [child migrants]

Perry Snow, clinical psychologist, explains the eugenics arguments for and against migration:

“The British organisation regarded them [the migrant children] as a valuable exportable, breeding stock that could improve the quality of the Canadian gene pool. At the same time they did not want them in England [sic] because they believed that they were tainted by their family origins. Canadians welcomed them only as cheap labour, but believed that these children carried inherited physical and moral deficiencies.”

It cost £15 to send a child to Canada - a one off cost. It cost £13 per annum to keep a child in care.

SERIOUS CASE REVIEW CHILD W ' DIAMOND'

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:33:00 +0000

Diamond died age 10 months in the London Borough of Waltham Forest in March 2010.

Her mother had force fed her and was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of her daughter in October 2011. The Review clearly exposed that the child protection enquiries had been subsumed as part of the core assessment process which had an impact on the quality of the child protection investigation and risk assessment. The ICS system of recording impacted on the case because there was a lack of chronology particularly linking the history of Diamond to that of a sibling.

The health visiting service, where there was no longer an 8 month check applied universally, and the lack of a personal health visitor highlights the impact of cuts in this essential service which endanger vulnerable abused children. Also when there is a child protection enquiry the lack of access to the child’s health record, which is now personally held by the parent, interferes with the ability to analyse the detail of the case.

There were three Section 47 strategy meetings but no minutes of any of these were available to the review. There was a lack of emphasis on interviews with the older children and a lack of forensic focus.. the police CAIT team also came under criticism. The SCR team advise that Munro is asked to revisit the importance of child protection investigation given the emphasis in policy on child in need assessment protocols.

The Guardian reported (12.11.2011 p9) that Diamond, although taken to see doctors, was not on the ‘at risk’ register. The child protection register (it hadn’t been called the at risk ’ register for many years) was abolished before Diamond was born. How could her name had been on the non-existant register? WHEN WILL THE GOVERNMENT LISTEN AND RESTORE THE MOST IMPORTANT AND EFFECTIVE CHILD PROTECTION PROTOCOL - THE CHILD PROTECTION REGISTER? Munro in her review did not mention the word Register at all. She included in her report an Appendice about the need for a National ‘Signposting’ Service concluding that she saw no need for it. If Diamond’s name had been on a register she may well have gained effective multi agency protection. The GP would have been included in a skilled and specialist forum and information would have been collated and analysed enabling a proteciton plan to be made. Research has shown that where such plans are in place children rarely die from abuse.

The review highlights the need for staff to undertake training in child protection specifically in Section 47 investigation of significant harm (Children Act 1989). Sadly these courses, once routine in authorities, are now rarely in place. But some of us have been pointing this out for a long time.

http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/larger/2011_10_21_executive_summary_child_w_v4_-_final.pdf

Stuart Syvret loses appeal.Please contact your MP

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:57:00 +0000

Stuart lost his appeal yesterday and he has asked that UK campaigners should contact their MPs to request their support of John Hemming’s early day motion.

Two main websites for Jersey care leavers ;

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/

http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/

EARLY DAY MOTION

Mr. Hemmings EDM. (2370)

“That this House notes the imprisonment of Stuart Syvret; believes that the public authorities of the island of Jersey do not operate in a manner compliant with the requirements of the European Commission of Human Rights(ECHR), there being overt and significant overlaps and contaminations between the legislature, executive and judiciary; further notes that Her Majesty’s subjects in Jersey are not protected by effective checks and balances, and that there has been the political repression of former Chief Police Officer, Graham Power and former Senator Stuart Syvret; further notes that, notwithstanding the responsibility the Secretary of State for Justice has for good governance and Convention Rights in Jersey, the island’s authorities are permitted to repress opposition activists, and that the Secretary of State for Justiceand Jersey’s Lieutenant Governor have failed to act; further notes that successive governments of the United Kingdom have committed this nation to securing real democratic freedoms and the rule of law in other jurisdictions, yet in the British enclave of Jersey on the United Kingdom’s very doorstep, ordinary powerless people are oppressed by an entrenched oligarchy; and calls on the Secretary of State for Justice to appoint an independent Commission similar to that which investigated corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands, to investigate the conduct of Jersey’s public administration and to urgently bring the protections of the ECHR to Her Majesty”

IMPRISONMENT OF STUART SYVRET IN JERSEY

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:12:39 +0000

Stuart Syvret, former Senator in Jersey was jailed for ten weeks on Wednesday 2nd November 2011.

He has always supported the survivors in Jersey and has spent many years exposing the exploitation of children on the island. Messages of support should be sent to:

Stuart Syvret (K Wing)
HMP La Moye
Rue Baal
St Brelade
JE38HQ

US child protection policy and increase in child abuse

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:33:04 +0100

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/world-us-canada-15288865

This is an excellent link to a series of short dvds about child abuse in the US.

Conrtibutions from paediatricians, police and other professionals highlight failures in policy from which the UK must learn

Children used in drug trials: link to programme

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 07:47:42 +0100

It was on RTE Prime Time Thu 6. Oct 2011 Infant Drug Trials in Mother & Baby Homes and the Institutions. RTE Player. http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1115764

Prime Time - 6th October 2011

The founding principle of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was a   promise to “cherish all children of the nation equally”. One wonders what the   executed leaders of that rebellion would make of the fact that the greatest   stains on our nation’s short history have been related to how the State and   its instruments have treated the children who have needed its help most.
The church-related child abuse scandals, along with the stories of how   children in State care were treated, brought with them a shock, a revulsion   and a collective shame that has left an indelible mark on the more recent   pages of Irish history. It is no coincidence that these revelations only came   to light decades after they took place, such was the level of power within   society and the ability to foster secrecy wielded by the perpetrators. If   cherishing all children equally was to be a fundamental pillar of the new   independent Irish Republic, it was one which crumbled rapidly in the decades   that followed the founding of the State. Indeed, if you were a child born   outside of wedlock during that period, being cherished or treated as equally   as your counterparts born to married parents was as farfetched a notion as one   could imagine.
The inner workings of Ireland’s notorious mother and baby   homes have been well-documented in the past twenty years or so; these were   places where unmarried pregnant women were sent to be kept out of sight, to   reduce the shame on their families and to atone for their committed sins. In   effect, they were prisoners, sentenced to penal servitude, worked hard   (sometimes even up until such a point as they were in labour) and, after they   gave birth, very little time was wasted in taking their baby from their arms   and adopting them out to married couples, often in America. The fruits of   these women’s labours were often a lucrative source of income for the   religious orders running the institutions, both figuratively and literally. In   many cases, prior to adoption, babies were used as test subjects by   pharmaceutical companies who were trialling new vaccines. It can go without   saying that these trials were carried out without the consent of the mother,   whose incarceration in these homes robbed them of so many basic human rights.   In a full-length film on tonight’s Prime Time, Katie Hannon investigates just   how wide-spread this practise was; speaking to those on whom these experiments   were carried out and examining the level of complicity of Ireland’s   authorities. In addition to this, Prime Time discloses shocking new   revelations about an outrageous and ghastly practise within the mother and   baby homes that has until now remained hidden from the public, and even from   those affected by it.

Helpline Information

Adoption Rights Alliance:
www.adoptionrightsalliance.com
info@adoptionrightsalliance.com
086-1267566 Open Now
(Normal Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00-13:00)

A Little Lifetime Foundation, (formerly Isands):
www.alittlelifetime.ie
01-8726996
24 hours a day until October 13th

NUI Galway:
Tel: 091-492 180
anatomy@nuigalway.ie

Royal

TCD

UCD

Phil Frampton writes about the need for a return to larger children's homes

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 07:45:00 +0100

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/07/10/2011/117581/larger-childrens-homes-would-help-keep-siblings-together.htm

Interviewing children - good practice in Sweden

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:00:18 +0100

The link is to an article in Community Care that was published in the magazine on the 8th September. I write about the child protection excellent system in Sweden and other parts of Scandanavia and provide a critique of the UK systems of child abuse investigation as they are currently implemented.

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/04/09/2011/117389/Interviewing-children-good-practice-in-Sweden.htm

Pembrokeshire child abuse Inquiry report August 2011

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:57:27 +0100

‘Joint investigation into the handling and management of the allegations of professional abuse and the arrangements for safeguardng and protecting children in education services in Pembrokeshire County Council’ August 2011.

This report examined 25 cases of alleged professional abuse of children within the education services between 2007-11 following the conviction in 2009 of a headteacher in a primary school of 9 sexual assaults against children. A decision was made to examine 25 cases of alleged professional abuse. The inquiry found 3 cases of children potentially at risk of immediate harm. ‘The duty to safeguard children has been outweighed by the consideration of the previous good record of staff and the views of police and social services have been ignored’. The report found a lack of oversight by elected members and senior officers.

The report noted a lack of joint working, no advanced joint investigation training, a poor level of CRB and reference checks, little or no evidence of a child rights approach and parents who were not informed about concerns.

MASH:Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs: Devon

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:21:44 +0100

National Foundation for Educational Research NFER has a website detailing publications concerning the pilot for the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs. This model implemented in Devon is a very welcome return to rigorous child protection protocols and procedures. Referral leads to an immediate and thorough multi agency assessment of the required response so that joint investigation of significant harm is not delayed through assessments of need. Co location of key agencies enables detailed sharing of information proportionate to the nature of the referral.

The reports suggest that the number of child protection referrals increase but that the children gain better protection. The increased costs of this approach have to be evaluated in terms of the benefit to children who gain protection and contrasted with the costs of Inquiries and Serious Case Reviews when children die or are seriously harmed from child abuse.

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/policy-papers/

Search for the papers relating to the Devon pilot.

Harry Keeble's new book - police child protection work

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:08:56 +0100

Harry Keeble (pseudonym) is a currently serving police officer who worked in child protection in London. He wrote Baby X about his work protecting children in Haringey and Hackney and now has a new book. He writes vividly about the realities of the work and how he worked with social workers and other professionals on the most complex cases of child abuse. I strongly recommend both books.

Keeble H (2011) Little Victim: The Real Story of Britain’s Vulnerable Children and the People Who Rescue Them: Simon and Schuster

Phil Frampton on Woman's Hour

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:51:19 +0100

See link below for Phil Frampton’s contribution to Woman’s Hour about the need to return to bringing back orphanages and the importance of keeping siblings together in the care system. He promotes the children’s home model as is in place in Germany. This model ensures children from the same family stay together and provides stability. The British model of foster care makes this very difficult and children are often separated from their brothers and sisters. There is a shortage of 10,000 foster care placements currently in the UK and children in care are frequently moved from one foster placement to another. The need for a return to the children’s home model is pressing. See Phil’s website www.philframpton.co.uk for more information. Also see: www.siblingstogether.org.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01381n7#p00jxjzb

Oranges and Sunshine : film about child migrants/ child trafficking from UK

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:25:25 +0100

Oranges and Sunshine is a brilliant film directed by Jim Loach based on the book Empty Cradles by Margaret Humphreys (Corgi: 1994 -reprinted 2011). As a Nottingham social worker, she discovered in 1986 that a woman had been sent on a boat to Australia at the age of 4. This was the beginning of her extensive and persistent investigations concerning up to 150,000 children who were deported from children’s homes in Britain and sent to distant parts of the Empire even up to the 70s - it was organised abuse of children on a massive scale. Many of the major children’s charities were involved in this extensive and cruel trafficking of children who were used for cheap labour and forced to do farm and building work at a very young age. They were told lies about their parents - often being told they had died. Parents were told that their children had been adopted by families in the UK whereas many were placed in institutions run by religious organisations. They suffered physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect.

The film is a tribute to the child migrants and their families but also to a dedicated social worker who has consistently and in the face of threats and politically motivated opposition, devoted her life to seeking justice for the child migrants and to reuniting them with their families and their individual histories.

These investigations were at the same time period as my own investigations into child abuse within the Islington care system and I identified with many aspects of ‘whistleblowing’ depicted in the film.

At last the public will gain some notion of what good social work practice is about - personal integrity and committment to the pursuit of human rights and social justice as well as specialist investigative and campaigning skills. All social work students must watch this film and learn about every aspect of good social work practice - investigative and communication skills and dedication to the rights of children to be protected from all forms of abuse and exploitation. When the exploitation is camouflaged within ‘respectable’ children’s charities and government policies it is a very difficult and lonely task to detect and expose it. Social workers who draw attention to the abuses are often met with disbelief, threats and public criticism as well as being commonly subject to disciplinary action by their employers and losing their professional status. As social workers we bear witness to the secret world of crimes committed against children and we strive to bring these into the open against all the opposition of those who aim to protect their own self interest as perpetrators. Our determination is grounded in the relationships and contact we have with the abused children and the adult survivors. We dare to enter their terrible painful world and once there we are compelled to act.

We need more films of this quality and authenticity

www.childmigrantstrust.com

Database delay highlighted on newsnight programme

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:33:23 +0100

Mark Williams-Thomas stresses the need for a national paedophile database to identify and rescue victims of child sexual abuse. Statistics from Interpol suggest that the UK is way behind other Europaen countries in tracking child victims from online images.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9532058.stm