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Practitioners tell of the pressures that they now face in safeguarding children, highlighting a lack of supportive management and insufficient staffing levels
High-profile child deaths such as those of Baby P and Victoria Climbié have forced health and social care services to reassess more than once how child protection cases are handled. This has left them exposed to criticism for failing to implement effectively the reforms highlighted in Lord Laming's first report.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) report on the NHS care that Baby P had received highlights failings including a lack of communication, staff and training. These are problems that continue to be reported by frontline staff.
Health visitors, school nurses and other community practitioners with child protection caseloads are undoubtedly under pressure, especially if they are not provided with the necessary support.
Forgotten role
Health visitor Brigid O'Flynn is currently managing 10 families on the child protection register - an above-average workload. She states: 'My morale and confidence in safeguarding children has not been affected by child death cases. But the media has criticised health visitors both for referring children to social services and taking them away, and for not intervening quickly enough to remove vulnerable children.'
She notes: 'I fear that the general public may have a distorted view of our role. I am concerned that they will forget that we are here to protect families and not to separate them - we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.'
There is an added concern that the preventative role of health visitors may be forgotten, particularly amid the publicity that can surround a child death. Brigid states: 'The health visiting service is now dealing with more "crisis intervention" and child protection cases than other preventative work. Because of this, it is much harder for health visitors to deal with and prevent cases of postnatal depression, drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence.'
Netmums - the online local network service for parents - shares concerns over how health visiting is now being perceived. Its director Sally Russell states: ? lot of vulnerable mothers do not have the confidence to see their health visitor. The more that health visitors are seen as being associated with "families at risk", the more stigmatised...