Wilt Portfolio

It is somewhat ironic that on the very day that CEOPS (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) http://www.ceop.police.uk/ announce a record level of ‘saving’ children http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13594329 from sexual exploitation that it is reported that a police officer sexually exploited a 14 year old looked after child – or at least he attempted to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392731/Police-officer-sacked-inappropriate-relationship-girl-14-met-custody.html

It is further reported here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13603101

“Pc Robert Nicholson met the girl in October 2009 while she was in custody and exchanged text and Facebook messages which had “sexual elements”.

He then met the girl when he took her out of her care home in east London.

The constable, who was 27 at the time, faced a trial for sexual activity with a child but was found not guilty.”

Wilt Portfolio

Well, call me a little simple minded, but me thinks this was sexual exploitation. Do not the CEOP people and the Met people talk to each other?

Is it just me that links these two news reports?

Perhaps CEOP need to look closer to home for offenders?

Not very joined up, we think.

Wilt

Wilt Portfolio

Now this is an interesting article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12294733 not so much that there is any surprise that looked after children are placed miles (sometimes hundreds) away from their communities – excluding concerns of course in relation to asylum seeking children who have done incredible feats to get as far away as possible from their homelands.

The thing is local authority fostering services struggle to recruit and retain suitable people as carers (and we know keep some people on their books irresponsibly) and most no longer have children’s homes – a big mistake.

So what happened? The voluntary sector (private business by another name) took up some of the slack with huge and unrealistic charges to local authorities and later the private sector which grew at a phenomenal rate in the 1990’s in respect to fostering and residential care, much to the chagrin of those same local authorities, certainly at least the Labour controlled ones who hated anything in the private sector.

What is revealing, and Wilt was not aware of this, is according to the BBC:

“From April, councils are due to be forced to have sufficient accommodation for children in their care………… The government plans to enforce a “sufficiency duty” on local authorities from April.

Intended to cut the number of children being sent away, councils will have to increase care provision for children in their local areas.”

It will be interesting to see how that pans out.

Watch this space.

Wilt

The commission for social care inspection (CSCI) is the daughter of the earlier national care standards commission (NCSC) which was launched in April 2002 – it was a bit of a runt of an agency which grew out of the Care Standards Act 2000.

That Act was brought about by a number of factors and events, one of which was the North Wales child abuse revelations where numerous children were systematically sexually, emotionally and physically abused.  A rather revealing report “Lost in Care” (the Waterhouse Report) describes the utter failure of all sector providers (public/private/voluntary) for looked after children and both within residential care and foster care. One of the most concerning was the utter failure of managers and elected members to take responsibility (or sometimes colluded in their demise) for children in care, resulting in the concept that these are ‘our children.’ The full report can be read here:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/Browsable/DH_4097884

Hitherto local authorities ran inspection units, effectively inspecting themselves – and we know what that means!

So the 2000 Care Standards Act and the birth of the NCSC (later CSCI – Commission for Social Care Inspection), the General Social Care Council (GSCC) and others such as SCIE (Social Care Institute for Excellence).

In summary the NCSC/CSCI no longer exist but SCIE, the GSCC do and the NCSC/CSCI functions (child care) have been assumed by Ofsted as of April 2008. Their respective websites are listed below:

http://www.scie.org.uk/

http://www.gscc.org.uk/Home/

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/

These are all the English based organisations – each of the three other countries have similar but differently titled and seperate organisations responsible to the pwn Assemblies/Parliament. Is that a good thing? Time will tell.

The Waterhouse Report – Lost in Care should be essential reading for every child & family social worker. It contains essential reading that will significantly influence practice. Remember, what was discovered in Wales could and was discovered in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Wilt