Bring back the child protection register

Bring back the child protection register

When a child’s name was on the Register an immediate alert went to police and hospitals if a child came to their notice. These police officers and doctors would then check with the social worker or the police child abuse investigation team and make decisions informed by background knowledge.

Since April 2008, this alert system is no longer in place throughout the country, although in London, and possibly in other areas, it has been retained so that children who are the subject of child protection planning are still flagged up on the police and hospital systems. Where this is not in place, instead of an alarm drawing attention to high risk children, the professionals have to check every single child against the database to see whether or not they are known to children’s services and then make a call to see if that child is the subject of a child protection plan. To busy police and doctors this clearly is unworkable.

State interference with family life has to be justified. After all, most parents care for their children very well and professionals do not need to be involved in their lives. When parents abuse a child there is justification for professional involvement in order to respect and uphold the child’s right to be safe from harm. The Child Protection Register was a clear and effective procedure for working with parents to keep their children safe or for making decisions to take legal safeguards where children need to be removed from their families.

I have no doubt that children will be less protected as a result of this disastrous change in policy. Please sign this petition to help bring back the register.

New website, encouraging like minded organisations who are against child abuse, can join together to create a multi-agency, multi-charity approach to the issues of child abuse in order to tackle the issues in all of their complexity. To view the site, please follow this link: http://www.acanetwork.org.uk

The Peaceful Protest

As a topic for discussion, who is up for protesting "Peacefully" outside the respective government offices? For what reason? For those of you who do not know that Jason Owen, (one of Baby Peter Connelly's killers) was freed last month and is free to roam around in parks and outside schools. This is outrageous. Surely he should have been given onerous bail conditions that would stop him from doing so.
What one voice for the kids is planning to do is, host a peaceful protest outside the following locations: Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, Government Office Holyrood Edinburgh, Welsh Government Cardiff all on the same day. If you cannot get to the above locations, please lobby your local council offices. This will encourage like minded organisations to join in the protest. Organisations from Scotland would be able to join the one in Edinburgh and organisations from London would be able to join the one in London and so on... The aim of the protest is simple...Throughout the UK, the justice system needs to be looked at urgently and we need to address this issue and the only way to do this is to protest outside the government offices in large numbers throughout the country all on the same day. This will increase media attention.
For any ideas and suggestions, please log on to the following link to the against child abuse forum; http://www.mousewaggler.co.uk/forum/default.asp or send emails to thevoice@onevoiceforthekidsorg.uk

Petition to reinstate the child protection register

When a child’s name was on the Register an immediate alert went to police and hospitals if a child came to their notice. These police officers and doctors would then check with the social worker or the police child abuse investigation team and make decisions informed by background knowledge.

Since April 2008, this alert system is no longer in place throughout the country, although in London, and possibly in other areas, it has been retained so that children who are the subject of child protection planning are still flagged up on the police and hospital systems. Where this is not in place, instead of an alarm drawing attention to high risk children, the professionals have to check every single child against the database to see whether or not they are known to children’s services and then make a call to see if that child is the subject of a child protection plan. To busy police and doctors this clearly is unworkable.

State interference with family life has to be justified. After all, most parents care for their children very well and professionals do not need to be involved in their lives. When parents abuse a child there is justification for professional involvement in order to respect and uphold the child’s right to be safe from harm. The Child Protection Register was a clear and effective procedure for working with parents to keep their children safe or for making decisions to take legal safeguards where children need to be removed from their families.

I have no doubt that children will be less protected as a result of this disastrous change in policy. Please sign this petition to help bring back the register.