Social Workers Are Not Baby Snatchers

Reports of children’s services taking a baby from its mother within minutes of birth failed to consider the full facts, says Liz Davies

In more than 20 years of social work I have only twice removed a baby at birth in situations where, if I had not taken such action, they would definitely have been harmed. It is a highly complex decision to make alongside a number of child protection colleagues from other agencies and always working within statutory guidance and legislation.

It was obvious from my first glance at the news reports of the Nottingham baby case that all was not as it seemed. Maybe readers did not want to look further than the assumption that social workers had snatched a baby from its mother without appearing to have used due legal process. This popular version of events dominated the headline news and preoccupied the talk shows. A baby is born and within two hours is removed from the mother and yes this is unthinkable – unless that same baby needed to be protected from harm. It would also have been unthinkable for a tiny baby to be left at risk because professionals had failed in their job of protecting the most vulnerable of all children. Various aspects of the Nottingham story led me to ask some questions.

Firstly, the hearing that Mr Justice Munby presided over was not about the baby. It was about the mother, on a different matter. The judge commented that “on the face of it” social workers had acted outside the law, which did not sound as definitive as the media suggested. This is what I would expect because he would not have had access to the full local authority information or the independent guardian ad litem’s report which would be presented at interim care proceedings later in the week. It was clear from the beginning that we did not have the full facts of this case.

The media reports also said that social workers had completed a “birth plan”. This was obviously incorrect as it is not something a social worker would do but is the business of midwives who arrange the details of the delivery. Social workers would implement a multi-agency child protection plan to safeguard the baby, in which case the police would have been involved throughout. The police would have made arrangements to use their powers of protection to take the baby into care if the protection plan failed. Such a back-up plan would be routine. It made no sense to me that social workers could have taken the child without police involvement as both agencies work very closely together in such a case.

Mr Justice Munby was right to comment that no baby could be removed by a “decision taken by officials in some room”. However, a decision to make sure the baby was safe from the moment of birth may well lead to a mother having only supervised contact with the baby in hospital prior to a planned court hearing at which she would have full representation. I would expect that she would have been well informed of this arrangement and Nottingham council later clarified that she was indeed present when the protection plan was made. Meanwhile, the plan for interim care proceedings was obviously firmly in place because within a week a district judge ordered that the baby be placed in foster care pending further inquiries and assessments.

Nottingham children’s services acted using the relevant child protection procedures to protect a baby and for that they must be commended, particularly at a time when these very protocols are under threat. The social workers had to implement a decision that will remain with them for the rest of their lives and for this difficult professional task they have been vilified through the distortions of the media and public prejudice. It is no wonder that only 3% of my social work students choose to pursue child protection work

· Liz Davies is a senior lecturer in social work at London Metropolitan University