Walking the social care tightrope to save children

Social workers just can’t win. There’s no such thing as a popular decision in any case of child protection, but if the care team get it wrong, then the finger swiftly points at their failings.

Such is the responsibility and stress they face, it’s amazing that any new blood is attracted into the profession at all. As impossibly young-looking rookie Bristol social worker Susanne affirmed as she pedalled her push bike off to her very first case, “you are not very liked”.

The crew of this new documentary series were given extraordinary access to film poor, worried Susanne as she plunged headfirst into the deep end with Mike and Tiffany, woefully inadequate parents of three-year-old Toby whose development was so delayed that he couldn’t talk and was still wearing nappies all day and night. Toby’s face was blurred to protect his identity, but his challenging, frustrated behaviour wasn’t.

An apparently “low-risk” case, the conditions the family lived in were appalling, but of their own making, with the child sharing a play space with a dog and its excrement. Such was their ignorant neglect that the poor kid didn’t have either a bed or a toothbrush and was lucky is he got any proper meals. Then there were the bruises on his arms…

Susanne’s job was to try and support the family, advising on how to take better care of Toby; but Tiffany, brought up in care herself and aware of her own inadequacies, seemed unable to make any effort at all, and bullish Mike was aggressive from the start.

It was reassuring to see Susanne being supported all the way by her hard-pressed superiors, as things quickly escalated; by the end of the programme Mike was long gone, Toby was thriving in a foster home; his newborn sister was with a different foster family, and Tiffany was ready to give them both up for adoption so they would have a better life.

Was that a success for Susanne? Yes, because the children had been protected; no, because the family had fragmented. Social workers just can’t win.