One of the omissions which is recorded in the review is that there was no inter-disciplinary meeting before the decision to close the case to social work was taken. Again that is against procedure: but it does not mean that the workers involved were not talking to each other. Nobody was expressing serious concerns, at least as I read the review. The social worker saw mother and baby at the baby's grandparents house and all was well: the baby was growing as expected and routine health checks had been carried out. The only actual incident referred to in the report, was the incident in June.
From August the family support worker continues to be involved. Note the name: a family support worker is a unqualified worker who is there to support families who are in need of help in caring for their children. This is often an enormously helpful role: family support workers cannot take your children off you: so they are seen as more helpful than social workers often. But there is this: involvement with them is entirely voluntary. Some people just don't want folk interfering in their lives, and they have a perfect right to refuse to engage with such a service. In this case both the family support worker and the drugs worker had difficulty in making contact with the baby's mother.
One thing that is often a feature is that people find involvement with such workers stigmatising. That is much less usual when you are talking about universal services such as GP's and Health visitors: because everybody sees them. It is also true that those who misuse drugs or alcohol often have quite chaotic lives, and are not reliable in keeping appointments. The mother gave plausible explanations for not keeping appointments. This lack of engagement is made much of in the review; but again, it is easy with hindsight. If people do not see any value in engaging with a voluntary service why on earth should they? It is a difficult position for these workers: they have the services they have and people have a choice. Yet when they exercise that choice it seems the review expects workers to take that as evidence that they should take action. I mentioned above that we are to work "in partnership" with people: so long as they do what they are told, apparently: by workers who are in a support role, offered as a service and entirely voluntary.
It is arguable that the engagement should not be voluntary: but at this stage what grounds have there been for any compulsion be imposed? In Scotland we have a fairly flexible system, compared to that which exists in England: but we still have to have grounds for statutory intervention. The grounds of referral to a children's hearing are fairly clear and are contained in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The only possible ground is S 52 (2 (c) which says that the child:
QUOTE
(c)is likely—
(i)to suffer unnecessarily; or
(ii)be impaired seriously in his health or development,
due to a lack of parental care;
What evidence is there for that? At the point the case was closed to social work the majority of the objective causes for concern were gone. So as far as I can see there is no possibility of formal measures at that point. Thereafter the support workers are not getting in to see the mother and baby. But she is going to the clinic because she is on a methadone programme and will not get her script if she does not. She is still seeing the health visitor, so far as I can tell from the review. Babies get checks at 14 days, and at between 6 and 8 weeks: they get immunisations at 8 weeks, 3 months and 4 months:and they get a full review before they are a year old. All of those checks are done. The review also notes that the Health Visitor visits monthly, though there was no visit in October and none planned, apparently. It is true that the health visitor did not succeed in seeing mother and baby in November, as planned, and that the next visit also fails on 3rd December: But the baby is seen by the GP on 11th December and nothing of concern is noted.
It is quite a stretch to make a successful referral to child protection social workers in these circumstances. The review makes much of the fact that risk factors are not mentioned in the health visitor's records: so what? Again there is a touching reliance on paper: what are workers expected to do? Write down that this is a single mother with a history of substance misuse every time they visit? How will that help?
The review notes again that the risk factors are not mentioned when the health visitor does the "wider world" assessment in July. This is what that assessment looks like (though this particular example is from Lanarkshire, they are all much the same)
http://www.girfecinlanarkshire.co.uk/girfe...20Part%20II.pdfThose facts should have been entered, obviously. It keeps the paperwork tidy. What else does it do? I have absolutely no idea. In my experience it sits on a file. In this case it would not have told them anything not already known. And the situation did appear to be improving. But this is the kind of thing which is to be done on the basis of the leading strategy for children in Scotland: which is called "Getting it right for every child" Imagine doing that for a case load of 500 children: when would you ever get out of the office?
