Having recently returned from a long summer holiday - hence no recent entries - I have just realised that it is one year since I started this blog. It's not so much a matter of what I have done in that year as what has, or has not, happened. In the UK a new Government has brought the promise of more measured and more considered approaches to child protection and has set up the very welcome Munro Review. But aside from these developments - which at this stage are all about promise rather than delivery - the last year has seen very little substantial change. In particular we still have:
- Serious and seemingly intractable problems in recruiting and retaining child protection social workers
- Highly bureaucratic systems and working practices
- Out-dated and misguided approaches to improving safety and quality in child protection work
- A chronic shortage of foster-parents
- A dispirited workforce
- Services which continue to be driven by producer interests and internally agreed targets, rather than by the needs and wants of abused and neglected children
- The blame culture
.... I could go on but I'm already feeling the very beneficial effects of that holiday wearing off; and I don't want to end the day too depressed. And I don't want to depress others either, but there's no point in misjudging the size of the mountain that's been left to climb.
Another year over ... and a long way to go. And there's still no sign of the Khyra Ishaq serious case review!!
