Rochdale
Listening to the news coming out of Rochdale I know, as
everyone is saying, that this is not the end of the story. For my readers who follow
what is happening in the British news,
or those that don’t watch the news, there has come to light the fact that some
1,000 plus young people have been abused, prostituted and beaten, giving them
lifelong problems. Yet they were under the care of the
authorities and had allocated social workers.
Police were also aware, but no one did anything in case political
correctness was interrupted or their carers where put in jeopardy.
When I look at the regulations governing social work,
fostering and the care of young people in the UK so much of it is good. Good regulations, good intentions with an
emphasis on good practice. However it’s
not so much the regulations that are at fault, rather the culture. A culture that from many social workers is a
culture of, I must protect my back at all costs. I must make sure if something goes wrong then
I don’t get the blame, and if it does go wrong how I can make sure I do not
take any responsibility. I must protect
my career and my income my salary my job!
I have some sympathy with the approach, not a lot but
some. I know that Social workers are often criticised for doing and criticised
for not doing. It’s a no win situation.
But there is a huge cost to that culture, and who pays the cost of that, well
as we can see in Rochdale it is of course vulnerable young people and children,
the very people that the social workers and the system is there to look after
and protect.
I wonder if it’s the training that puts this culture into
the system. Or is it Mrs Thatcher’s
fault with her ‘look after number one’ that was promoted in the 80’s, or is it
that we fail to think in terms of good and bad.
Even the word evil has become politically incorrect. Often I will say to people when in those
difficult situations ‘we need to ask what is right’ not what protects me or
defends me, or my interests. It can be
that I lose out by doing what is right, it’s still wrong not to do it.
I’m also sympathetic to the ‘whistle blowers’ don’t tell
me that they will be fine, legislation assures them that they will be
protected, it’s too ‘under the carpet’ for that, I still think they need to blow the whistle,
even if being right puts them in the wrong place. I do know what this means, we had a case
whereby I encouraged a young person to take a particular authority to court for
the wrongs being done to them, the authority used our service, I did think, they
won’t use us after this, (I.E. encouraging the young person to take them to
court) the young person won the case, rightly so, the local authority did not
use our service again, can I prove that it was because of this case, of course
not, it’s just one of those things. Would
I do it again, unfortunately yes, I say unfortunately because the moral
imperative is more important than the consequences that I might suffer.
What do we need to do going forward, well maybe we should
make sure that would be social workers foster for a year before being approved
to start with, but what is really needed is a change of
culture, that is not easy, usually it means a change of heart and many people
don’t think that is possible, and certainly don’t know how it can be achieved.
Adrian Hawkes
Edited by Gena Areola
060914
W. 634
