#telltheirsories #ifyoucanttelltheirname part 2

A development yesterday late afternoon as the county Council released this over twitter

 

Although they have released a timetable for disclosure it now seems that it's now six children that have died :-(

 

Given the protracted period of the disclosure that will take place the earliest of which seems to be the end of October, you have to wonder if this total of dead children will rise before the learning takes place.

#telltheirstories #ifyoucanttelltheirname

 

Northamptonshire County Council has had it's third successive "inadequate" grading published. Whilst it's been badged as inadequate, five children have died in County Council care and despite this no serious case review has been published. The last two of the children who died did so during the second "inadequate" Ofsted inspection.

 

Here is the only news story that has been published about the deaths. Published in March there has been no update on this.

 

Council staff tell me that they are concerned about the situation with many qualified staff leaving and being replaced with unqualified staff and agency staff.

 

The Chief Executive of Northamptonshire County Council, Paul Blantern wrote to the children's social care staff on Friday stating:

 

"...Ofsted have commented positively in their report on many aspects of the work that we are doing:

· We are better at engaging and listening to the voice of the child

· We have strong leadership, both politically and corporately

· There is a vigorous recruitment plan in place, with a commitment to filling vacancies

· Our children’s homes are either good or excellent

· Our decisions on whether or not a child should be in care is appropriate

So while we know we are inadequate – and indeed, that was the rating we were expecting - I believe we now have everything in place to start making real improvements.

This is against a background of ongoing challenges in terms of demand on the service. Since the release of the Child Protection inspection report we have had a significant increase in the number of children that we need to provide a service to.

Since March, there has been a 30% increase in referrals to children’s social care, the number of children on child protection plans has increased by 17% and the number of looked after children has increased steadily. The number of children identified as ‘in need’ has increased from 4500 to 5300 – an almost 20% increase."

 

Given the concerns about understaffing  and an over-zealousness to snatch something positive from the from the third inadequate rating in a row it really makes you question whether the reality of the task at hand has hit home.

 

Heather Smith, Deputy Leader of the County Council, emphatically assures us that the issue had never been about money. The Liberal Democrat leader urges for extra funds out of the budgets from other Council Services to tackle the situation.

 

Closer scrutiny of the new Children's Social Care Structure shows a high proportion of Senior Practitioner vacancies and those which are vacant occupied by a high proportion of agency staff (some of whom earn over £36 per hour) and some teams having proportions of newly qualified social workers of over 60%. During budget negotiation, terms and conditions for Northamptonshire County Council staff were altered, making conditions of service in the authority some of the worst in the Country. Whereas every other authority has been recruiting on nationally negotiated pay, terms and conditions, Northamptonshire County Council has been recruiting with the equivalent of  one hand tied behind their back with a set of working conditions that no other authority have. Prospective staff with be right to view offers of employment suspiciously. Other directives have been issued to staff which state that there will be times when they will not be able to complete activity as required by professional standards in their contracted time and this will have to be undertaken outside their contracted hours. Essentially working for free. Is this really the way to get the best people to pull the service out of this hole?

 

Thirteen years ago in the same authority a child went missing in Council care (Sarah Benford) and there was nationwide publicity about this.
 

Now that five children have died and it seems that no one wants to know. I've been in contact with three different press representatives over the course of today and it does seem that those five children are dead and forgotten. With the clamour for no increases in Council Tax it really does seem that the children simply don't matter. Is this because we don't care any more about this. Or is it that whilst they remain faceless and nameless it's OK not to care. Whilst the serious case reviews are not published ... that's the way it'll stay.

Over the weekend I suggested that people who did care and wanted to show that they care could perhaps make a statement ... perhaps through twitter using the hashtag

#telltheirstories #ifyoucanttelltheirname

It's about power

Over the last couple of weeks there has been so much it’s hard to make sense out of.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is. Sometimes it’s not. One defining characteristic about 2013 is a level of brutality on a personal, organisation, governmental and international level.

Earlier this month we had the conviction and sentencing of Mick and Mairead Philpott for their part in the deaths of the six children. Then a subsequent news frenzy as rather than violence it was seen as the fault of a benefit culture by senior Conservative figures. Earlier this week it came out that Mick Philpott  was a Conservative voter an left bloggers alluded to the fact that it was his voting practices rather than his benefits that created the culture that resulted in the deaths of the children.

The inquest into Savita Halappanavar's death has unanimously delivered its verdict: her death was as a result of medical misadventure. A strong health young woman who was herself a medical professional died because the medical professionals around her would not give her an abortion whilst there was the presence of the foetal heartbeat despite and admission that the foetus had fatal abnormalities. Whilst senior clinicians protected themselves by citing the anomalies in the Irish law it was left to a midwife to tell the truth about why Savita was denied an abortion.  It was not because an abortion wouldn’t save her ... as it would have it was because of the country that Savita had the misfortune to be in when she had problems with the pregnancy. Savita’s death created outrage in India from feminists but supported by a wave of patriotic anti-West sentiment that turned a blind eye to the need for greater access to abortion for Indian women in India and more basic health care support for Indian woman and girls.

In the last twenty-four hours there is a new atrocity to focus on as a five year old girl is raped and physically abused in Delhi. The reports of the abuse, and the police investigations when she went missed is gut wrenchingly both horrific and tragic. As demonstrators demand that enough is enough, the police alienate themselves even more by reports of one of them slapping a protester.

The common thread is clearly the issue of power imbalances against women and children. Rather than issues about the state, this kind of inhumanity will continue as long as people think they can get away with playing life and death over others because no one will stand up and be counted in defence of others that are more vulnerable or simply do not have the power. In some ways you can argue that there are tough decisions to be made as no one wants to be accused with no comeback but unless more people stand up for what they believe in, then women and children will continue to die. Despite the fact that deeply violent and disgusting things have happened in India ... at least there is protest. All too often bad things happen in Britain and no one wants to know.