Emeritus Professor in Social Work Liz Davies in 2008 on how the government’s policy of widening the net to ‘safeguard’ all children has damaged child protection for children who are abused
“A baby dies, a million Sun readers sign a petition and a government swiftly exploits a new platform to further its Every Child Matters agenda, which separates prevention from protection and focuses on children as at risk of being a trouble to society, rather than as victims of child abuse.
Central to this policy is state surveillance of children’s lives through the mass accumulation of data about them. Social workers are required to conduct detailed assessments of children and their families on the basis of concerns, rather than harm, and spend most of their time entering the information onto computer databases.”
Read it in full
Reforms have been imposed at the expense of protecting children (The Guardian, 2 Dec 2008)