WillisPalmer has long been concerned about the plight of vulnerable children during lockdown but our fears were heightened last week when Ofsted stated in its annual report that child abuse could be going undetected.
At the beginning of the first lockdown, we warned of the detrimental effect that a long lockdown period could have on vulnerable children, locked at home experiencing neglect and abuse from those meant to be caring for them.
Our concerns were not alarmist worries about the woman annoyed with her husband for playing the Xbox all afternoon when he could have been helping with the housework; our fears were for the thousands of women stuck in lockdown with an abusive partner with pressures heightened due to financial woes and cabin fever culminating in a savage beating in front of their toddler son.
We were not ringing alarm bells over parents getting tetchy with each other over a larger than expected water bill; we were raising fears for those parents suffering extreme anxiety and depression and unable to care for their children, leaving them unfed and dirty.
WillisPalmer was not calling for an end to mothers having a glass of wine on a Friday night in place of their girls’ night out; we were concerned about the number of parents increasing their reliance on drugs and alcohol to help them cope with the pandemic.
While we did not want to hear about anyone struggling, our calls for help were for those families struggling to feed their children, going without meals themselves, reliant on food banks to provide their families with one decent meal a day.
Our greatest fear was for the vulnerable children out there, incarcerated with their families in an unsuitable environment where they may be neglected or physically, emotionally or sexually abused.
Crisis
And while we, along with many, anticipated a huge spike in referrals to children’s services once children went back to school, that has not happened. So what has happened to these children?
In our Children’s Charter launched in September as children returned to school, we urged the government to adequately resource children’s services departments for a rise in referrals to children’s services following lockdown. We were not alone.
- Matt Dunkley, the corporate director for children and young people at the largest child protection department in the country Kent County Council warned that there could be an increase of 250% in the number of referrals to children’s services and said there will be a crisis when children return to school in September.
- Cllr Judith Blake, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “The impacts of the pandemic will be far reaching for some children, young people and their families. As this becomes clearer, more children and their families are likely to need support and councils expect to see a significant rise in referrals to children’s social care and demand for wider children’s support services.
- A group of leading children’s charities Barnardo’s, Action for Children, The Children’s Society, NSPCC and the National Children’s Bureau said that years of under-investment have resulted in children’s services fire-fighting and unprepared for the “torrent of extra challenges” posed by COVID-19. Barnardo’s Chief Executive Javed Khan said: “We know there will be a massive increase in demand for support, with the effects of the pandemic felt for years to come. But the overstretched system cannot cope, and the government must step in to fund vital early intervention services, so families get the help they need before reaching crisis point.”
- Jenny Coles, President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said: “Before the pandemic, there was not enough money in the system to meet the level of need in our communities, Covid-19 has further illuminated and significantly exacerbated that inadequate baseline of funding. We are seeing newly vulnerable families who we’ve never worked with coming to our attention because of issues such as domestic abuse, neglect and financial hardship, and escalating levels of need amongst those who were already facing challenges. The end of the furlough scheme in October and the anticipated recession will likely further increase the number of families who need our help and support. Local authorities are bracing themselves for an unprecedented level of demand for children’s social care, in the autumn and beyond. We need and want to be in a position to support children now and in the future and we will need increased, and crucially the right, financial support from government to do this.”
- The children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield warned that many children are potentially vulnerable due to difficulties their families were facing before lockdown. For these families the loss of support networks, alongside the anxiety and financial pressures caused by Covid-19, could be what tips them from being able to cope, to reaching crisis point. There are many hundreds of thousands of children in England living in households where there is domestic violence, adult mental ill health and substance abuse. Many of them are not known to social services. For those who are known to services, during the current crisis, there is a real risk that many more will become ‘invisible’ – those who were getting early help from non-statutory services, or those assessed as ‘lower risk’ by social workers. While some children will still be getting home visits from social workers, those assessed as lower risk will be more likely to get support through virtual contact. But for these families the additional pressures from Covid-19 might turn a ‘lower risk’ situation into something worse.
Out of sight
Yet while the County Councils Network reported a rise in referrals post lockdown, the numbers need to be taken in context.
The County Councils Network reveals that its councils saw a 15% increase in young people being referred for local authority support in the months of July, August, and September, compared to the three lockdown months prior when services and schools were closed – and at a rate of 634 young people a day in county areas.
So while referrals increased post lockdown, it was not a significant rise and not to pre-lockdown figures.
This led the chief inspector of Ofsted Amanda Spielman to raise concerns in her annual report that child abuse could be going undetected. Ms Spielman said: “Teachers are often the eyes that spot signs of abuse and the ears that hear stories of neglect. Closing schools didn’t just leave the children who - unbeknown to others - suffer at home without respite, it also took them out of sight of those who could help.”
“When nurseries and schools closed in March, they were told to remain open to the most vulnerable – which of course meant those whose need was already identified. And even of these, we know that relatively few actually attended. The rest stayed at home – some, inevitably, in harm’s way,” she added.
Fear
So why are these children going undetected? We revisited the issue in our Children’s Charter One Term in and highlighted that:
1) When children have encountered severe neglect or abuse, it is unlikely that they will want to disclose this immediately on return to school. Months of being oppressed by an abusive parent who showers them with love one moment and physical, emotional or sexual abuse the next will be confusing for young people. Some people who have been abused take years before they feel ready to disclose it for a number of reasons including shame, fear of not being believed, fear of retribution from their perpetrator, not wanting to disrupt things at home for their siblings, fear of what will happen following disclosure, for example, the fear of going into care away from friends.
2) Many children returning to education will have a new teacher than when they were at school six months earlier when lockdown was imposed. It is likely that they will have missed out on key events such as ‘step up days’ where they meet their new class and ‘meet the teacher’ sessions. New teachers will therefore not be aware of each child’s behaviour, personality and friendship group. So, for example, if a child is being more quiet than normal, their teacher may not know if this is typical behaviour for that child and some signs of abuse and neglect could therefore be unintentionally missed. Furthermore, some children disclose neglect or abuse to a trusted teacher, but as they have a new teacher to when they went into lockdown, the trusted relationship is not established.
3) Some vulnerable children talk to their friends when they have experienced difficulties. But having self-isolated for six months and not seen their friends as often as before lockdown, again, they may not feel comfortable talking to their friends about something so personal to them. They may also be fearful of how they will be seen by friends – or that their friends may tell other people.
4) Children may not understand that what happened to them is wrong and does not occur in ‘typical’ families.
Misery
In fact, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services said this week that while complexity in cases has been increasing over the past two years, it has been more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic and is forecast to increase further as the full impact of the pandemic is realised.
“Respondents talked about ‘latent’ needs which may not surface for a while, and which may endure into adulthood,” the report stated.
There is no clear solution. But undoubtedly there are some measures that will help:
- Schools – we must be reminded that while teachers are well placed to identify signs of abuse and neglect, their primary aim is educating children. They need access to social work and mental health professionals on site to help with safeguarding issues and to help to identify those children who may have struggled during lockdown, for whatever reason.
- Children’s services – need resourcing adequately to provide the right intervention for each individual, not based on cost, but based on what that child requires.
- A long-term approach is needed to identify and support children and young people who have struggled during lockdown. There are many reasons as to why a child will not disclose neglect or abuse including loyalty but there needs to be ways to identify children who have suffered months of neglect and abuse.
Chief Executive of WillisPalmer Mark Willis said: “Lockdown has had a detrimental impact on everyone but most of all, vulnerable children. If their needs are not met swiftly and effectively, they face a lifetime of misery borne out of the COVID effect, which no one deserves. Children’s rights must be at the forefront of the government’s recovery plan.”
