Frontline Failings In Moray’s Child Protection

TWO women with experience of dealing with local social workers and child protection procedures said they were not surprised by a report published last week by Her Majesty’s Inspectorater of Education (HMIE) which accused Moray Council of serious failings in its child protection policies.

Speaking separately to the “Forres Gazette” after the report was published last Thursday, the pair, who cannot be named but have both dealt with children and the social work department, said they had both been astonished in the past by procedures, which in their opinion had not been carried out in the best interests of the children.

Since the report, which identifies “serious failings”, was published last Thursday, Moray Council has announced a full investigation into its department to find out what went wrong.

At last week’s Moray Council meeting held in Elgin, councillors were told that it was not acceptable that the council should only find out about these serious failings after an external audit was published, and the investigation would be carried out internally to establish why.

The council also released a joint statement welcoming the report, along with its partner agencies, NHS Grampian, Grampian Police and the North East Scotland Child Protection Committee, saying they recognised the weaknesses in their services and had been making steps to improve things since being made aware of the report last October.

Serious concerns were raised from a number of politicians about the report, including Moray MP Angus Robertson, Moray MSP Richard Lochead and several Highland MSPs such as Mary Scanlon and former Scottish children’s minister, Peter Peacock.

They all called on the council to recognise the seriousness of the situation and for a follow-up report to be carried out swiftly.

Meantime, one of the women, who has experience of how the system works, said that she wasn’t surprised by the findings and said that it was only by sheer luck that no child “at risk” had been harmed.

The woman, who has worked as a foster carer, said that she was of the opinion that social workers did have a hard job, and were damned if they took a child away and damned if they left it with parents not deemed fit.

“To me the social workers always have the aim of putting the child back with their birth parents,” she said. “It isn’t always right. The amount of evidence that they have to collect before taking a child away is huge. Actually it’s very scary and I think it’s a very risky business when a child’s welfare is at stake.”

She claimed to have seen a situation where a child was subject to verbal abuse by a parent with a dependency issue. She said that she was shocked by the behaviour of the parent, but more shocked by the senior social worker present who allowed the situation to continue.

“If it had been me I would have just taken the child away and said that’s enough,” she said. “They just seem to do everything they can to put the child back with the parent and ignore the problems. I was really upset and shocked by what happened.”

Another woman, who was a foster carer for many years until her name was removed from the register without her having ever been officially told why, said that she felt that the social work department weren’t tough enough to do their job and failed to communicate properly and in a direct manner with people involved in the process.

“The social workers in Moray are too weak to do the job properly,” said the woman, who is still fighting to clear her name. “They are too frightened of standing up to parents, and don’t act in the best interests of the child. They are not honest with people who are fostering about how the process works. Consequently, people don’t know and they should be told.”

Both women said that the reverse was not the case with foster parents, who were investigated at every level. They said nothing was taken at face value by the social worker, despite the fact that behavioural problems and other issues surrounding the child could, in their experience, be directly attributed to the child’s contact with their natural parents. She said that often they did not have the child, or even want them, because they were unfit to look after them.

They said that there was no continuity in the system for the child, and both could identify instances where they had been asked to care for a child in the short term, but had been left with the children for much longer, without the social workers appearing to make any effort to find proper permanent care for the youngsters. They then chose to put them straight back into a situation with their parents, which in their opinion made them extremely vulnerable and put them at risk of abuse.

Meantime, Moray Council’s SNP Opposition Group Leader Councillor Pearl Paul, said the report painted an appalling picture of Child Protection in Moray and called on the council to accept responsibility for the serious failings in the existing strategies and management systems and make major changes to address the issues uncovered.

“This is a critical and systemic failing in child protection in Moray and failure to provide strategic and effective leadership is at the heart of the problems identified,” she said.