The Prime Minister has announced a ‘task force’ on child
protection to “…to drive forward fundamental reforms to protect the most
vulnerable children.”
Apparently it will consider reforms to the quality of
children’s social work practice and leadership, promoting innovative models of delivery
and overhauling the way that police, social services and other agencies work
together locally.
I always feel a little queasy at the mention of ‘fundamental
reforms’. In policy matters this is generally code for ill-informed and
ill-considered changes designed to result in favourable headlines in the
popular press. But hey-ho, I
thought, perhaps it will be different this time??
Then I read on to see the names of those who will be the
members of this task force. All twelve will be senior government ministers. I
can’t help asking what they actually know about the quality of children’s
social work practice or innovative models of delivery or ways of overhauling
the way that agencies work together locally.
One thing seems a certain bet. None of them will ever have
had to stand on a doorstep on a cold night knowing that when the door is opened
mum or dad will have to be told that this is a child protection visit; or to sit
and listen to an agonising disclosure by an abused child; or to experience the
wrath of parents whose child has been taken away.
Child protection in Great Britain does not need to be
reformed top-down. Rather two things need to happen, both from the bottom-up. The first is that policy makers need to create
the conditions in which those who do the work, and so understand the issues and
processes, can contribute to a sustained process of continuous improvement. The second is that we all need to listen much more closely to what children and young people can tell us about their experiences of abuse and neglect and of being protected from it.
All
that we know about the management of quality and change suggests that the
impact of top-down imposed change is usually confusion and chaos followed by a gradual
return to the status quo. There is
little point in that, unless, of course, the purpose of the exercise is not
safer children but more of those favourable headlines.
