There is a dizzying air of déjà vu hanging over all the column
inches devoted to the dreadful murder of toddler Liam Fee. Cruel, manipulative
and devious carers neglected, abused and killed the little boy, while he
‘dropped off the radar’ of statutory services.
Matt Forde, head of service for NSPCC
Scotland, calls for more early intervention and a service model which is less
‘incident lead’ with a greater focus on children’s early years.
Social
Work Tutor, in the Guardian, pleads for social workers to have more time for direct work
with children and their families and less distraction from paperwork and
administration.
The truth of the matter is that knowledgeable,
concerned, thoughtful and influential people can come up with all sorts of plausible,
innovative and interesting suggestions for change in the wake of a tragedy. But
proposals, however sensible, in these circumstances have a habit of fading,
like Shakespeare’s insubstantial pageant, and leave not a rack behind. In the
wake of every tragedy, from Maria Colwell in the early 1970s onwards, bright and
sensible ideas have been propounded and discussed and promulgated, only to be
eventually shelved and forgotten.
My view is that if you want lessons to be
learned you need to create an environment in which the people who do the work can learn. Hierarchical
organisations which operate through rigid command and control structures, in
which frontline workers are compelled to deliver ‘reforms’ that they do not
support or understand and in which they fear to raise dissenting voices or
admit to errors and failings, frustrate learning and so compromise safety and
quality of service. A culture of blame and a climate of fear are the worst
enemies of innovation and improvement and safety.
And it is utterly pointless for the
government to bang on about innovation without taking positive steps to create and
sustain the conditions in which learning and innovation can take place.
So the most important lessons we should be
learning from Liam’s tragic death, and those of so many other children in
similar circumstances, are not specific lessons such as ‘more early intervention’
or ‘less administration’. Rather we should begin by taking steps to build
organisations and cultures which actively promote learning, rather than
inhibiting it, and start ensuring that everyone involved in child protection work,
at every level, is able to embrace continuous learning and improvement as a central part
of their work.
