this was written by a dear friend of mine...
September 27, 2006
Blair portfolio of ‘social inclusion’
By Fassit's Social Affairs Correspondent
IT
SOUNDS like a third
world military junta - determining the social worth and potential economic
impact of unborn babies is the latest in the Blair portfolio of ‘social
inclusion’ initiatives.
As ridiculous as it sounds Blair wants to
invest public money and profligate social care resources into identifying what
most agencies, actually most individuals with any common sense, know poverty
breeds social problems including crime. Yes, shock horror; lack of
opportunities and financial resource breed crime, crime breeds resentment
within the public and, public resentment is a political tool. The key to any
political aspiration is to harness public outrage in political
rhetoric.
The fact that the Blair legacy will undoubtedly prove to have
been founded on myth and misinformation will come to light only when
politicians and policy advisors stop looking for the obvious and start asking
the populous what life is like for them.
Crime and disorder are not new
concepts – even Adam was guilty of the odd transgression. Part of growing-up
is about pushing boundaries and taking chances. The young of today are just
pushing a little bit harder than those before.
What makes a criminal?
Can someone ‘break the law’ and yet avoid the label of being a criminal? Many
politicians have done so, like phoenix they have resurrected themselves from
the flames of their tarnished reputation and started anew. Criminality is a
state of mind; it is a belief that the rules and norms of society are not a
tangible reality or meaningful to the individual. This is what social
inclusion should be aimed at: helping the ‘alienated’ to feel they belong to
society as a whole.
How does Mr Blair engender a sense of social
belongingness – by tightening laws that are already moot, making sentences
tougher, increasing the use of labelling and stigma, and making it harder than
ever to ‘cut a kid a break’. It is troubling enough to anyone with an ounce of
integrity that we live in a society beset by the highest mental health rates
in children and adolescents in the whole of Europe. Can this
government not see that it shares responsibility for this?
The number
of mentally ill youngsters falling foul of ‘social engineering’ laws and
winding up in custody is on the increase. Anti-Social Behaviour Orders,
Contracts or whatever are nothing less than compulsion orders that treat
symptoms not the cause. For Blair to allow such youngsters’ behaviour to be
used as a reason to vilify their parents and legitimise putting young people
in care without any attempt at provision of family intervention, support or
services is verging on the criminally negligent.
If parents can’t cope
with such behaviours how is the apparently malfunctioning and callous social
services organisation going to do any better? The facts show care leavers have
the highest rates of teen pregnancy and criminalised behaviour!
One
might be convinced that there is a surreptitious motive for the recent
pronouncement that young people coming into care have more behavioural
problems, are we being prepared for yet another negative report on the care
system?
The common-sense approach would be to enhance and increase the
scope of services to families and to make agencies accessible. Under the
current regime the opposite is happening, families would rather chew off their
arm than let agencies in.
Worst of all the agencies is our so-called
Social Services, which in itself seems to defy the trade descriptions act. In
what sense are they social and in what possible way are they services? It is
lost on most who are forced to use them. Indeed, perhaps directly as a result
of the effete leadership of Blair, Social Services has carved its’ niche in
the social structure as ‘horse-people of the apocalypse’ riding before the
storm. Potentially dreadful fates befall all who come in contact with
them.
Abuse obsessed, budget drive, zealous and morally bankrupt the
institution of Social Services seems to have moved not one jot since the days
of ‘Cathy Come Home’; apart from Blair rewarding those who deliver the most
children for adoption.
Pleas for assistance go unheard and yet those
with learning disabilities find their babies removed from birth because of the
‘fear’ of emotional neglect. No attempt is made to support mother, father and
child – its uneconomic and unthinkable.
Parents, at the end of their
tether, fight tooth-and-nail to secure some form of intervention with unruly
children. Exposed to the commercial culture that consumes childhood and
surviving the inhuman environment of school young people rebel.
Feeding
off their experiences and those of their peers the young acquire skills to
allow them to survive. The lower down the economic ladder the more that has to
be survived and the more their behaviour can be linked to this need to fit in
or hide.
Behaviour is developed not born and perhaps Blair and his
advisors would do good to read some rudimentary psychology texts. Our
behaviour is the observable manifestation of our thoughts, feelings and
actions – it communicates our psyche. If the psyche of the young continues to
fall on the deaf ears or closed eyes of politicians then problem behaviours
will only get worse. Individuals can change their own behaviour but they
cannot change another’s; it can be an isolating process.
Change must
have an incentive to make it worthwhile and purposeful - if there are no
benefits to the individual then they will stay stuck in the way they are.
Behaviours only adapt to take advantage of opportunities, what opportunities
are on offer? If the labels of their indiscretions are to follow them all
their lives, if they are on list after list of ‘potential’ risks then where is
change worth the effort? If failing to have A star grades by end of secondary
school means you have already failed, why try?
Channel 4 and 5 can
employ the services of two ‘experts’ who, if the programmes are to be
believed, can walk in and less than a week later effect dramatic change within
families we must ask why aren’t social services doing the same?
Good
god, ITV employ a bunch of quintessential older English nannies to do the same
across the pond in America. The problems
they have faced have been equal if not worse but the parents are not from such
low socio-economic backgrounds.
Social Services have failed, time and
again, to protect the young and vulnerable. They have even been seen to
inflict abuse in order to coerce children to say what the social services need
them to in order to validate their invasion of family life.
Multiple
placements, multiple social workers, masses of bureaucracy and the distinct
feeling of being isolated and alone are what most looked after children can
look forward to. No familial sense of longevity at 16 they are out on their
own.
We live in a blame culture: politicians blame parents; parents
blame children; and, children blame themselves! Demonising that which politics
does not really want to find a solution for is Blair’s stock-in-trade and
young people are not immune.
My 80 year-old neighbour was quite upset
not to be ordered out of our local shopping mall, she was wearing the
proscribed ‘hoodie’, was black and wore the latest trendy trainers, alas her
three-wheel walking aid gave the game away, she was low-risk. The young are
not so lucky, they face with regularity the sideward glances as they walk down
the road, the tightening grip of old ladies on their handbags, all driven by
the insatiable media frenzy to present the latest scapegoat for social ills –
the young. There are thugs out there, there have always been thugs out there.
If life says that only the fittest survive and only the strongest have choice
then you want to be the fittest and strongest, you will go to great lengths to
prove it and retain it.
The spiralling
requirements of belonging to a gang, no matter what its culture, codes or
requirements has to be better than a life in isolation or as a victim. Gangs
require constant reaffirmation of your right to belong.
If everything
you experience from society says that there are rules to be obeyed and failure
has a price, you follow the rules. If two sets of rules exist that are
incompatible you choose the set that is most immediate to you.
If not
following one rule means you get a label for life that’s one thing, if not
following a rule means you may lose your life then it’s not difficult to
decide which is more important. Young people have a will to survive and will
do anything to survive.
Political culture does not recognise the
divide, policy makers are immune from the realities of these young peoples’
lives. Penalties for not adhering to the prevailing view of how to behave have
become more punitive than at any time in the past.
Custodial sentences
are now encouraged as a ‘preventative’ measure and yet re-offending is
increasing, perhaps because these young people have never been so safe or well
cared for as they are inside?
Ask any child psychologist and they will
agree that there is a heavy cost to demanding unswerving conformity from
children – it could be viewed as emotional abuse. So why are the government
allowed to get away with such policies?
The whole manner with which
Blair and his government have approached the issue of childhood and family
life is worse than anything I can remember. It is nihilistic and cuts to the
heart of our freedom and right to have a family life.
Perhaps that is
‘our’ generations’ problem, the Thatcher years stripped us of our dignity and
our investment in society. We turned into money grubbing, selfish and isolated
consumers and we are now reaping the rewards.
New Labour was supposed
to herald a new age and a return to social(ist) values, the truth is they are
worse than the Conservatives who went before, at least Maggie didn’t lie about
the fact that she could care less about us but more our economy.
We
need to deal in the here-and-now, not the potential future generations. We
need to sort out our own backyard before trying to clean our neighbours (or
future neighbours). Politics lacks the will and integrity to tackle social
issues head on.
Society as a whole is the problem, not any individual
component. It is the prevailing attitudes and political mores that need to
change and not a futile demand for unquestioning conformity to a system in
which certain people don’t really belong.
Kindest Regards
Fassit's Social Affairs Correspondent
By Fassit's Social Affairs Correspondent
September 17, 2006
Evidence - noun
The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid : the study finds little evidence of overt discrimination. Law information given personally, drawn from a document, or in the form of material objects, tending or used to establish facts in a legal investigation or admissible as testimony in court: without evidence, they can't bring a charge.
One would assume, from the definition above, that the term evidence had a universal application. That evidence would require, as it were, bringing forth the material and other facts that support the allegation. It is a basic principle of British Law that an individual is accorded 'due process' by which is meant that laws and regulations must be related to a legitimate government interest (as crime prevention) and may not contain provisions that result in the unfair or arbitrary treatment of an individual.
It is also well accepted that British Law is based on the adversarial principle that a person accused of a crime is 'innocent till proven guilty'. Proof is established by way of evidence to support or discount the truth of the allegation and is presented in Court where there is ample chance for both sides (defence and prosecution) to state their case and argue against each other's and for the matter to be decided impartially. All well and good in principle but there are areas of 'investigation' that fall far outside the protections we citizens presume to be our basic legal rights.
Much is being made in the media recently about the number of young people the state 'looks after' on behalf of their parent(s) or in place of their parent(s). Statistics, in themselves quite meaningless as Disraeli observed; remember the tired adage: 'There are lies, damned lies and statistics'. It is as if the fact that local authorities are accommodating young people in ever increasing numbers somehow supports the mechanisms by which those young people are accommodated.
Indeed, without much apparent insight or knowledge into the actual application of social services investigations journalists are pronouncing, quite evocatively, that these young people are abused or neglected and presenting with every increasing behavioural issues. Perhaps the first enlightenment we need is to consider to the two basic categories for a child to enter the purview of the social services department: either a child and their family self-refer (ask for help) from social services; or, they are referred by another agency because of 'concern'.
In the former category one would expect social services to at least acknowledge that the family understand they are having difficulties and that they have approached the agency they feel will best assist them. Nothing is further from the truth as social services are renowned for deterring families that self-refer and attempt to divert them to other agencies or just state their own disinterest. Funnily enough the Children Act, 1989 specifically states that the local authority have a duty to at least keep a register of all 'children in need' in their area and to provide, where appropriate, information, support and services.
In the latter category, those referred by other agencies due to concerns, then again social services seem adept at 'dodging responsibility' unless there is 'evidence' of abuse or neglect it is interesting that their 'demanded' threshold far outstrips their own internal threshold in terms of evidence but this will be argued later. Where social services deem that their threshold has been met then they will provide an initial assessment and if after this they still feel the family are within their remit then they will conduct a core assessment.
One can assume, quite reasonably, that no parent refers themselves because they are abusing or neglecting their child, though they do refer when their child is or has been abused by another. Eligibility for services, again, is seen as quite arbitrary, if the perpetrator has been convicted or has moved out of the area then social services often see that they have 'no role'. So how, or when, do social services get involved?
If the initial assessment, if it happens, raises issues that pique the curiosity of one or more of the social services then a core assessment is completed. This is an intrusive, secret and often hollow assessment of the family and child¹s social, emotional and educational circumstances. Quite an unwieldy document it is often seen as too complex to be understood or so full of information that it becomes overkill. However, there are trigger points where social services 'concern' may increase to a point that they decide, without any negotiation with the family, that a conference is required.
Here we arrive at the point where most families are transported into a twilight world of innuendo, belief (prejudice), suspicion, risk and opinion. Once the unfettered and unchecked psyche of the social worker is unleashed upon their world then a family can only do one thing fight for dear life and liberty. Every aspect of a family¹s disclosure in their core assessment is now used as a tool to support the 'suspicions' of the social services, prior mental health history, lack of finances, alcohol and drugs: all of these factors count as important as each other in determining the 'risk' posed to the child.
Families are routinely threatened with criminal proceedings and removal of any/all children from the family. Once a child or children are removed and accommodated family members face the prospect of their child enduring multiple moves and even out of area placement where they have to travel to see their own child. Such 'contact' arrangements are also subject to control by the social services department who can, without notice, withhold visitation rights. Children's poor behaviour in placement is rarely seen as a consequence of wanting to go home but more the disruptive influence of family members visiting. Vital information about medical treatment is withheld from parents and cases of suspected or actual abuse in a foster or children¹s home is again rarely shared with parents.
Any family that bulks against the actions of the social services department are considered 'high risk' parents as they are unable to cooperate or work in partnership with social services. Physical, mental, emotional and educational factors are reinterpreted as supporting the notion that ³this parent/these parents cannot possibly cope with their child/children² and this further supports the social services angle.
Here again we need to be very specific there are two forms of inclusion of children on a 'child protection register', there can be ³abuse¹ where
adult(s) are engaging in a form of behaviour with a child which is directly intended to harm the child (either physical, emotional or sexual); but there is also 'neglect' where adults may not act intentionally but nonetheless are risking their child (this is primarily emotional and physical). Examples of the difference: physical abuse could include beatings or other physical chastisement which in all events is unreasonable (breaking bones etc); physical neglect would be not taking adequate care over nutrition and need not be intentional it may just be the parent¹s poor understanding of dietary health needs of a child.
The ability for a family to negotiate the child protection process is not easy, in fact often obtaining the help of a legal advisor is no help at all. Many solicitors know what they are up against and try their best to help clients keep control of the conflicting emotions they are going through whilst themselves knowing that the system isn't under any formal legal control. Social services are at liberty to pursue any line of enquiry they feel is supporting their allegations but do not have to examine any evidence that would dispute their point-of-view. Social services come at parents with the view that they are ³guilty until proven innocent² which without recourse to the Court is impossible to realise for many parents.
Children can be held in 'limbo' on 'voluntary care orders' where parents are told, 'either sign this form to allow us to take your child/children or we will go to Court and get an Order.' Parents believe social services and they have good reason to, after all who can forget the Orkney debacle or Cleveland travesty where whole groups of children were taken from their homes. Once social services have a child in their 'care' then a different set of objectives unfolds is there a possibility this child could be adopted? We will not travel too far down this road but it is an essential requirement for social services to look at whether reunification of a child is possible at all and where this isn't possible to look for 'permanency' for the child.
A voluntary care agreement allows, in law, for the parent(s) to retrieve their child from local authority care whenever they feel that this is right for them, however, most parents who try or express a desire to attempt this are told that this will be met with social services going to Court for an Order and that visitation to their child may be at risk if they try this. Indeed, this will then be minuted in the notes which parents don't have access to as them being hostile or uncooperative and a whole set of aspersions being cast on them.
Behind the scenes social services will be working hard on a case to bring to Court, whether they intend to seek full custody of a child or not. Every conversation, letter, complaint, piece of personal or family history will be being woven into a tapestry that paints the picture social services want told. What evidence to they have to produce to Court none! By judicious inclusion of material provided by the parents and especially including out-of-context but verbatim quotes social services has the power to put forward a pretty convincing case. At Court social workers are considered 'expert witnesses' and their 'opinion' matters more than the facts of the case.
Many cases succeed not because the evidence was so strong but because the social worker was a good orator and the file presented to the Court appeared so 'circumstantially' strong. This is how learning disabled parents can loose child after child, not because they have ever been found guilty of child neglect or abuse but because social services felt there was a risk of neglect or abuse the though of providing services to these parents to counter such risks doesn¹t occur to them. This is how parents who seek help for a child that is 'out of control' but who they desperately love and want at home ends up in care for being at risk of 'emotional neglect' and then that child ends up creating havoc in the foster home(s) not a surprise I would have thought. Again, all this/these parent/s want is support at home.
By Fassit's Social Affairs Correspondent
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