Home is where the hurt is

July 20th, 2009

Harrowing at times but sadly not surprising.

That was my verdict of the latest BBC investigation into child protection, Home is Where the Hurt is, screened this week.

It challenged the presumption that vulnerable children who live with addicted parents and other family problems are always better off staying at home than being taken into care.

As someone who has been challenging this perception for many years, I was pleased to hear this cause moving to the mainstream.

After the recent horrors of the Baby P, Brandon Muir and Victoria Climbie cases, we need no reminder of the tragic consequences that failure to intervene can have.

In these examples, what is most shocking is not simply how they died but the way they are allowed to live in the weeks, months and years up to that point.

We heard of party houses where adults are more concerned about drugs, sex and Playstations than the child slowly dying a few feet away.

All too often, those invisible children are left to struggle on, falling between the gaps of overworked and under-resourced frontline support workers.

We need to accept and recognise that drug-addicted parents living chaotic lifestyle need to be viewed as a serious risk to children.

No ifs and no buts - if you can’t take drugs out of that home, then you need to take those children out of that home.

The BBC programme highlighted resources do not match demand and the current policy is about containment rather than meaningful interventions.

If we are to get serious about putting children first, we need to make this a priority when it comes to allocating budgets.

That would allow us to arm social workers with the resources they need to find and protect vulnerable children and build capacity to provide more day care places, foster workers and real support for kinship carers.