Exclusive Interview with Liz Davies and no2abuse.
Liz Davies, Social Worker and Senior Lecturer gives her own experiences of the care system and the problems facing Social Workers today. Liz is Notoriously known by some for her whistle blowing in the Islington abuse scandal that exposed the abuse of children within the Islington care system yet is fondly known and respected amongst many survivors of abuse from the care system.
What made you want to become a Social Worker and was this your first employment experience?
I became a social worker in 1969 after I completed my social studies degree and later qualified as a social worker in 1972. My first job was in a mental health team. Before the degree, I had worked with older people and the homeless. When I was a child I often met the social worker who visited my grandparents and her kind, caring, genuine approach made a deep impression on me.
When you discovered child abuse in Islington was being handled badly what was your initial reaction to not only the affect it would have on the children but also on yourself as a social worker at the time?
I was afraid for the safety of the children who were being exploited by a network of child abusers. The risks were very high. Some children we managed to protect but not all. At one time I was protecting children from child sex abusers in the community by placing them in care homes where I thought they would be safe. I didn’t realise that some staff in the homes were abusers. I still feel bad about that but I didn’t know that abusers had infiltrated the care system in that authority. After all these residential workers were my colleagues and I hadn’t had reason to suspect them before. An adult survivor of the network would tell me which children the network was going to target next. I would rush around like crazy to find that child or children – sometimes I got there in time but sometimes I was too late. The abuse was well planned and the abusers very well organized. We worked hard to map and collate all the clues and small pieces of information to try and understand what was going on.
Children in care would talk about places they had gone for the weekend and I knew I hadn’t approved any finance for the trip, that parental agreement hadn’t been sought and that the child’s social worker hadn’t been informed about it. We began to realise that groups of children were being taken to the same areas at the same time and even now I haven’t got the whole picture except I believe that groups of children were networked to other homes across the country. For instance some children were taken over to the home in Jersey which has been the subject of investigation recently.
I had support from other professionals I was working alongside in other agencies such as police, doctors/health professionals, teachers and probation officers. We all worked very well together. I knew that I might lose my job because what I was witnessing was so serious, very serious crimes against children. I just had to do my best in those circumstances to protect the children and bring the abusers to justice. It was difficult because I didn’t know which of my colleagues was involved in the abuse, which were colluding with the abuse and which were just incompetent workers. Several other workers who raised the abuse issues did lose their jobs and some were threatened very severely. One rushed in front of television news cameras and said the abuse was still going on and afterwards she was sacked. I was fortunate because I left to get a promotion in another authority and then I was able to continue to pursue justice for the children throughout the years ahead. There was one moment when I was asked by a senior manager to place a 7 year old boy in a foster placement that I had reported as an abusive placement. That was the moment when I knew I had to leave.
What concerns do social workers have when wanting to expose abuse within the system and has anything changed over the years for those exposing abuse?
Even though there is now a law to protect whistleblowers, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, it is still very difficult to do even though all authorities now have whistleblowing protocols. I have supported quite a few social workers but after whistleblowing about child abuse they find it very difficult to gain other employment - even if they have won their court cases and employment tribunals and achieved vindication. This is the sad reality but media support for the whistleblowers can help a lot and ultimately it is about protecting the children. Nevres Kemal, social worker from Haringey said we do this job,‘Because we’re good people, and we do a very good job, and someone has to do it. If they had listened to my concerns and taken measures to rectify them Baby P might never have died. I’ve had four years of hell and disbelief, words cannot express what I have been through but it’s all irrelevant – a boy has died’.
There are many good social workers out there who are prepared to whistleblow but what affect does it have on their lives?
It can make it difficult for them to get other work as social workers. With support and legal representation many cases can be taken forward through the employment tribunals and disciplinary hearings and even gaining media support but ultimately authorities do not wish to employ a whistleblower. So many of these social workers leave the profession altogether which is a sad loss for children and families who need social workers who will bravely and courageously take their issues forward. Being a whistleblower takes its toll on a social worker’s personal life as the situations go on often for many years and are preoccupying. It is difficult for friends and family to sustain being interested and supportive.
Of course a really good authority would welcome a whistleblower and then other social workers would want to work there and I’m sure that approach would solve any of their recruitment problems!
What changes have you seen in social care over the years and what is the most needed improvement?
Most of my time in social work was spent in a generic team. This meant we worked in a small area or patch of a few streets and we covered all types of social work in that area working with both adults and children. We worked closely with local community groups. There was a opportunity to run small groups and community projects as well as getting to know the neighbourhood and local professionals. There was also a balance between the more complex statutory work such as mental health and children’s with other types of social work which were not as stressful.
The Islington children came to see me because I worked in a small office which had a shop front and it was where they came for other things as well such as Housing or Benefits. This approach gave me direct contact with a lot of young people and they began to trust me and slowly tell me of the abuse that was going on. Socialservices were managed by a Director of Social Services because adult and children’s work wasn’t split up. Now they are quite separate and there is no longer a Director of Social Services which means social care has less of a voice amongst other local authority services. Children’s work has been separated off under Education which has marginalized social work which is now mainly managed by people with an education background. Other education priorities such as exam results or school attendance then tend to take attention away from child care issues.
The other big change has been that social workers, instead of being in a team, are professionally isolated as they are situated in multi agency teams such as children’s centres, schools or youth offending teams. This means that a newly qualified or less experienced worker doesn’t get the support they would have had in the past from working alongside a number of more experienced team members.
Much social work now is subject to central government control through performance targets. Social workers are overwhelmed with data entry and form filling – endless tick boxes. This has undermined professional judgment. The forms don’t ask the right questions to help us make judgments about children at risk of harm. Protecting children demands careful analysis of facts and observations and computers can’t do that work for us.
The Every Child Matters agenda, with the aim of helping all children to become good citizens, has diverted resources from basic child protection systems. The Child Protection Register has been abolished and the police do not work as closely with social workers as they used to do.
With social services heavily in the news for its failure to protect children has this had an effect on the students training to be social workers?
In my experience there are many students who genuinely want to work to protect children. Surveys have shown a reduction in those who chose this area of social work which is tragic because they definitely want to do it but are frightened of what might happen if they get something wrong. They have seen the effect on Lisa Arthurworrey, Victoria Climbie’s social worker, and others. We try and teach them to be assertive and confident in their values and to be a strong voice for children. They may be employees but first and foremost they are professional social workers with a code of ethics to guide their work.
Although it is difficult work I always worked closely with and made decisions with other professionals. In practice I gained a lot of support and guidance from working with a multi agency investigation team. However, social workers are now often alone in investigating child protection and I could not have done the work in these circumstances. To protect children means also focusing on abusers and social workers can’t do this without police and probation.
Social Workers need ongoing training in their career: if a qualified social worker shows an unhealthy attitude during their continued and ongoing training are they assessed on this and if not, should assessments be carried out to ensure these social workers are removed from the system?
It is essential that social workers have supervision with an experienced social worker. Good quality supervision must always examine attitudes and approaches and address disciplinary matters as well if necessary. As registered social workers we have to undergo quite a lot of training every year. Social work training also involves challenging unacceptable attitudes.
There is an alarming increase in children being removed from their parents who are not at risk. This is a growing problem whilst the children at risk are still being missed. What is being done to improve this situation and what is the cause?
The cause is that proper investigation of harm to children is not taking place as it should be. Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 states that there must be enquiries made if there is reasonable cause to suspect a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm. There is a statutory duty on social workers and police to investigate. The guidance as to how to conduct such an investigation is in Working Together to Safeguard Children (DfES, 2006).
However, in this latest version of Working Together it said that a section 47 IS a core assessment. This is very wrong and needs to be changed. Of course, we might assess a child and family’s needs as part of an investigation but it is not the same process. Now social workers when they get a child protection referral are conducting initial and core assessments within fixed timescales of 7 and 35 days. They tick boxes about the child’s development, parenting capacity and social factors. This is a different process from investigating abuse and focusing on the risk posed by abusers. A good example of this was when the social worker visited Victoria Climbie’s aunt after Victoria had a bad burn on her head. She saw the aunt as needing support such as housing, benefits and health services as a refugee family. She did not ask detailed questions relating to the cause of the burn in the context of having been given three conflicting explanations for how it happened. An investigation would have included for instance testing the temperature of the hot water in the flat and checking on the aunt’s explanations of why she delayed 6 hours taking her to hospital. Also both the police and the social worker should have kept the child safe whilst the investigation was being conducted.
Lord Laming recommended that police should focus on crime. However, it is rare for a child abuse referral about harm to contain evidence of a criminal act especially when social workers first hear of a child’s allegation. Now the police will not easily become involved in the investigation of harm which often leaves the social workers on their own.
Cases may still go to a child protection conference and a decision may be made for the child to be the subject of a child protection plan (now there is no Child Protection Register). However, if there has not been a proper joint investigation the plan will be flawed and mistakes will be made. This will result in children being either over or under protected because the investigation process has been inadequate - as an assessment has taken place but no joint investigation with police. If a case is Section 47 no parental consent is needed to investigate. It is always good practice to involve parents as much as possible but not if to do so would place a child at risk of harm. However an assessment requires parental permission to interview the child, gain a medical examination etc.
The assessment process therefore may put the child’s interests second to those of the parent. Assessments are confined to tight timescales and cases closed swiftly before there is time to conduct an investigation. Investigations can’t be restricted by timescales. It takes as long as it takes to find out who has harmed a child. Sometimes it took me two or more years. Therefore the assessment process is the wrong tool entirely for the investigation of child abuse – yet it is the protocol required by this government in all cases. Now Laming has recommended an initial assessment takes place for every referral – this is completely unachievable because social work managers make decisions about which cases need such assessment and now this has been taken out of their hands and the result is that they are being completely overwhelmed.
You have invited a number of survivors of abuse to the university to talk to students: what benefits has it had to their training, have they found it useful and is it something students find useful?
Social work training must include survivors and care leavers. I have learnt the most from them, far more than from reading any academic text book. I make the essay topic a question about the survivor’s experience to make sure the students read it in full. The student feedback has always been very positive following a survivor’s presentation. Of course some of the students are also survivors and they often then come forward to speak of their own experiences or they join a survivors group.
Your recognised work with survivors of the care system has seen a change in attitudes towards survivors in a positive way. What are the challenges you see them face and do you feel they should be included in decisions made by the system?
I would like to see survivors and care leavers on the Local Safeguarding Children Boards contributing to the development of policy, practice and training. They could also scrutinize the serious case review process. I would like to look at ways in which we can work together to promote the protection of children. There is a new organization called Social Work Action Network (SWAN) where social workers and service users have come together – this is a very positive development.
If you had the chance to make changes what would they be?
1.Restore the child protection register and the role of the custodian of the register in each authority to control access to this highly confidential information.
2.Restore the status of the conference to ensure attendance by police and other agencies and full sharing of information relevant to the protection of the child.
3.Restore the links/alerts with the emergency services – police and hospitals - that the register provided
4.Restore joint investigation by police and social workers of significant harm to children including organized abuse investigation when more than one child or more than one adult is involved in the abuse.
5.Restore specialist social work child protection teams to work closely with the police child abuse investigation teams managed by qualified social workers.
6.Restore the use in practice, as stated in Working Together (DfES,2006) , of multi agency Strategy Meetings as ‘professional only’ meetings to plan the joint investigation in detail and to make protection plans for the child. Currently social workers telephone the police and hold a strategy discussion but the strategy meeting including other professionals who know the child and family is not always taking place.
7.Restore child protection training which involves police and social workers together learning investigation skills and how to interview a child
8.Change Working Together guidance and remove the section which states that a section 47 IS a core assessment.
9.Ensure that Family Group Conferences do not replace child protection conferences when a child is at risk of harm
10.Restore free access to legal advice for social workers. Currently there is a cost which limits the social worker’s access to advice. Lawyers used to attend child protection conferences but this is now rarely the case because of the costs.
11.Reduce the computer based systems and form filling to allow social workers to use their judgement and spend at least 80% of their time with children and their families.(Currently, 80% of social work time is spent in front of a computer).
12.Abandon the Every Child Matters agenda which focuses on child outcomes and the child as a citizen of the state and instead policy should emphasise the right of the child to be protected from all forms of abuse as well as other rights as stated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).
13.Abandon computer based databases which intrude on children’s privacy and which allow a wide range of employees to access confidential data on children and instead establish systems which assist social workers in the difficult task of protecting children such as a national child protection register and a national register of missing children – that is systems for children identified as at risk of harm.
14.Make sure social workers are working in safe conditions with regular quality supervision, reasonable caseloads, child protection training held jointly with police and other agencies, situated in social work teams with social work managers. They cannot do this work working from home or hotdesking/smart working. They need space, a desk and telephone to make confidential telephone calls and not vast open plan offices and they need to be managed by social workers
15.Social workers should work in a culture of open challenge where whistleblowing is welcomed and valued without any recrimination on the social worker.
16.Student social workers to have one placement in children’s services
17.Student social workers to be taught one module specifically on the protection of children and for survivors to be included as contributors to this module.
18.Social work course leaders should be registered social workers
19.Newly qualified social workers should not hold child protection cases until at least one year into the post. They should work alongside more experienced social workers.
20.The General Social Care Council should be managed by qualified social workers.
21.Survivors and care leavers to have representation on Local Safeguarding Children Boards
22.Resource residential family centres to provide options for keeping the family together whilst monitoring is taking place to assess the safety of the child.
23.Remove financial obstacles to care proceedings to ensure the needs of the child are the paramount consideration in decision making about placements.
24.The statistics of the number of child sex abusers in each area to be published as part of the Multi Agency Public Protection Panel(MAPPA) annual reports. Currently the statistics are of all sex offenders and do not distinguish between offences against children and adults.
25. The MAPPA’s to be properly resourced to effectively monitor all local child sex abusers and adults who pose a risk to children.
26.Authorities implementing a preventative and therapeutic approach to children’s work should examine the effectiveness of their systems for the protection of children and whether or not joint working with police and investigation of child abuse is taking place according to the statutory guidance and legislation.
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On 5th May 2009 at 01:50 AM Jane Webb said...
This gives a good insight to the internal workings of the system well done and there needs to be more whistleblowers to expose the lies within the system
On 5th May 2009 at 08:33 AM Barbara said...
Thank you Liz for everything you are doing to make this country a safer place for children.
On 5th May 2009 at 07:50 PM CAROL BIRD said...
1989 CHILDRENS ACT SPLIT COURT CASES HAVE NOW BEEN REPLACED BY ONE CASE ONE JUDGE DO YOU ADVOCATE THIS NEW COURT RULING
CAROL
On 5th May 2009 at 11:06 PM Barbara said...
In my case, I have a judge who has been spying on me, via a website supposedly to help people who have been abused as children called Safeline.
I had a feeling all through the case that I was being stalked, but didn’t know how.
This is a judge who forced me to be cross examined for two days by the man who raped me AND HIS WIFE! I had to do some serious grovelling in order to get them to put up a screen so that I would not have to look at the rapist. His wife admitted in court that they had tried to use me as a concubine, or an unpaid prostitute, in order to relieve this man’s lusts. (She keeps a lock on the bedroom door to keep him out of her bedroom)
I know this sounds bizzarre, but I am a child abuse survivor and had precious little self worth or confidence at the time. (I have now, I am sooooo angry about how I have been treated) But this judge spent two days trying to allow this man and his wife prove that I had been his second wife.
I had never lived with this man, and they had to resort to trickery to get his name on the parental responsibility form. They also held me in a room against my will to try to force me to sign documents, with me crying for two hours, and screaming at the top of my voice for the last 20 minutes, at Staffordshire County Court. I screamed so loud that I had a sore throat for days.
So no, I am not happy about it at all.
But you see, I am not even a person am I? I am a thing, to be kicked about and used as a prostitute by any Tom Dick or Harry. I have no rights at all, I am an alien. I am nothing at all.
On 6th May 2009 at 12:55 AM Jane Webb said...
I live in staffordshire and im a campaigner for people against social services and family courts id love to offer anyone support in staffs area im very proactive x
my details can be passed on through admin on here if you want them xxxx
On 6th May 2009 at 12:42 PM Barbara said...
Jane,
I would love to meet up for a coffee one day soon.
On 6th May 2009 at 09:54 PM Jane Webb said...
mail me whenever you want hun x
On 14th May 2009 at 08:03 AM Peggy said...
As a lawyer I recognize many of the problems of social workers and parents, in the Dutch law practice.
I think this is another system that is stuck and needs reformation, where the well being of children are priority and not targets.
Helping parents to use and develop and their own power when raising their children will be more efficient, in my opinion.
I wish you all strength and wisdom.
Peggy Lesquillier