Social services can support Travellers through effective monitoring

Acute needs of marginalised Gypsies and Irish Traveller groups could be better addressed by improved use of more information

In 2011 Gypsies and Irish Travellers were for the first time recognised as an ethnic group on the UK census, under the code “W3”. In the wake of the census, many statutory services are following suit and including a “Gypsy or Irish Traveller” category in their own ethnic monitoring procedures.

This recognition is undoubtedly a step in the right direction for a marginalised community with acute needs in terms of housing, healthcare, education and social care.

Gypsies and Irish Travellers are “the most excluded ethnic minority groups in British society today“. Life expectancy is 10-12 years below the national average and 18% of Gypsy and Traveller mothers have experienced the death of a child, compared to less than 1% of the general population. In addition, 25% of Gypsy and Traveller children are not enrolled in education and, for those that do attend, educational attainment is lower than for any other ethnic group.

Research into the social care needs of Gypsies and Travellers has found that a culture of self-reliance means that people often tend to “make do” and not complain rather than seeking support from social services.

Service providers will not necessarily realise that a client comes from a Travelling background and may consequently neglect to consider issues such as low literacy or accommodation difficulties.

In this context it is of great concern that innovative community social work projects such as the Haringey travelling people’s team, which engages Gypsy and Traveller families before crises occur, are falling victim to local government cuts.

In April 2012 the Department for Communities and Local Governmentpublished 28 cross-departmental commitments to improve outcomes for Gypsies and Travellers. Key points included tasking the NHS and local governments with identifying ways to include the needs of Gypsies and Travellers in the commissioning of health services and ensuring that the needs of Gypsies and Travellers are reflected in joint strategic needs assessments.

Gypsies and Travellers are also to be specifically highlighted as a vulnerable group in the revised Ofsted framework and will be included in the Department of Work and Pensions’ monitoring system when universal credit is introduced later this year.

But tickboxes on forms can achieve little unless staff are pro-active in their approach to monitoring. This has been demonstrated in the case of the prison service, where a huge disparity exists between two distinct monitoring regimes: prisons themselves have a W3 category on their “P-Nomis” system but it is up to Traveller prisoners to volunteer this information at reception.

Currently only 219 prisoners in England and Wales are registered as W3; 0.2% of the prison population. In contrast, the prison inspectorate makes a point of asking every prisoner surveyed: “Do you consider yourself to be Gypsy/Romany/Traveller?; 5% of prisoners in local prisons responded “yes” to this question.

Effective monitoring can give services more of an insight into their Gypsy and Traveller user group and allow them to reflect on how organisational practices meet the needs of this community.

Being counted is a vital first step to making a community feel like it counts. The kind of pro-active monitoring exemplified by the prison inspectorate is a vital tool for addressing the extreme marginalisation of Gypsy and Traveller communities in the UK.

It is the start of a dialogue with a user group who often feel ignored and unwanted.

Joe Cottrell-Boyce is the policy officer at the Irish chaplaincy in Britain’s Traveller Project, working with Gypsies and Travellers in the criminal justice system.

Source: BBC

Jimmy Savile report: institutions in the line of fire

The BBC faces compensation claims, the government is investigating itself, and police acknowledge significant failings

The BBC

The report revealed for the first time that Savile’s abuses on BBC premises had taken place as recently as 2006, at the recording of the final edition of Top of the Pops, when he sexually assaulted a teenage girl.

That revelation heaps further pressure on the BBC, which has commissioned the former court of appeal judge Dame Janet Smith to head an inquiry into its culture and practices during the 41-year period in which Savile abused people at the corporation.

The BBC rejected the accusation from Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, that it had dropped plans to set up a Childline-style helpline, saying it had been advised it was not necessary.

The BBC now faces dozens of civil compensation claims.

The government

The Department of Health was forced to open an investigation into its own conduct when it came to light in October that Savile had been appointed to chair a task force overseeing Broadmoor’s management in 1988, when the secure hospital was directly run by the department.

Kate Lampard QC, a barrister and former deputy chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service, is leading that investigation, as well as overseeing the inquiries into Savile’s conduct at Stoke Mandeville, Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor.

Ministers have now asked all 14 health institutions – 13 hospitals and a hospice – named as scenes of Savile’s abuse to conduct their own internal inquiries and feed in to Lampard, who will complete a report of lessons to be learned.

The police

Surrey police’s report into its investigation of allegations against Savile in 2007 acknowledges significant failings including lengthy delays in the handling of the case, which took 29 months to conclude in no further action. Savile’s name was not placed on the original investigation crimereport for more than six months because, the force said, of his celebrity, meaning that any other forces searching for him would not have been aware of Surrey’s investigation.

The force did not inform Thames Valley police of a report at Stoke Mandeville hospital (“a missed opportunity for information sharing and potential safeguarding of future victims”) and delayed in telling West Yorkshire police, Savile’s home force, about the allegations.

Savile was given only a “perfunctory” interview, conducted on his terms at Stoke Mandeville (“not good practice”) and with a friend present, about whose status officers did not inquire.

The force acknowledges that most of the victims were offered no support.

No officers have been disciplined.

The Crown Prosecution Service

Jimmy Savile should have faced three sex assault charges in 2009, the CPS admitted. The review, by CPS legal adviser Alison Levitt QC, said police treated victims with a “degree of caution which is not generally justified”. The director of public prosecutions apologised to victims and pledged to issue new guidance on police handling of vulnerable complainants. Police forces could be forced to reinvestigate thousands of cases where victims feel complaints were not handled properly.

Source: BBC

8,000 social workers barred from practising after failing to renew registration

Thousands of social workers removed from register after failing to meet revised deadline to renew their registration with the Health and Care Professions Council

Over 8,000 social workers can no longer practise in England after failing to renew their registration, the Health and Care Professions Council has announced.

The regulator revealed today that 8,425 social workers have been removed from the social work register for failing to renew their registration despite having had “several opportunities” to do so.

“This means that they can no longer practise as social workers in England,” a statement on the HCPC website said.

Reacting to the news, social workers pointed out that a number of situations could lie behind the failure to renew. These include the fact that some social workers may have retired in the last year, could be out-of-work, or hold roles where registration is voluntary, such as management positions.

An HCPC spokeswoman said that the regulator did not know how many of the 8,425 social workers removed from the register are actively practising. But it appears that some are currently employed, with the HCPC having written to employers to advise them of social workers who are no longer registered.

Where deregistered social workers are employed as practising social workers, employers have a duty to address the situation.

The HCPC is not prescriptive on what form that action should take. Options could include altering the worker’s job role so that they are not practising as a ‘social worker’, or the employee taking a period of annual leave while their readmission to the register is sorted out, the HCPC spokeswoman said.

Registration with the HCPC is a legal requirement for people to practise using the title “social worker” in England. In November, the regulator was forced to extend its deadline for renewals to the 2nd January 2013 after it emerged that a quarter of social workers had yet to renew.

While 90% of the estimated 88,000 social workers in England met the extended January deadline, around 1 in 10 failed to do so and have now been removed from the register.

Social workers who have been removed from the register will now have to apply for readmission. The HCPC has sent readmission forms to all social workers who failed to renew.

“If a social worker returns a completed readmission form by Friday 1 February 2013, we will put them back on the Register provided they have paid their registration fee [of £76],” the regulator said.

Social workers who submit readmissions forms after the 1st February will be forced to complete a “more detailed” readmission form, which incurs a total cost of £191, the regulator said

Source: Community Care

Social workers, don’t forget the children of prisoners

The children of prisoners are some of the most marginalised and excluded children in society, yet often invisible in policy debates around children and childhood, writes Helen Codd*.

2012 recorded highest ever number of care referrals

As expected, the latest figures from Cafcass show the high rate of care referrals (which some have attributed to the ‘Baby P effect’) continued throughout 2012, with applications from April to December up 8% on the same period in 2011.

The former children’s minister has launched a bid to improve measures designed to protect children who appear in theatre and on television

Tim Loughton has proposed amendments to legislation intended to make sure that abuses such as those committed by television presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile are prevented in the future.

Under the proposals, children’s chaperones would have to receive ongoing child protection training in line with nationally agreed standards, while the legal limit on the ratio of chaperones to children would be changed from one to 12, to one to 10.

Requirements for amateur productions would be less stringent, so that volunteer chaperones would only be subject to CRB checks.

“There are many excellent chaperones doing a very good job but there are no formal qualifications for the role and no nationally agreed standards, and my bill would address that,” said Loughton.

“Would Jimmy Savile have succeeded in luring fewer teenagers back to his dressing room if the chaperones had been there, on the ball, wise to the mesmeric charms of dodgy shell-suited celebs?”

Donald Findlater, director of research and development at child sexual abuse charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, said Loughton made a “good case” for updating legislation, but he questioned the former minister’s differing approaches towards “commercial and amateur performances”.

“Given that children who are sexually abused are most typically abused by someone they know, celebrities and neighbours included, I hesitate to accept that the safeguards in place in the latter should be any less than those deemed suitable in the former,” said Findlater.

“We need to be alert to the fact that those with a sexual interest in children will gravitate to those places where they can access them. All adults in such contexts need to be appropriately checked and, just as important, trained to be alert to risk and know what to do about any concerns.”

Loughton’s proposals to amend the 1963 Children & Young Persons Act, which includes regulations around performing children, are based on recommendations contained in a government consultation that was launched in May last year, when he was still children’s minister at the Department for Education.

The results of the consultation are as yet unpublished, but in light of the Savile scandal, Loughton said there was an “urgent” need to ensure the system allowed children to “pursue their talents safely”.

Loughton’s proposals come as the Metropolitan Police and the NSPCC publish a joint report into sexual allegations made against Jimmy Savile.

The Giving Victims a Voice report details the work of Operation Yewtree based on the accounts of more than 450 victims who have come forward since Jimmy Savile was exposed as a sex offender in October 2012.

The report found that 73 per cent of Savile’s victims were children and concludes that he was a prolific, predatory sex offender. It argues that Savile was able, through his celebrity status, to ‘hide in plain sight’ while abusing children over six decades.

Commander Peter Spindler, head of the Met’s specialist crime investigations, said: “We must use the learning from these shocking events to prevent other children and vulnerable adults being abused in the future.”

Peter Watt, NSPCC director of child protection advice and awareness, added: “We know from the huge increase in calls to the NSPCC helpline about sexual abuse that the problem did not die with Savile.

“Almost 800 additional children have been protected from abuse because of the publicity around this case prompted people to contact our helpline. We are optimistic that this signals a watershed moment for child protection in this country. We must seize the opportunity if we are to make a lasting change.”

Source: CYPNow