NEGLECTED children could be slipping through the child protection net like murdered Liam Fee, according to a leading children’s charity.
The NSPCC has claimed in the wake of Tuesday’s convictions of two-year-old Liam’s mother Rachel Trelfa and her civil partner Nyomi Fee for the killing that chronic neglect is failing to trigger sufficient child protection concerns.
Emotional abuse and neglect were the most common reasons for children being put on the child protection register, but were not always leading to intervention, the charity added.
A Significant Case Review is to look into the circumstances of Liam’s death at his home in Thornton, Fife, in March 2014.
In addition to Liam’s murder, the couple subjected two other primary school aged boys to longstanding abuse and torture.
There are questions about why concerns from Liam’s nursery, the public and a childminder about the children did not lead to any action from health and social services.
Intervening earlier in cases of suspected neglect is being urged by many experts.
Joanna Barrett, Scottish Policy Manager for the NSPCC, said: “Chronic neglect has a pernicious effect on children’s outcomes. Major incidents tend to lead to intervention, but where there is a pattern of lack of care, it is not always coming to the attention of the statutory services.
“We are driven by big incidents, but where neglect is at a low level it can be difficult to piece that jigsaw together.”
Former education minister Angela Constance announced a major review of child protection in Scotland in February, before losing her job in the post election reshuffle. It is expected to have a significant focus on neglect when it reports by the end of 2016.
The Scottish Government is also hosting a summit on leadership in Child Protection in Perth tomorrow that will bring key leaders from social work, health and local authorities together to “challenge thinking” on the leadership in the sector, in the context of the national child protection policy Getting it Right For Every Child.
Social Work Scotland has warned the only way to prevent more children coming to harm is to focus more on neglect.
Elaine Torrance, president of Social Work Scotland, said that in some cases it was very difficult to tell when to intervene in cases of neglect. “Working with families where there is clearly quite manipulative behaviour and the family are not working alongside you it is very difficult then for everybody to do their job effectively,” she said.
“There needs to be evidence of imminent risk of significant harm before workers can take action. Getting that information is often challenging especially in situations where a family is not cooperating. Situations can break down incredibly quickly, so it is important information is shared well between agencies,” she said.
Trisha Hall, manager of the Scottish Association Of Social Work, said a desire to intervene early in families is sometimes thwarted by a lack of time for face-to-face work. She said: “It is really important social workers have more time to spend with families. But in some cases they are spending 80 per cent of their time on paperwork.”
