FionaK |
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| Each time a child is abused in the UK it is a social worker's fault. It doesn't really matter who else is involved: it doesn't much matter if the social work department is not even involved. For a doctor, if he does his job the way other doctors do theirs he is not held to be at fault if a patient dies. But doctors have a good trade union and they defend themselves against absurd expectations quite well. If there ever was any possibility of that for social workers it died decades ago. Mine was the first profession attacked systematically though that process has since been applied to every other public service, one by one and in the same way: as the forces which seek to dismantle the welfare state have succeeded in undermining professional status they have moved on to another, stronger body: and now the doctors and police are getting the same treatment. It remains to be seen whether they can resist effectively.
I have said much of this before but the reason I raise it today is because I have only just become aware of one of the most depressing instances of my main complaint: those who are supposed to be at the top of my profession are our worst enemies: some because they are stupid; some because they are self seeking; there may be other reasons too, though I do not know what they are.
It may seem extreme to have such contempt for the managers and academics who speak for (read against) my profession: but consider what I learned today.
There is a man called Professor Richard Barker. He is Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of Northumbria. He has been appointed to oversee the development of a new code of ethics for social workers. This is being developed by the new College of Social Work which was set up to enhance the professional status of social work after the scandal which attended the death of Baby P. The idea was that it would eventually attain the status of Royal College, akin to those which operate in the health service. It was absurd from its inception and it will suffice to note that if you go to their website today the most important news is that there are to be awards for Social Worker of the Year and there are only two weeks left to get your nomination in. *FionaKabuki rolls eyes and moves on*
Anyway: back to Richard Barker. The man who is going to develop a code of ethics for me.
In 1993 two people ran the toddler room at a nursery run by Newcastle council, called Shieldfield. They were accused of child abuse and they were charged and held in custody pending trial. One of them was assaulted while in jail, but nobody saw anything. When they came to trial they were acquitted on the direction of the judge, who considered the evidence to be "dangerous and unreliable". You might think that would be an end of it for them. It wasn't.
The day they were acquitted the leader of Newcastle council told the press that the council believed that the children had been abused and that the two workers were dismissed from their employment. The council also set up a review which was headed by Richard Barker. It was to produce a report into the case, but it took them a very long time: they did not publish until 1998. During that period the accused could not work in their chosen jobs and found other employment: they lived with the fact that the public believed them guilty partly because of the council leader's statement and the existence of the review body.
When the review body completed its report it was front page news in Newcastle: they did not just uphold the original allegations. They concluded that the two workers were part of a paedophile ring and were also involved in producing pornographic movies. The press besieged the two and they were treated to reading admonitions in the tabloids for the public to "find these beasts". They were not warned when the report was about to come out, nor about its contents. Apparently that was an "oversight".
Eventually they were helped to find lawyers who would bring a libel case on a "no win- no fee" basis and that case finally reached court in 2002. They were awarded £200,000 each: the maximum permitted for damages in a libel case. In delivering his judgement Mr Justice Eady said that Barker and his team had been deliberately untruthful and he could not avoid a finding of "malice". He said that the report contained a number of claims which the team must have known were blatantly false, and which "could not be explained on the basis of incompetence or mere carelessness". Barker was singled out for his "lack of objectivity and willingness to use his position to bully". Mr Justice Eady went on to say "I was unable to place reliance upon anything said by Professor Barker" who displayed "a cast of mind closed to all reason"
I have seldom read a more damning judgement. In the ordinary course of events one might imagine that a person on the receiving end of such condemnation might lose their job: after all it is hard to see his performance is better than that of the social workers who were sacked after baby P died, and he had both more time and less pressure to contend with. But no. He has gone from strength to strength.
And now this man is going to advise my english colleagues on ethics.
You could not make this up
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