Child protection system failing to listen to teenagers, say MPs

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Child protection system failing to listen to teenagers, say MPs

07 November 2012

Schools and social workers too often distracted by at-risk adolescents' sometimes disruptive behaviour, report says

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Patrick Butler, social policy editor

The child protection system should be overhauled to ensure vulnerable teenagers are taken seriously when they come forward to report allegations of sexual or physical abuse, MPs have said.

The Commons education committee said events in Rochdale, where girls were sexually exploited by a group of older men, and allegations about Jimmy Savile typified how safeguarding services too often failed to properly investigate reports made by teenagers.

It said the authorities were failing to listen to the victims of abuse and instead treating them as "criminals or immigration cases".

The committee's report says police, schools and social workers are too often distracted by the sometimes disruptive behaviour of at-risk adolescents, such as truanting or drug-taking, and are ill-equipped to recognise the signs of abuse or understand the long-term impact on victims.

"Older children making allegations of abuse are often not believed and are dismissed by those in authority because of preconceptions about their own behaviour or about the standing of the alleged perpetrator," it says.

The committee's Conservative chair, Graham Stuart, urged the government to review safeguarding for teenagers. "Care for older children is not good enough. They are let down too often, frequently ignored or not listened to, can be pushed out of care too young and insufficiently prepared and supported. This has to change," he said.

The report cites evidence from Ofsted that apart from young babies, children aged 14 or over are the most vulnerable to abuse, with a quarter of all serious case reviews between 2007 and 2011 involving adolescents.

Teenagers often do not recognise they are being abused, and those who do are often reluctant to disclose it because of shame, embarrassment or mistrust of authorities, the report says.

It says ministers have failed to allay fears over the treatment of trafficked or asylum-seeking children. Children's charities have "legitimate concerns" that government immigration policies are purposefully causing destitution among this group of children. "It would be outrageous if destitution were to be used as a weapon against children because of their immigration status," the report says.

Stuart said: "In all cases, these children must be treated as children first, and not just as either criminals or immigration cases. To ensure this happens, we want the Department for Education to take responsibility for the welfare of all children. We also want the government to review the impact of immigration policy upon child protection."

The report says specialised forms of abuse, such as forced marriage, ritual abuse, female genital mutilation, so-called honour crimes and trafficking are too often seen primarily as problems of immigration or community integration rather than child abuse.

"Casting them as something other than child abuse can mean child victims are stigmatised or even criminalised and not afforded the protection that the system should offer them," it says.

The committee said it recognised the concern of local authorities that cuts to youth services "may jeopardise the route by which some young people may seek help". The MPs also raised concerns about the effect the government's health reforms on the NHS's ability to safeguard younger patients.

"There is a real and urgent fear among health professionals in child protection and their partners about the place and priority of child protection in the reformed NHS," the report says.

Source: The Guardian UK, 7 November 2012