Here’s our presentation submission. 

Group members and tasks are as follows: Franco Genovese completed question 1, Laura Lee question 2- (she will submit this by email to you Geoff), Sam Jagusz question 3 and Tracey Kibble question 4.  We all played a part in planning how to ‘tackle’ the task.  We also all checked each other’s work and provided feedback before submitting this completed version.fficeffice" />

Question 1:

The Victoria Climbie inquiry report uncovered that child protection staff missed at least 12 chances to save ffice:smarttags" />Victoria.

This part of the presentation will look to explore the opportunities and draw on the legislative framework for safeguarding children as set out in the Children Act 1989 and its implementation.

 Ealing social services, spring 1999

·        Staff who saw Victoria had two concerns. Firstly, some noticed that the relationship between Kouao and Victoria was not one of mother and daughter.

·        Secondly in  Victoria's appearance

·        Ealing wanted Kouao to return to France, arguing that she had no rights to benefits.

·        Anonymous phone call to social workers in Brent and warned that Victoria was in danger.

·        Two social workers tried unsuccessfully to see Kouao on 14 July, almost a month after the warning. No further action was taken by the authority.

 First hospital admission

·        At the inquiry, Dr Schwartz said that while she did not suspect physical abuse, she did have other concerns.

·        Letter to social services, written by yet another doctor, said that there were no child protection issues.

Visits to Ealing social services

·        Staff at the office said that the case, which they considered to be a housing issue, was closed.                                                          

Second hospital admission

·        Social services did not ask Victoria what had happened until she had been in hospital for two weeks, by which point she was being discharged to the care of Kouao.

·        There were no arrangements for her to be monitored. With Kouao and Victoria now living with Carl Manning, the case was in Haringey council's hands.

·        Social worker Lisa Arthurworrey eventually made two visits Carl Manning's flat after Victoria had been discharged, the first being on 16 August 1999.

Sexual abuse allegations

·        Kouao telephoned Haringey social services on 1 November 1999 and alleged that Carl Manning had sexually abused Victoria

Final visits to Manning's flat

·        Lisa Arthurworrey told the inquiry she attempted to contact Kouao in person with three visits to Carl Manning's flat between December 1999 and January 2000. On all three occasions she received no answer.

·        Ms Arthurworrey told her supervisors that it was possible that the pair had finally returned to France.

Social services responsibilities throughout this period were to safe guard and promote Victoria’s welfare in accordance with the Children Act1989. I n response to a clear child protection referral, she had an allocated social worker.

Ealing social services failed to address Victoria’s needs as an individual and instead treated her as part of Kouao’s homelessness case. (Victoria Climbie inquiry 2003)

The social worker could have requested s20 accommodation order in respect of the carer being prevented from providing suitable accommodation or care. Victoria would then be assessed as a child in need of services.

The Act makes specific reference to the need to ascertain and listen to the wishes and feelings of children and young people and to take in to account their racial, cultural, linguistic and religious background. It appeared that Victoria’s wishes were not considered.

Victoria’s appearance should have caused social services to question the possibility of neglect. Parental responsibility was never questioned and at the time of hospital discharging Victoria, at this stage she could still be considered a child in need.

 The anonymous phone call should have been treated as a potentially serious child protection case. S 47 states ‘cause to make such inquires’; the police and social services were given opportunity to investigate. Had they done so at the appropriate time, they would have discovered that the girl was suffering serious and continual abuse. A prohibited steps order could have been requested under the Children Act .

The team believed the information related to a child not attending school, this to should have been followed through.

Where by conflicting assumptions were made where each body believed that the other was fully aware of the suspicions, social services have the lead responsibility for children about whom there are welfare concerns. Other agencies look to them for advice, support and guidance when they have concerns about the welfare of children. Social services set the threshold for undertaking inquiries and coordinate the assessment of need and risk of significant harm, working in partnership with other agencies, the child and parents and carers.(DOH 2000)

The social worker never troubled to speak to Victoria during those two visits.   She never sought to discover how Victoria spent her days ... she   never sought to take any active steps to address the fact that Victoria was not receiving any education.

Question 3:

Steps needed to be taken - steps that largely focused on making contact with Kouao, Manning and Victoria.

           “colour blindness”       “cultural sensitivity”           “cultural deficit”

Diagram 1: Webb et al, 2002 -it appears the lines used to fully display this diagram cannot be submitted to the weblog.

The above diagram demonstrates the difficult balance in trying to be culturally sensitive without becoming colour blind- treating everyone equally and not accepting differences between culture or being culturally deficit- accepting or applying lower or different standards. I think it is a useful tool when discussing anti discriminatory practice in relation to the Victoria Climbie case.

Cultural blindness

What constitutes as appropriate parenting will vary considerably between groups of people. For example, studies on attitudes to smacking (Webb et al, 2002) parenting styles (Davies et al, 1993) or female genital mutilation show differences between cultures. On a more personal level, as a social work student it is important to recognise that I am capable of judging others by my own standards.  As Thompson (2001) would suggest, good social work practice cannot take place without an acknowledgement of discrimination and oppression. It is therefore important:

“…to develop a greater awareness and understanding of self- identity and its impact on our ability to engage and work with others.” (Furness, S. 2005. P.249)

As a social work student it is important to acknowledge that a eurocentric attitude can lead to the imposition of one set of beliefs and practices (Williams & Soydan, 2005) and lead to inappropriate or inadequate social work intervention.

Cultural deficit

However, anti discriminatory practice also helps us to acknowledge stereotypes and assumptions about different cultures. As a social work student learning from the Victoria Climbie inquiry I believe that assumptions would need to be investigated further. An obsession with cultural rationalisation leads to dangerous practice and injustice to BME families and children.(Welbourne, 2002) .  We can see that cultural assumptions can lead to lower standards being accepted as in Victoria’s case. Some examples being:

-Lisa Arthurworrey heard that Victoria stood to attention when her aunt appeared she assumed that this was a cultural norm about respect towards elders.

-Pastor Pascal Orome saw injuries that he felt were the result of possession by the devil rather than an indicator of a child at risk.

-The assumption that a black worker is more appropriate.

Cultural sensitivity

As a social work student, learning from the mistakes that led to the tragic death of Victoria Climbie I would take these issues into consideration. A balance needs to be met to accept and understand difference and culture but not to the point where it impacts on the welfare of the child by accepting or applying lower standards to BME families and children in assessments, judgements or the services that are being offered.

Welfare over political correctness

Lord Laming noted that during the case professionals were scared of being perceived as racist and studies have shown that professionals feel anxious/ ill equipped to meet the needs of people from diverse backgrounds. (Gerrish et al, 1996 & Williams et al, 2005) However, whilst I can understand the fear that workers may have it is important for social workers to remind themselves that Victoria and her welfare should have been central to the assessments, not the reputation/ political correctness of the various professionals. Laming states that he does not do political correctness when it comes to children.

Victoria never appeared to be central to the case and at first it is hard to understand Perhaps ageism was an issue. Often ageism focuses on the marginalisation  of old people however, children experience similar issues (Thompson, 2001) and perhaps this was reflected in workers attitudes.

The CA (1989) states that the welfare of the child is paramount. An interpreter was never used to talk to Victoria in her first language- French. Article 12 of UNCRC states that children who are capable of forming their own views should have the right to express them. Learning from this I would have ensured that I spent time establishing and building a relationship with Victoria to ensure that her wishes and views were heard, with the use of an interpreter.

The establishment of the 3 year degree and the importance of anti discriminatory practice within this course will hopefully ensure that future social workers have an understanding of discrimination at all levels and transfer this to everyday practice.

Question 4:

In light of all that ‘went wrong’ in the case of Victoria Climbie I looked into what would help when working with a child like Victoria.  I found pieces of information almost everywhere I looked that gave guidance on what should be taken into account.  Here is an example (Department of Health, 1988)  “… allocating a worker from the same cultural background as the family, or …understanding cultural issues and if required involve a language interpreter”.  Key words in the quote I feel are “..same cultural background..”; just because a white person is white doesn’t mean they understand all white people.  In children’s services the child is the client and thus as with any other client the most suitable form of communication must be sought; if this is another language or a first language in which an individual may better express themself this must be provided as soon as possible.

“Managers at all levels are responsible … they should ensure that staff are operating in a framework of written and appropriately detailed policies, with effective systems for the allocation, supervision, review and recording of cases”. (Department of Health, 1988)  All points noted here are, in my opinion, fundamental ideas which should be followed when undertaking work with any individual.  Knowing a worker was operating under close and monitored guidelines and was supported, with a place to turn with questions or concerns would help greatly in providing not only a supported working environment where morale would presumably be higher and ‘lethargy’ lower but this in turn would provide greater energy to work and be a more curious Social Worker.  “Our services are threadbare, morale is low…”. (Community Care, 2003)   

In his report, The Victoria Climbie Inquiry, Lord Laming suggested basic information of every child under 16yrs of age be stored on a database.  “The IS (information-sharing) Index will only contain … names, parents, schools and GPs.  Professionals including social workers and youth offending teams will be able to access the information”. (Community Care, 2005)  Such a database would help to ‘track’ children who move area.  A Social Worker could search a child on the database and although the details may not be up-to-date it will enable them to find details of a previous G.P. and school.  These could then be used as points of contact for tracing the child’s movements and any previous contact with services.  As it would list the child’s parents even these basic details could be checked, to a point. 

If such a database had been available in the case of Victoria Climbie her previous movements could have been traced to some degree and a previous Social Worker located.  This would have allowed for the sharing of information which could very well have been key in answering any questions being raised by Victoria’s current Social Worker or perhaps it would have raised some questions in her Social Workers mind; questions she otherwise may not have asked.  In whatever final form this Information Sharing Index takes I believe as long as it is safeguarding against unauthorised access or misuse it will be invaluable to professionals trying to trace a child’s history or trying to locate its new movements away from their area.

Bibliography

• Department of Health (2000) Assessing children in need
  
• Department of Health (2001) The Children Act now
  
• Department of Health and the Home office (2003) The Victoria Climbie inquiry
  
• Department of Education and Skills (2004)  Every child matters
  
• The Children Act 1989

§         Furness, S (2005) Shifting Sands: Developing Cultural Competence in British Journal Of Social work. Vol 17 (no.4) pp. 247-256

§         Thompson, N (2001) Anti discriminatory Practice. Palgrave: Basingstoke

§         Webb, E et al (2002) Effectively promoting Black and Minority Ethnic children from harm: overcoming barriers to the child protection process in Child Abuse Review. Vol 11 pp. 394-410

§         Welbourne, P (2002) Culture, Children’s Rights and Child protection in Child Abuse Review. Vol 11 pp. 345-358

§         Williams, C & Soydan, H (2005) When and how does Ethnicity matter? A cross- national study of social work responses to ethnicity in child protection cases in British Journal of Social Work. Vol 35 (no. 6) pp. 901-920

§         www.victoria-climbie-inquiry.org.uk/

§         www.anationalvoice.org/rights/rotchil2.htm

§         http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1989/Ukpga_19890041_en_1.htm

• (1988) Protecting Children - A Guide for Social Workers Undertaking a Comprehensive Assessment, Department of Health

• Community Care, http://www.communitycare.co.uk//Articles/2005/12/09/52110/Information+sharing+details+released.html?key=CLIMBIE, 2005, 2005, Information Sharing Details Released.
  
• Community Care, http://communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2003/03/20/40049/Want+answers+Don't+ask+Laming.html?key=LOW+AND+MORALE+AND+SOCIAL+AND+SERVICES, 2003, Want answers? Don't ask Laming.