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Child protection Charities and their reactions to Baby P

A number of child protection agencies have been expressing their utter disappointment that a case such as that of Baby P can happen so easily in this country.

They point to his horrifically short life, the pain he must have endured during his ordeal and the way he must have died.

But for all the caring people out there, from charities, central and local government agencies and the general public, there are still some very sad statistics.

Consider that around a half of the children seriously injured, or killed, by abuse, or neglect, are less than one year old. They are mere babies. Some 20% are younger than five. And the truly shocking fact is that of the approximately 50 pre-school children killed every year, the crime is committed by their parents, or carers. It is not a matter of some monster running around killing children, or children being abducted and then killed. No, it mostly comes down to the parents, or carers.

Charities are increasingly highlighting what they believe are a number of inherent weaknesses in the system that are not helping endangered children in this country. And top of the list is the ever-decreasing number of professionals with responsibility for children, whether they be social workers, or health officials.

Recent reports discovered that certain health visitors had a workload of over 1,000 children to keep tabs on and that in key hospitals, the teams of social workers designed to monitor child protection issues passing through the country's hospitals were as much as 50% under strength. And not only that, they stated that there were too few paediatricians, the very professionals who were ideally placed to help pick up the danger signs of child abuse.

Charities have welcomed the Government's intention to take a good look at how local arrangements could be strengthened to help combat serious child abuse. And the extra £73 million for the training of professionals involved with children has been seen as a positive move, although they claim that far more still needs to be done.

This includes a hard look at staff training, resourcing and placement, to identify any weaknesses. Specifically, that all those child care staff that come into contact with children, should receive prompt and detailed training on how to recognise the differing stages of child abuse.

And much the same for health professionals and all the other professionals that will come into contact with children and families; ensuring that they too can spot the signs of neglect and abuse.

So, for the charities, it's very much a case of everyone could do better, and the challenge is to reduce the number of future Baby P cases.

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