Recently, Prime Minister David Cameron proposed a threat to jail social workers and other public servants for ‘failing to protect’ children. These plans were supported by the Labour Party, with Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, reportedly saying Mr Cameron’s plans did not go far enough. Moreover, what is most troubling about Mr Cameron’s proposals are his comments about the protection of children and the compromise to safety.
These proposals were made just two months before a general election and seem to be a deliberately opportunistic example of game playing.
As everyone knows, the best way to transform the lives of the most vulnerable people in society is to work together with partners. Safeguarding partnerships dedicating their time, effort and passion everyday ensure that children and vulnerable people remain supported and protected.
The last thing safeguarding partners or vulnerable children and families need is a culture of blame and threat for the far more serious systemic statutory failings that have been revealed in a number of inquiries and reviews.
The way in which we manage, develop and support partnerships plays a vital part in creating the climate in which they operate. So, the intensity of professional supervision, the combined analysis and decision-making and the amount of time, thought and managerial oversight that goes into supporting this work is not a luxury or an indulgence -it is an essential part of getting it right.
Supporting and equipping partnership arrangements to strike the right balance in ensuring their safeguarding responsibilities remains a necessity.
If we don’t get this right, and the environment in which the work is carried out is not balanced and supportive, systems quickly become either risk averse or visionless, which can be detrimental or even dangerous.
Many managers need to strike a delicate balance between making sure that work is allocated and efficiently progressed, that practice is sufficiently thorough and creating a culture where people do not feel under excessive pressure. This is tricky, but we must get this right.
Recently there has been a marked increase in a number of partners leaping forward and investing time and effort into telling good stories via social media to help public understanding and to raise awareness with their professional networks. There are also more appreciative enquiry reports rather than just the “wrong doing” reports.
It has to be hoped that this has a snowballing impact and will not only help with the public and professional understanding of the work undertaken, the dilemmas and challenges faced, but the recruitment and retention of new qualified professionals as well.
Many safeguarding partnerships continue to struggle to recruit appropriate staff. In the most difficult circumstances a vicious circle develops in which staff shortages generate higher workloads, which in turn makes it more difficult to recruit and retain good staff.
I, alongside my colleagues from other professions, am working very hard to enable the spreading of good practice in the safeguarding world to support effective interprofessional collaboration and to improve the quality of care. It is important to use sensitive approaches to work with new partners and to keep the regular dialogues to ensure understanding of what can be provided and what can be done differently.
Change is required but it needs to be considered, proportionate and responsible. The political call by both parties is in my opinion ill-thought and unreasonable. Morale remains very low among frontline staff, and services struggle to retain the most experienced and skilled workers.
The threat of prosecution for what have been systemic rather than individual failings can only make this situation worse.
By Marisa De Jager