Allegations and other cock ups...

Every so often in social care the inspectors come to town. This means files get pulled, people get spoken to, questions are asked and eventually a weighty tome is published dealing with the magnificence or miserable mess that is the service being inspected.

It was clear that the file of one of the children here had been elected for scrutiny when he got a letter from the inspectors asking how he felt about life. His social worker, young and naive did not make the connection, how suddenly her manager allocated her sufficient time to bring his file bang up to date i's dotted and t's crossed. She thought it was a recognition of what as best practice, not realizing it was a set of buttocks being covered.

The young man concerned as absolutely made up to be asked his views by a very august sounding body and he as very keen to fill in the form. Of course since it a meant to be filled in by children the inspectors had designed a form that as full of long words and social work jargon. Young man recruited Branwen as duty form filling in helper and she helped him understand the questions and draught answers.

I think it is fair to say that this is a house where wit and wind up have been elevated to art form. So at the end of what had turned into a tedious form, he was asked what happens when he breaks the house rules, he thought it might be a laugh to tell the inspectors that he is locked in a cupboard.

Now this is where it gets complex. Information that a child might be at risk has to be investigated and investigated in a certain way. These investigations happen within a frameork, in wales we are lucky enough to have the procedure set out at national level in the All wales Child Protection Procedure.

I am going to assume a level of ignorance here, take you on a little trip through what should happen in a case like this.

On reading what had been written, the person in the inspectorate should have stopped whatever they were doing and taken the document to their manager. They in turn should have decided that this was a matter for investigation and immediately share what they know with the child protection team in the area where the child is living. They should confirm what they say in writing in two working days.

At this stage the child protection team should take the referral and start to work on it within 1 working day and make arrangements to see the child within two.

In this case they should have contacted the child's social worker, the fostering team and the social workers of the other children in placement. At this stage a discussion should take place to determine what to do next and decide what immediate measures need to be taken to keep the children safe.

It should be determined whether the person(s) under investigation come into contact with young people in any other capacity or work and steps taken to ensure that everyone who uses the person is aware of an ongoing investigation.

In this case it would probably have gone no further than a series of phone calls to various social workers, a chat with the child and that would have been it.



Now lets see what really happened.