For the benefit of the greater ATS...
Here in the UK a long running litany of failure by various organisations, individuals and even legislation itself has seen many many babies and
infants die of mistreatment by those responsible for their care, usually the parent/s.
There are so many divergent links in the chain of care that it begins to look like a sculpture from one of those crazies that puts dead calves or
sharks in a tank or uses their bed to effect shock. I use this analogy because everyone shows shock when the inevitable happens and another child has
died.
What is the problem then that leads to the death of these little ones? It's called society, and it's so materialistic that reality flies out of the
window with the latest TV series on eating termites or running round naked in a house with 24/7 TV monitoring, you know the type of programme I mean.
Overall, morals and responsibility have all but evaporated. Have a look at the way people drive and the prevalence of road rage.
So, you have children at risk as a result of their parents, usually. How do we know of this? Well it could be part of the NHS or National Health
Service seeing signs when the child passes through their care, it could be school, neighbours, relatives, the Police, Social Services, the Court
System, Religious contacts, the public, shopkeepers and that's just for starters.
What is the common denominator? Observation, simple as, if you see something amiss you have a moral obligation to report it, who to? The Million
Dollar Question, the answer to which I leave open...only you can decide that when the time comes. But do not be put off by the local council trying to
tell you it's not their problem and you should contact the Police. Every council has a duty of care, like all the organisations, although you might
not believe it at times, there will be a duty & assessment team with an on-call number and an out of hours emergency number. Use them and record who
you speak to and the time and what the response is, just in case.
However, how do you know if your report, plea or whatever has had any effect? The likelyhood is it won't have as the system is too ponderous to cope,
there is no lateral thought here, flow charts have to be followed as do procedures, if the answer to Q.1 is yes, proceed to Q.2, you get the
picture.
The Police are having to follow a politically correct path that sees kids who abscond from care into the streets and risk get rounded up and passed
back to the care and...obviously that is for the older ones obviously.
Social services have been pared to the bone and so afraid of their own shadows after so many deaths on their watch that they are relatively
ineffective and tend to rely on the Police to absorb the collection of the absconding kids 24/7. That ties up a whole raft of Police resource, but
that's someone else's problem for now.
The At Risk Registers do not seem to work very well and the collective input does not serve the ones that need it, the kids.
What is the answer?
Not sure, and we don't know yet what the picture of 'care' in relation to the little Scots lad is.
Perhaps it is time for a total overhaul of the system, what we have does not work, and Western society is sadly lacking in its overall care of kids at
risk.
OK ATS, wherein lies the answer, we all know what the problem is, kids keep dying, and it can't all be blamed on the parent, even if guilty.
edit on 19-1-2014 by Shuftystick because: (no reason given)