Care news

• Safeguarding children needs proper resources | Letters

  05-12-2021 18:40
  
  Jan Horwath writes that unless we recognise the need for well-resourced services, children remain vulnerable. Plus letters from Ken Rutter and Pamela GoldbergWhile services designed to protect Arthur Labinjo-Hughes were involved with the family, we do not know yet what could have been done differently to prevent his death; that is the subject for a learning review. I am not condoning poor practice; we must recognise and address this. However, we should appreciate the context: the system in Engla
  
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• Campaigners threaten UK legal action over porn sites’ lack of age verification

  05-12-2021 17:00
  
  Exclusive: failure to prevent children seeing online porn puts them at risk of abuse and lifelong trauma, say children’s safety groups‘They see it in corridors, in bathrooms, on the bus’: UK schools’ porn crisisHow can children in the UK be protected from seeing online pornography?The UK data watchdog must introduce age verification for commercial pornography sites or face a high court challenge over any failure to act, children’s safety groups have warned.The deman
  
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• Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: Review launched into six-year-old’s murder

  05-12-2021 13:00
  
  The review will seek answers into the circumstances which led to Arthur’s deathThe government is launching a national review into the killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes to protect other children from harm and identify improvements needed in the agencies that came into contact with him before his death.Announcing the review on Sunday, the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said the government would “not rest until we have the answers we need”. Continue reading...
  
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• Don’t be fooled by deceitful parents, top child expert warns social workers

  05-12-2021 09:15
  
  Professionals urged to be more sceptical and ready to remove at-risk children after death of Arthur Labinjo-HughesSocial workers need to be more sceptical and decisive when confronted by “manipulative and deceitful” parents, one of the UK’s leading child protection experts has urged following the torture and killing of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes at the hands of his stepmother and father.Martin Narey, a former head of children’s charity Barnardo’s and senior government ad
  
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• ‘Neglected’ fostering services face crisis in morale and funding, warns UK charity

  05-12-2021 09:00
  
  Survey reveals critical shortage in placements with government accused of ‘relying on goodwill of carers to supplement the state’Ministers are facing demands for a comprehensive overhaul of foster care after Britain’s most comprehensive assessment of the service revealed low morale, funding shortfalls and poor support has fuelled a critical shortage of carers.Only a handful of fostering services across the UK now say they have the types of carers they need to meet the demand fo
  
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• Sometimes the most caring thing to do is to remove a child from their family | Sonia Sodha

  05-12-2021 07:58
  
  Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was failed fatally, left to be terrorised in his own home. The idea that care should be avoided at all costs is wrongheadedSometimes, a news report is so horrific you know it will haunt you forever. So it is with the story of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, the six-year-old tortured to death by his stepmother and father. Starved, poisoned with salt, forced to stand for 14 hours at a time and subjected to punishment beatings: Arthur went from a happy, healthy young boy to a child bro
  
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• The Observer view on the state of children’s social care | Observer editorial

  05-12-2021 07:00
  
  Our vulnerable youngsters deserve the best the state can do and the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes case shows the tragic cost of failurePerhaps the most important job that the state has is to protect children at risk of harm and abuse. Yet children’s social care is facing a mounting crisis that gets far less exposure than that confronting the NHS or even adult social care. Local councils, which are responsible for child protection, are having to provide for vulnerable youngsters against a backdrop
  
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