57 Child protection services and media coverage of baby Peter

Submitted by Association of Educational Psychologists

Congress believes that some of the media coverage of the ‘baby Peter’ and other child protection cases has been hysterical in nature. It further believes that this type of coverage is unhelpful and destructive as it has a destabilising affect on staff morale and crucially on the recruitment and retention of key front-line child protection practitioners.

The fact is that potential recruits to these professions are less likely now to enter them; as they can see that the security of their future employment can be the subject of extreme media speculation and comment.

In some cases, services are now experiencing vacancy levels exceeding 50 per cent and staff turnover rates that undermine the continuity and integrity of the services being provided. The consequence of this is that the very children who depend upon those services for protection are now less safe than they were.

Congress calls on the Government to take positive steps to restore public confidence in these services by appropriately valuing and supporting child protection practitioners and, in particular, by making resources available to:

i) offer attractive career opportunities and paths

ii) ensure high quality initial training and on-going access to continuing professional development (CPD)

iii) retain experience and expertise within key child protection roles

iv) guarantee appropriate supervision and workload management systems for all.

Amendment (Accepted)

From:  Community

At end of paragraph 1, add ‘in both the public sector and associated services in the voluntary sector.’