Child Protection in Action

Hi, my name is John. This story is not directly connected with the others on your site, but I thought it might add to a general picture of how Social Services work, or should I say don't work.

It all started with a call from Social Services - they kept saying they had "concerns" about my youngest child, Kane. They would not talk about the "concerns" on the phone, but could I and my wife attend a meeting at the local Social Service office. It wasn't really clear what it was all about but I have subsequently realised that it was a meeting to decide if our son Kane should go on the Child Protection Register.

Well we arrived at the meeting, somewhat bewildered. We thought that Kane must have been truanting, or stealing or something. We sat down to a room full of people. I remember there being three Social Workers, and a policeman, but I am not sure who all the rest were. The person in charge, a Social Worker, said that they had reasons for concern for the safety of Kane.

Well, of course, we asked just what these concerns were. I am afraid we cannot discuss them because of confidentiality was the answer. What? There are reasons to be concerned about the safety of Kane, but we as parents could not be told what they are? Surely this was madness. Surely it was madness. Fortunately, neither myself nor my wife were intimidated by these people. We just took turns in asking the same question. It was our child and if there was any risk to his safety, we needed to know precisely what the risks were. They could not put confidentiality before the safety of a child.

After an hour of this repetition, they broke. They told us what the concerns were. An older child of ours had informed a psychiatrist that he had been abused by a friend of mine when he was younger. We were in shock; numbed. However, it was clear that there was an immediate consensus from everyone present that now we knew what the danger was, it no longer existed. Social Services had tried desperately to allow the danger to continue in our ignorance. If we had not been eventually told, there was every possibility that this friend would have gone on to abuse Kane. There were indications that Kane was being groomed for this.

This was far from the end of things for us. My older son who was abused still suffers the consequences, but he is a survivor. Had we not been informed about it, there might well have been dozens of other boys abused by this man who had access to thousand of boys through his various positions of authority. As it was, there eventually was a prosecution but no conviction.. There rarely is. We have had nothing else to do with Social Services since then.

Analysis

One question that puzzled me was how the Social Services got to know about what had been discussed in confidence with a psychiatrist. It seems that the Psychiatrist had asked for a home visit by a hospital social worker, who then gained access to the notes. All social workers have a legal obligation to inform the Social Service Department when there is a possible risk to a child.

Of course, John and his wife feel guilty too. It was their family friend. There were no signs. This was an experienced pedophile at work.

Home

Except where indicated, any part of this site may be freely copied provided only that a link is put back to this site. (http://www.stolenchildhood.homecall.co.uk)

site map