Neglect
Recently I attended a neglect summit organised by Manchester Safeguarding Children Board. A summit seems like a heady title but felt fitting for the task at hand. The summit was facilitated by Professor Jan Howarth who is working with several LSCB’s around issues of neglect and has led several research projects and written books on multi-agency approaches to neglect.
Neglect remains the highest category of child abuse in Manchester with well over half of all children subject to a child protection plan falling into this category. Neglect consistently arises as an area of concern in serious case reviews and other case reviews. This summit was arranged to inform a strategy that will tackle the tolerance for neglect within the city.
What stuck with me from the day was the need to challenge our own assumptions, feelings and practices and work to remind ourselves on the impact of neglect on children’s functioning and development. When I was in practice I remember the frustration of working with families where there was chronic neglect and seeing slight improvements, enough for agencies to close their involvement, only for the family to drift and the same concerns to be raised some months down the line and never feeling that the neglect was addressed.
In a challenging speech Michael Gove said "I firmly believe more children should be taken into care more quickly and that too many children are allowed to stay too long with parents whose behaviour is unacceptable. I want social workers to be more assertive with dysfunctional parents, courts to be less indulgent of poor parents, and the care system to expand to deal with the consequences."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/16/michael-gove-children-risk...
It is an interesting shift and how seems to sit against the early intervention and early help approach that if practiced correctly would arguably reduce and address those cases of chronic neglect. However it is clear that what we are currently doing across the whole of the safeguarding system is not moving forward on neglect
There needs to be a bold strategy to deal with neglect in the city which needs to include a focus on multi-agency working at every level ensuring that ALL agencies voices are heard and are used to inform decision making. But there also needs to be a focus on neglect on the lower levels of the continuum of need.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the topic.
Manchester will be taking this work forward with a multi agency group of professionals to develop a strategy in the coming months.