Blame of individuals
Child protection and safeguarding has become a punitive scapegoating of those who are in need of help. The combination of government neglect of economic and social rights, the erasure of right to privacy and family life from practice and child/parent blaming is a toxic trio causing oppression and harm to children.
Caregivers and families can find themselves catapulted onto databases of the vulnerable/risky through a wide range of circumstances beyond their control. Breakup of relationships, illness, a child being bullied or otherwise struggling at school, diagnosis, disability, job loss, eviction.
Another deeply problematic aspect of this approach includes practices such as the labelling of children “with BME background” as “vulnerable” as opposed to oppressed, which as well as being offensive risks Black families being at increased likelihood of being flagged for State intervention.
“Removing children from their mother – often breaking up sibling groups in the process – by blaming that terrified victim for “failing to protect” is the ultimate in victim-blaming.”
Louise Tickle
The Guardian: Why do we separate the mother and child victims of domestic abuse? (2108)
Oppressed not ‘vulnerable’
“Coverage of Universal Credit talks of ‘vulnerable’ groups, when it would be more appropriate to describe them as ‘oppressed’. If the thing you’re vulnerable to is your own society, you’re oppressed.”
Frankie Boyle
X (2018)
Parents whose children can’t cope in the current school system are blamed for ‘not trying hard enough’, with ‘incentives’ including fines and legal action to get them to make their child attend. Parents of disabled children also experience a culture of blame and interrogation when they seek help. Parents of children exploited by gangs experience the same. Single mothers – especially if teenage – are held responsible for a wide range of social ills. Mothers who are beaten are blamed for not being able to protect their children. The attitude of blame even extends to adoptive parents for children’s difficulties.
“Far from seeing families as informed and experienced partners, the system perceives us as ‘deficient’. Yet none of us are born ‘difficult’ or wanting to fight. We find out soon enough that we have to overcome relentless hurdles to get support for our children, and these battles are constant and lifelong.”
“..we are dealing not with ‘families from hell’ but with ‘families in hell’ with little hope of escape.”
“Racism not race is a risk factor.”
Professor Ruha Benjamin
Viral Justice (2022)
“As families we are living in fight and flight mode, but we didn’t start the fight and neither did our children. There are still too many parents being blamed for the situations they find themselves in.”
Eloise Jones (adoptee, adopter, social worker) Adoption UK
The Adoption Barometer 2023
“..on numerous occasions, parents described being judged without reference to the socioeconomic contexts of their lives, and viewed as if they were entirely responsible for their problems. “
Professor Anna Gupta and Hannah Blumhardt
Families, Relationships and Societies: Giving poverty a voice: families’ experiences of social work practice in a risk-averse child protection system (2016)
No help
“A system which assumes carer blame is a system which is blind to the substantial problems which families are facing. This could be dangerous for children, making it less likely that they will get the help needed.”
The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK
This refusal to see the big problems in people’s lives means that children aren’t getting the help that they need. Parenting classes – the staple ‘solution’ – can’t fix being made homeless, the daily stresses of disability and caring responsibilities or not having enough money for food or essentials.
Research of programmes such as Family Intervention Programmes – which under the Conservative government became Troubled Families, now re-badged as supporting Families – found that such solutions made it harder, not easier, for families. Yet families are not free to refuse the classes, and instead have to comply for fear of being escalated up through the system, with removal of children the ultimate threat.
The guidance below – to be used by professionals assessing families – firmly places blame on the caregiver for any problems. Moreover, it claims that their opinion and feelings about their children and their family are incorrect.
This local authority have decided that this is the case – for EVERY family they speak to – BEFORE meeting them.
Early Help assessment Journey of Achievement – Steps to Effective Change (Practitioner Guidance)
STUCK (1) “People are worried about you and your children. They may notice things that you don’t recognise yourself, or don’t agree with, such as your family’s health, your children’s behaviour or development.”
“Maybe you think everybody is against you or you feel that people may judge your situation without knowing the full facts.”
EXPLORING OPTIONS (3) “You begin to understand that it is you that makes the difference in your family’s life and it is you that needs to change.”
“At times you may stop and return to your old ways or just give up…”
ACHIEVING (5) “You feel happier in yourself and are more confident to cope with minor crises.” “You are parenting “good enough” without help from a service.”
“…the expectation that the mother is protective in a context where key material and emotional resources are not available to her or, indeed, are actually ruptured by the practice interventions, is a recurring theme of research in this area.”
Professors Brid Featherstone, Anna Gupta, Kate Morris and Sue White
Protecting Children: Towards a Social Model (2018)
Child protection punishes victims
Instead of help families are investigated for child abuse or neglect and risk losing their children.
%
of child protection plans in 2020 were for neglect or emotional harm which previously would have led to support (Professor ray Jones)
“[rising numbers] are about neglect or emotional abuse, often through witnessing domestic violence. Both of these can be better dealt with through family support and responses to poverty and deprivation.”
Professor Andy Bilson
“A clinical psychologist tells me of one mother who survived a shockingly violent relationship despite getting little support from any service that might have been expected to help. Instead of support and concern for her safety, she lost her children to adoption. In an extraordinary twist, this woman now has a criminal conviction for failing to protect her children, while her abuser remains free.”
Louise Tickle
The Guardian: Why do we separate the mother and child victims of domestic abuse? (2018)