When a child goes into "care" in the UK,why does the system always fail him/her?

Question

What are the flaws,what can be done,and why isn't anything being done?

Answer 1

i don't think its ALWAYS the case but does happen often to often, all depends what kind of care you are referring to foster homes and adoptions homes don't think there is many problems in this area at all but children's homes i know many kids go off the rails why i dunno

Answer 2

Because going into care solves the immediate problem of safety, but there is less than can be done for emotional scarring which has already occurred. Children are not removed until the safety concerns have been confirmed, generally after some time. Patterns of behaviour such as violent tendencies may have already been imprinted and/or reinforced, so there is always the risk that, no matter where the child is placed, he/she will respond in this way when under stress. This then moves into the law enforcement arena, perhaps the beginning of a life style trend.

What can be done? Probably double the number of social workers. That way cases can be dealt with quickly and more thoroughly.
You might also like to dob in drug user, or report domestic violence issues, that might help clean up your local area. Or are you just asking what other people can do?

Answer 3

The system is overloaded and underfunded. Social work is also a highly stressful job (in fact one of the most stressful apparently up there with air traffic controller) this results in many experienced social workers leaving. At the same time in many cases a child who goes into care and is placed in a foster home can prosper and often they do. Like any area there are always mistakes and these are more visible in such an emotive area as child protection where one mistake can have a massive impact on a life. Overall the system is not failing everyone just a very few.

Having seen reports of the home life from which some of these children come from believe me care is definitely a better option as people would be screaming "why weren't they taken into care" if they were left with the often drug addicted (not all but many), abusive parents and died as a result.

Answer 4

Kids go into care for a variety of reasons and as such a lot are already failed by society and have already lost the battle. We have fostered kids for a few years now and on the whole I think that generally kids are failed by the system as they tend to learn much more of the bad ways of society from each other . They also get to know the system very well and we know of a significant number of 16-17 years old girls that have got pregnant because they know that they get everything for nothing , which is just a poor system being abused by what are street wise kids. The only solution is to stop giving them so much in the way of cosmetics and teach them the hard lessons in life, something that under this present regime will never happen.

Answer 5

That's the whole point. In the main the care system does benefit the child/You only tend to hear of the cases where something has gone wrong, not of those where the care has produced an intelligent happy child.This is down to the Media looking for the most sensational or dramatic stories. OK the system is not foolproof and errors or mistakes sometimes happen but these are normally down to human error or neglect.The administrators are continually revising their systems to minimise the chances of these unfortunate occurrences happening, but when dealing with human beings you can not be 100% safe.

Answer 6

My parents were chronic alcoholics, absent and often abusive. This began when i was 12. I was under a social work supervision order until i was 16. I managed to avoid going into a home due to my ability to talk my way out of it rationally. However I once spent the night in an emergency respite home. It was overcrowded and dirty and the woman getting paid extra money to have kids at her house did not even acknowledge me once. She just sat staring at the TV all night and i wasn't ever offered any food or drinks, or anywhere to sleep. A few years later i opened the paper to find one of the boys who was a permanent resident there had went on to murder someone. That's the kind of environment vulnerable kids are placed in.

I had to attend regular children's panel meetings which only served to cause more trouble at home as i was expected to speak against my parents while they were present. On one meeting the whole panel took my mothers side when she was clearly stinking of drink and swaying. They all blamed me for my mothers drinking because i didn't do the dishes! When my social worker tried to stand up for me she was told to be quiet! I wrote a very extensive letter of complaint threatening to take legal action and go to the media over the panels conduct. This letter was passed to all panel members at the next meeting and read out, needless to say I never had the same problem twice. The fact was i was lucky to be intelligent for my age and capable of dealing with the systems flaws in that way, a lot of other kids i knew weren't so lucky and became victims of the system supposed to protect them.

Many of my friends were placed into children's homes and have went on to abuse drugs and never be settled in life. I believe this is because they were passed from pillar to post within the system and every time they began to trust someone they were moved or their career left and changed departments.

One thing i will do is praise the work of social workers. These people are so under-rated in our society. They dedicate their life's to helping others and they are often in upsetting and dangerous situations as a result. My social workers done the best job they could with a failing system and I've still to this day kept the leaving cards they sent me when i was a child.

I think homes should be managed or over seen by people who have been in the system themselves and can help put measures in place to help these children deal with the hardships they will face, both in care and once they leave it. Psychological support should be mandatory for these kids. They are often dealing with rejection and drug or alcohol problems within their family unit. They will feel invisible and will act out to become noticed. Most times the system will find them a place to stay and therefore are only dealing with their needs of shelter. This is very basic and outdated. These kids will have much greater emotional and psychological needs than most other people. If the system can't offer them stability, they need to be taught how to create stability in their lives after they go on to leave the system.

Answer 7

i went into care but i was messed up before i got there ,i think a lot of people use it as an excuse saying that sometimes the wrong people are there and dont give the help and attention that these kids need,the have got lots better over the years and hopefully carry on getting better ,not all people had bad experiances in care and if people didnt keep having kids they neither take care of or want then the problem would not be as big !

Answer 8

It doesn't always fail, although a majority of children suffer as a result. It's probably because (like everything else) the system is overloaded and underfunded.

Answer 9

cause care workers have to be of low intelligence
so they dont recognise health and saftey issues and child abuse, saves the goverment money because in our society
children come last and are reliant on charity.
this dickensian attitude is new labour returning to old values
the system is designed not to work

Answer 10

most kids that go into "care" are well served by the system
problem is the system is on overload and successes do not make the headlines only the odd failure

Answer 11

have to agree with the above answer it really is not always the case, i guess once children go into big children's homes they kind of get left out by social services maybe there is a shortage of child care officers and others of such