Children in care: This is 1945 speaking to us in 2020

The Children's Commissioner for England has spoken out against the government's reduction of the safeguards for children in care:

I appreciate that Local Authority children’s services are likely to be experiencing challenging working conditions during the pandemic, and there are many inspiring examples of frontline workers going above and beyond the call of duty to keep children safe. 

Nevertheless, I do not believe that the changes made in these regulations are necessary– except perhaps for some clarifications (in guidance) about contact with children taking place remotely during the lockdown. 

Children in care are already vulnerable, and this crisis is placing additional strain on them – as most are not in school, less able to have direct  contact with family and other trusted professionals, and facing the challenges of lockdown and anxiety about illness – all on top of the trauma they have already experienced. 

If anything, I would expect to see increased protections to ensure their needs are met during this period.

In my post about these reductions I referred to the death of Dennis O'Neill at Bank Farm, Minsterley, in January 1945.

Since I wrote it I have come across an online copy (in two parts) of Sir Walter Monckton's report into the circumstances surrounding that death.

I commend two quotations from it to our current government and to all councillors with responsibility for children's services:

The first concerns the practice of 'boarding out' - an earlier term for fostering:

It is first necessary to explain the basis of the policy of committing children to a local authority which may board them out. The 'fit person', local authority or individual, must care for the children as his own. The relation is a personal one: the duty must neither be evaded nor scamped.

And the second is 1945 speaking to us in the Covid-19 year of 2020:

The duty to be sure in the care of children must not be put aside, however great may be the pressure of other burdens.