A whistleblower who worked as a social worker for Worcestershire County Council, has called out the local authority for its unethical practices which placed children’s lives in danger.
The whistleblower, who was part of the council’s failing children’s services team, says the local authority prioritised cuts above everything else, and bullied and intimidated social workers who refused to put quantity before quality when it came to preparing child protection assessments.
Further claims made by the former social worker include:
• That “stressed and tired” social workers were exploited – with some working 25 hours without pay, on top of their contracted hours.
• Several social workers were going on sick leave due to stress.
• One social worker went to work with a broken hand, afraid of the consequences of not meeting a deadline.
• A social worker dealing with 40 cases – more than the maximum which is meant to be 18.
• Social workers being told to ignore producing quality work and encouraged to assess children quickly.
• If social workers refused to disregard quality, “they were belittled”.
The article goes on to suggest that the council is trying ‘really hard’ to address these allegations and that monitoring body Ofsted has since acknowledged improvements made, but this begs the question – how is the council going about making these changes if there are no extra resources available?
Researching Reform does not think this is the only council in England and Wales implementing this policy or encouraging a culture of bullying within child protection teams. We very much hope more whistleblowers from other councils will come forward.
Many thanks to Michele Simmons for alerting us to this story.
Researching Reform 
Reblogged this on | truthaholics and commented:
End impunity now.
Where is the accountability?
Risk of harm to children crosses s31 CA 1989 yet when the state itself does it, who watches the watchers?
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There are published judgments on Bailii where judges note the poor quality of case work presented to them by social services. Some, perhaps most, remain anonymous, arguing that narrowing down a case to a county with an average population of over a million might risk identification of the child. There are ways to minimise such a possibility.
Of all the cases completed in 2015, only 0.2% had published judgments. Perhaps greater transparency in family courts, as they’ve had in Australia for 30 years, would assist in driving up both quality and public confidence.
One has to wonder which is the greater risk.
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Reblogged this on HOLLIE GREIG JUSTICE.
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Pingback: Council Put Children’s Lives At Risk To Cut Costs | HOLLIE GREIG JUSTICE
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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The best way to cut costs would be to stop taking children for risks of events that may never happen.Crystal ball collections of hapless children depriving them of parental love because of mere prédictions of harm should be outlawed “;No punishment without crime” works for the police so why not for social workers and family courts.
There are far too many children taken unecessarily to feed the highly profitable fostering and adoption industries.Cut the numbers taken and the costs will be rdeuced;
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“;No punishment without crime” works for the police so why not for social workers and family courts.”
100% agree.
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Reblogged this on No Punishment without Crime or Bereavement without Death!.
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Al comments are 100% accurate but, I want to add that the SW’s are pressed by the Councils to write what their desired outcome are. In my case “nothing truthful” was written by the SW. And once I challenged her about her biasness and favouring the opposition, she got aggressive and shouted at me and we had a match. The most striking and powerful point is however, THE JUDGE PREFERRED AND ACCEPTED HER LIES AS TO THE TRUTH. But, it all backfired and the Judge will not ACCEPT AND APOLOGISE. They now revert invoking to the Inherent Jurisdiction against me to PLUG THE GAP AND SHUT ME UP. Time will tell though.
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Just like the “The destiny of the Universe is determined by the passage of TIME”, so shall all MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. Amen!
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog and commented:
Researching Reform does not think this is the only council in England and Wales implementing this policy or encouraging a culture of bullying within child protection teams. We very much hope more whistleblowers from other councils will come forward.
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Pingback: Council Put Children’s Lives At Risk To Cut Costs | tummum's Blog
no big surprise there then.
More whistleblowers are needed to get the truth out about the criminal
activities of LAs when Adoption is on the Agenda. Human Rights are being Violated and mental damage to children is real yet these La staff couldnt care less who gets hurt in the Crossfire of court proceedings.
all they care about is Winning.
Building a case against innocent parents is their primary weapon.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher.
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