Angry social workers informed Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, much of their time was spent on paperwork to satisfy government initiatives and to prop up “ineffective” inspections. This prevented them from seeing vulnerable children.

They accused Ofsted of forcing social workers to produce numerous extra reports and figures instead of meeting families and doing their job.

Mr Balls said that the Baby P case showed that failures in Haringey had nothing to do with record-keeping but were due to poorly co-ordinate interventions.

To loud applause, Hilton Dawson, the chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers and a former Labour MP, told Ed Balls that…

“This response simply won’t do. This is not an issue about good case-work recording. This is not about good communication. What social workers are having to do 80 per cent of their time is serve a bureaucratic machine, which actually has nothing to do with good social work and has everything to do with keeping a really ineffective inspection regime operating in a way that does not support really effective work with children and families,”

Mr Balls had first come under fire from Jim Couchman a former Tory MP, presently Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for adult services, Mr Couchman said.

“The response of your department to Victoria Climbié and more latterly Baby Peter has been to impose a very heavy-handed bureaucratic system of records,”

“Will you stand back now because that has led to our social workers having to spend far too much time in front of the screen and far too little time out there with the families that need your help?”

Mr Balls said he would not and went on to say.

“The idea that social workers who are dealing with complex cases of potential child abuse or neglect wouldn’t be making records or keeping track of what they do doesn’t seem to make much sense”

He went on to say

“I don’t accept that if we somehow went back to a day in which we didn’t keep records, somehow we’d improve child protection.”

Mr Balls acknowledged that more flexibility was needed in the way information was recorded, and said that would be introduced. But blaming problems on central direction and targets was “missing the point”, he said.

Following months of investigation, The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection of adults services reported that social workers from the South Tyneside Council are delivering a high standard of care to elderly people.

The CQC inspectors met with elderly people and their social carers, staff and managers from South Tyneside Council and overall were very satisfied with the quality of the services provided.

Inspectors said:

“We saw evidence of a range of good provision and commissioned services, these included specialist services for people with dementia, palliative care and home care.”

Another area the inspectors also looked at were the arrangements in place to safeguard vulnerable adults, and found that performance was adequate.

The commitment and quality of services provided by South Tyneside social workers should be an example to be followed by other social workers around the country and should also serve as an inspiration for others thinking of starting a career in social services.

The commitment and quality of services provided by South Tyneside social workers should be an example to be followed by other social workers around the country and should also server as an inspiration for other thinking of starting a career in social services.

Education Secretary Ed Balls is actively encouraging professionals such as teachers and solicitors to consider a change of career and become social workers.

The move forms part of proposals brought in following the report released regarding the current state of child protection, after the awful and much highlighted death of Baby P.

Mr Balls will reveal a new ‘on the job’ social work qualification to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

The aim is to get 200 people including doctors, teachers and solicitors who are looking for a change in career to become social workers.

Roughly a third of social worker positions were left vacant in November 2008, this is obviously a worrying statistic and makes it clear that trained social workers are needed and soon!

It has become clear that in the case of Baby P, if the social workers on the case had been more thorough in their investigations, the outcome may have not resulted in such a tragic ending.

However, there is also the assumption that if these social workers had been trained doctors for example; they would have been better equipped to identify injuries and psychological problems within the Baby P household.

It could also be the case that if they had been solicitors with an understanding of the law, they would not have missed out on any instances of law breaking that may have occurred.

Taking all this into consideration, I think this is why Ed Balls wants people with this type of knowledge in the social working industry – to avoid any cases like Baby P’s ever being repeated.

What do you think of Mr Balls proposition, would we benefit from having professionals re-trained as social workers?

Weeks after the biggest scandal in childcare services ever to be reported came to an end; another story of child abuse is making the headlines in England.

This case is a little different from Baby P’s case where qualified social workers failed to identify that the toddler was been brutally “tortured” by its mother and stepfather, this new child abuse case involves a nursery worker who was sexually assaulting children by touching and penetration, as well as posting photos of the children under her care on the internet.

Police arrested Mrs Vanessa George 39 after seizing a computer disc from a suspected paedophile in Manchester, after analysing the contents of the disc police found indecent images of children taken at Little Ted’s Day Nursery in Plymouth which then lead them to Mrs George, who has been working there for the past two years.

Mother of two, Mrs George is being charged with seven offences, including two for sexual assault by penetration and two of sexual assault by touching.

It makes me wonder why a mother of two does such things to other children. Would she like that done to her own children? What goes through these peoples mind?

What you have to say about these child abuse cases and how can they be prevented? Leave your thoughts in our comments section below.

On the same day that Baby P’s Mother and Stepfather received their sentences, Haringey’s council announced an overhaul of its children social services with an aim to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating by 2012.

The three year program will guarantee qualified social workers more balanced workloads and better support. New and more user friendly IT systems will be implemented and an increase in better qualified staff will be permanently hired.

With a £4.2m budget already approved for this year, the council will launch a children’s trust campaign next month to bring together schools, social services and the police in order to improve communication and the quality of its social services to achieve by the end of this year a “satisfactory” rating from the children’s services inspectorate Ofsted.

But the biggest problem the borough is facing is the lack of qualified social workers willing to work in the area after Baby P’s scandal. In January, the borough made an urgent appeal to all London councils to lend qualified social workers to ease the recruitment. With the appeal been largely rejected, children’s social directors said they would consider a rescue package to ease the pressure on The Haringey’s Council.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a happy ending, but Baby P’s story finally came to an end with the trial and sentence of mother and boyfriend who were responsible for one of the worst cases of sadistic brutality and sordid child neglect ever to be reported in the UK.

It’s been nearly two years since the 17 months toddler died due to repeated violent physical abuse and only now, Baby P’s mother and her boyfriend were finally sentenced.

The mother was sentenced with another 644 days in solitary confinement for her own protection and the boyfriend person who Baby P referred as “dad” was sentenced for 12 years for causing or allowing Peter’s death; earlier in the month he had been convicted for the rape of a two year girl and will spend the rest of his days in jail for that crime.

This sickening story caused a hike in qualified social workers salaries, not only in Haringey’s Council but across the UK due to the lack of qualified social workers willing to take on this challenging, stressful job.

Councils and the government are trying their best to incite qualified and independent social workers to go back to their jobs. Good salaries, especial benefits, relocation allowances and even pre-approved mortgages are on the list of privileges offered.

Ensuring a qualified social worker is handling such cases is certainly a must for the future, and increasing the amount of qualified social workers employed should also be questioned to prevent other cases from slipping through the system?

What can be done to prevent appalling cases of prolonged child neglect and abuse, as in Baby P’s case, from occurring again?

The stories surrounding ‘Baby P’ continue to make the headlines of Britain’s most popular newspapers, this past week a new round of shocking facts emerged that makes the case even more disturbing.

The Haringey Council sacked five more social workers who failed to protect the 17-month old boy. Baby P’s social worker Maria Ward, Team Manager Gillie Christou, Head of Safeguarding Children Clive Preece, Head of Children’s Services Sharon Shoesmith and a fourth official Cicilia Hitchen, were all  dismissed without any payouts.

Another shocking fact revealed this past week is that Baby P’s mother could have her sentence reduced by a third because she admitted to her part in his death. This is known as a guilty plea – if someone accused of a crime confesses their sentence is cut by a third.

All these facts and much more have created serious problems for Haringeys Council Social Services and has forced the Council to offer inflated salaries in the hope of finding qualified social workers to work in the area.

The highest salary on offer at present is for a Locum Team Manager advertised at £68,000 a year for Haringey’s Children in Need Safeguarding Service. Several perks will be offered in addition to the salary including a £7,000 relocation allowance, season ticket loan, ‘gold-plated’ local government pension scheme, childcare vouchers, a mobile phone and a pre-approved loan of up to £50,000 towards buying a property.

For junior social workers posts the Borough is offering a nation’s high of £38,000, while the national average is around £18,000 rising to £30,000 for team leaders according to the Government’s website ww.socialworkcareers.co.uk

The national shortage of qualified social workers continues, scared off by being under fire in the media when a case ends in tragedy, hence the Baby P and Brandon Muir cases, social workers are finding quieter areas to work where they are not as exposed.

With children’s social work all over the news, it is harder than ever to recruit social workers for this specialised area. In total there are 1.2 million social workers in the UK but another 13,000 social workers are needed urgently; the demand is higher than ever for people that are willing to take on this challenging but rewarding job.

Despite the bad press in recent years, children’s social work is a fulfilling career, making a difference in a child life is priceless.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect about social work is that every day is different, social workers face different challenges day in and day out, the unpredictability of this field and not knowing what social workers may face in the day ahead can be an exciting task.

If you ask any qualified social worker working in child protection what is the highest point of their career, I can guarantee 100% will say being able to see a child’s life change for the better before their eyes.

Little things like a child telling you they feel safe and happy, their confidence and self esteem is growing and feeling they are important enough for someone to care about them is extremely rewarding, no money in the world can buy this feeling of accomplishment from knowing you made a difference in a child’s life.

If you are a qualified social worker who has worked in the child protection area before, please consider working in the area again – there are thousands of children in need of your assistance. For more information contact Restart Resources.

Our last post reported on the government launching a campaign to encourage retired qualified social workers to go back to social work.

To aid the government campaign, social work agencies across the country started to go through their databases and send out letters and emails to retired but qualified social workers.

Barbara MaCarthur, an 82 year old who retired from social work in 1982 received one of these letters asking her to return to the profession. Macarthur is aware of the lack of social workers in the UK said:

“I knew they were desperate for social workers, but I didn’t think they were this desperate!”

The social work agency who sent Mrs. Macarthur the letters said that they were not aware of her age and the problem occurred because they used a database of previous employees to send out emails and letters.

There are many positions to be filled in the social care area, if you know any friends who are qualified social workers or you are one of those qualified social workers looking for work do not hesitate to contact Restart Resources.

As awkward as this title might sound, the campaign is for real and is happening right here in the UK.

At the beginning of the month, the government launched a campaign to lure retired social workers back to their jobs due to the lack of qualified social workers and the struggle of local councils to recruit social workers.

A report from the Local Government Association (LGA) called Respect and Protect revealed that 1 in 10 social worker jobs remained empty and 89% of councils had reported difficulties with social workers recruitment.

As councils across the country are having a hard time to recruit and retain social workers in their jobs, the government launched this campaign as a short term measure to try and encourage up to 5,000 retired qualified social workers to go back to social work.

Alan Warner lead officer for communications at the Public Sector People Managers’ Association (PPMA) said:

“Social recruitment and retention problems had been exacerbated by the negative publicity surrounding the death of Baby P, which had caused the public to lose respect for social workers, the public at large need to get behind social workers and support them.”

And added:

“We need to give people respect for what they do. If there is no respect then why would anyone want to do it?”

And concluded:

“There needs to be more information made available to the general public about what social workers do, and perhaps national awards to recognise achievements. There is no overnight fix for this; we just need a more balanced approach.”