In a video posted by the UK Column, Carol Woods, a social worker talks about her experiences working at Lancashire County Council on child protection cases, and how the council altered files and removed evidence which showed families had suffered directly because of the council.
Carol talks about serious breaches relating to a high profile child protection case and other serious child cases, including the alteration of children’s files, unchecked details of lawyers in the case who may not have been qualified at the time, and in-house pressure to provide ‘ordered babies’ by removing babies from vulnerable parents for adoption, rather than providing these families with support.
A significant concern appears to be the practice of encouraging social workers to alter children’s files and remove evidence in highly contentious cases with a view to creating persuasive documentation that would lend itself to removing children from parents and placing them with adoptive families.
Another very worrying element to this practice outlined by Ms Woods is the assertion that much of the evidence that was edited or taken out proved without a doubt that the local authority, and not the parents involved in these cases, had been responsible for causing the children in question serious harm.
You can watch the interview, below.
Many thanks to Andy Peacher for sharing this item with us.