Fighting back! Re-establishing credibility in the aftermath of Baby P

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Fighting back!Re-establishing credibility in
the aftermath of Baby P
CDSCP Lunchtime seminar

• Patrick Ayre
• Department of Applied Social Studies
• University of Bedfordshire

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Responsible journalism at its best

• Today The Sun has demanded justice for Baby P
  and vows not to rest until those disgracefully
  ducking blame for failing the tot are SACKED
• The fact that Baby P was allowed to die despite
  60 visits from Haringey Social Services is a
  national disgrace.
• I believe that ALL the social workers involved in
  the case of Baby P should be sacked - and never
  allowed to work with vulnerable children again.
• I call on Beverley Hughes, the Children's
  Minister, and Ed Balls, the Education Secretary,
  to ensure that those responsible are removed from
  their positions immediately.
• ( (The Sun, 13 November 2008)

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Responsible journalism at its best
Nothing says due process of law like torches
and pitchforks
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How did we get where we are now?
Deprofessionalisation

• Part of a wider trend
• Managerialism, McDonaldisation and the audit
  culture
• Management by external objectives
• Professionals not to be trusted

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How did we get to where we are now?

• Research
• Legal and adversarial context of child protection
• Child abuse scandals

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Climatic conditions

• Climate of fear
• Climate of mistrust
• Climate of blame

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Climatic conditions

• Climate of fear
• Climate of mistrust
• Climate of blame

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Climate of mistrust
Child stealers who seize sleeping children in
the middle of the night abusers of authority,
hysterical and malignant, motivated by zealotry
rather than facts or like the SAS in cardigans
and Hush Puppies. On the other hand, they are
naïve, bungling, easily fobbed off,
incompetent, indecisive and reluctant to
intervene and too trusting with too liberal a
professional outlook.

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Climate of mistrust

The social worker who took a child away from its
parents
The social worker who failed to take a child away
from its parents
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Climatic conditions

• Climate of fear
• Climate of mistrust
• Climate of blame

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Trusting procedures

• Procedural proliferation
• Blaming and training
• The myth of predictability

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Blaming and training

• Accident sequences begin with problems arising in
  management processes such as planning,
  specifying, communicating, regulating and
  developing. Latent failures created by
  organisational errors are transmitted along
  various organizational and departmental pathways
  to the workplace where they create the local
  conditions that promote the commission of errors
  and violations (e.g. high workload, deficient
  tools and equipment, time pressure, fatigue, low
  morale, conflicts between organizational and
  group norms and the like. In this analysis,
  people at the sharp end are seen as the
  inheritors rather than the instigators of an
  accident sequence (Reason, 1995 p.1711).

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Procedures as a net to catch problems
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Procedures as a net to catch problems
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Procedures as a net to catch problems
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Procedures as a net to catch problems
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Media strategy (Call that a strategy?)

• Paranoia
• Avoidance
• Leaving plenty of room for the rent a quotes.

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Media strategy the boys in blue

• Ongoing media strategy building understanding and
  positive perception
• Confident, assertive, PROACTIVE
• Drip feed good news
• Quick and ready with a spokesperson (hardly ever
  the Chief Constable)
• Go with the flow

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Fighting back

• Reprofessionalise
• Fight the fear, mistrust and blame
• Build confidence and competence
• Let the world know how much we are achieving