lff12

Very good and fair article from Tonybee adressing the witchhunt from the (far) right wing media groups over the Shannon Matthews and Baby P cases.  Quick to point out Matthews 7 children by 5 different fathers and 350 pound a week in benefits (not a lot really to keep 7 children and 1 adult on mind you), but not quick to point out that it was the Sun newspaper that was the sitting duck who put up the "reward" that Matthews and her equally vile partners appear to have plotted to collect.

The other interesting point is the deceit practiced against newspaper reporters and the police was probably routinely practised on social workers - albeit vastly underresourced and overworked social workers.  Polly out points out that there is only a very small hard core of families on benefits (implicitly this is suggested as lone parent families by the right wing press, almost always blaming the mother) while apparently much of the problem there is drug and alcohol abuse and a total inability to put care of children before their own needs.

Admittedly I also have noticed one thing in dysfunctional families like these: a deep problem in prioritising childrens needs and in one or two more extreme cases a failure to understand the need to protect children from dangers such as parental violence, abusive extended family members, and substance abuse. The whole structure and glorification of "family" is also deeply unhelpful as family members often protect undeserving family members out of misplaced loyalty for another family member, commonly a sick parent.  The abusive relation is usually very quick to exploit this.  The irony is that the very sacred notion of family creates an almost impenetrable protective layer for abusive adults, or sometimes makes it impossible for practitioners to help children with needs, even if there is no adult threat present.

The real message sent out by these kind of cases is that very very troubled people who exist who should not simply be ignored by social services because they are "too difficult" or a "nuisance".  Careful record keeping and escalation procedures would have helped this family stay on the radar for long enough for the children to be taken out of danger, its unfortunate that it did so with such a public level of scrutiny.