By Sheila Mckenzie
Over half of children who die or are seriously harmed come from families known to services other than universal provision, according to an annual report. The report revealed that in 54% of cases we have seen, children’s social care services were working with children and families at the time of the incident. In 13% of cases (70) children were on a child protection plan and in 15% of cases children were
looked after at the time of the incident.
The analysis suggests that the child protection system usually identifies the most vulnerable children, it states that half of all children who died or were seriously harmed were already identified as vulnerable; but, despite that identification, the system was not able to prevent their death or serious harm.
“We think it imperative that the scope of the review is firmly focused, although not exclusively so, on the effectiveness of child protection practice and considers the questions we have set out,” the panel’s report said.
“To our minds, there is no question that there is a need to address these systemic issues, such is the frequency with which we have seen the same practice concerns raised in the serious case reviews and rapid reviews submitted to us.”
The report said information sharing was poor in 40% of the cases, which also also raised systemic issues.
“We need to move beyond the legislative and procedural, to the technological and the behavioural, and forensically explore how we can develop our multi-agency and multi-disciplinary practice in routine ways, and at critical points, which strengthens information sharing, risk assessment and decision making,” it added.
“The formal child protection framework may not always be the best approach to take for children at risk of extra-familial harm,” it said. “While practitioners and managers generally don’t feel that the child protection framework is a barrier in these circumstances, there was an acknowledgement that in some circumstances it didn’t facilitate the best interventions. a long-standing concern.
HOME EDUCATION
Issues have been raised by some child protection professionals and schools, have raised issues about situations where children who are home educated are suspected of being abused.
Of the rapid reviews we received, a small number involved children who
were educated at home. Four of those children died, and seven children suffered serious harm
through neglect. Home education is usually opted by parents who want to give their children the best quality of private education, but there are always a few tragic cases where thoise circumstances are exploited by abusers.