Children at high risk of abuse should be taken into care – it can save lives

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/14/children-abuse-care-save-lives

Version 0 of 1.

Another day, another child abuse inquiry. As Northern Ireland investigates historic abuse in care homes, churches and other institutions, in England a string of reports look at how and why Jimmy Savile was allowed to roam free in schools and hospitals abusing children. There are also accusations this week that it's too easy for children to be taken from their parents and institutionalised by social services in the first place. One MP, John Hemming, has said that parents should go abroad rather than attend a family court where their children may be taken off them.

The truth is that taking a child into care is an absolute last resort; the Association of Director of Children's Services say that in over 90% of cases no one disputes that the "significant harm" test – these are children who have been significantly harmed or are at high risk of significant harm – has been met. For me, the real outrage is how difficult it is to get children protected. It's shocking to know that young children are regularly left with heroin-addicted or violent parents. Bad parents are given second, third and fourth chances to change, even though it's clear that they never will. As we've seen with Peter Connelly (Baby P) and Daniel Pelka, it's this constant optimism that is the real risk here.

Irresponsible comments by Hemming add nothing to the debate by encouraging parents to flee the court system. At the NSPCC, we have our issues with the family courts: they are not adequately transparent and they don't ask the views or feelings of children often enough. But that doesn't mean parents can take the law into their own hands.

Care is too often wrongly seen as a terrible place to be. We are constantly told that children in care get terrible GCSE results. That's not because of care, that's in spite of care. The damage that has set their education – and other things – back, often happened long before they arrived in care.

Care is a safe place and a good option for some children; it can and does save lives. I'm not for a second saying there haven't been miscarriages of justice and occasions when well-meaning but overzealous social workers have got it wrong. But on the whole, what I have seen are children with an absolute and obvious need for care. We must not let a few well-documented cases muddy the waters and make social workers, who are damned if they do and damned if they don't, hesitate still further.

But it's right that we do shine a light on the institutions where these children may end up. There was systemic failure in cases such as Savile, for example, and we await the result of the investigations into this. I welcome the inquiry in Northern Ireland and hope it leaves no stone unturned; victims of abuse deserve no less. It's good that in 2014, there's a greater willingness to accept that abuse exists rather than wish it away.

But inquiries, while vital, only deal with the past. We need those who discover abuse in institutions now to report it and to be protected by the law when they do so. Currently, the bar for this protection is very high. Workers are expected to go through their chain of command if they have concerns. Staff at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, where Vanessa George abused children, had their suspicions but said there was no workable process for raising alarm, or they simply didn't have the confidence to do so.

Institutional abuse is especially harmful because if children removed from or given up by their parents are not safe in the care of the state, where can they be safe? Many of these children will have been abused before and have been taken into care to escape this miserable life only to find further horror awaiting them. We know that sex offenders prey on vulnerable children like these, who have been abused before, because they are less likely to speak out.

The best solution is to stop abuse even before it starts. We need to make it easier for children themselves who feel worried or threatened by abuse to speak up and be heard. And to have confidence that if they do speak up, they will be taken seriously. The NSPCC is working to equip a generation of nine- to 11-year-olds with the knowledge necessary to understand what constitutes abuse and where to turn to if they need help.

Institutional abuse is disgraceful and victims deserve justice. But we should not see the past failures or the shortcomings of the family court system as reasons to leave children with abusive parents.

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.