Attackers – and victims

In recent days there has inevitably been considerable media coverage of the attacks  carried out on two boys in Doncaster. The alleged perpetrators were two brothers aged 10 and 11 who had themselves recently been taken into care and placed with foster carers.

I have been pleased to see that, at least in some newspapers and other media reports, there has been a recognition that the attackers were themselves the victims of shockingly low standards of parenting and abusive treatment at the hands of parents.

Students participating in Akamas training courses will know that the significant harm suffered by these children in their very first months, let alone years, of their lives will have resulted in gross impairments to the development of their brains.  It is clear from their actions that they have not learned to regulate impulse or rage, not had the capacity to develop empathy or a healthy sense of shame, both essential to the formation of a moral code, and not been given consistent models of socially acceptable behaviour.

Increasingly, substitute carers, whether they are foster carers, adoptive parents, or residential care workers, need to acquire the knowledge and skills to work with these children therapeutically to repair the damage over years.  Without that knowledge and those skills, the best-intentioned, most loving, most nurturing care is likely to be inadequate.

 Some commentators  have stated that “social workers” should “take many more children into care at an earlier stage”.  The action open to social workers is in fact considerably restricted by local and national policies, and, of course, by legal requirements and the decisions of the courts.  And the slightest lowering of thresholds for placing children on care orders will result in very many thousands more children in care.   

But importantly, more children removed from birth families require more knowledgeable and skilled carers to care for them.  Such work is difficult and demanding, and those who offer their homes and their families within which to carry it out need a high level of training, support and supervision, far in excess of what is still generally available, if they are to succeed.  As a society, we must ensure that they get it.

Skilled care saves children

In her blog piece about adoption in which she argues that investing in adoption saves children and cash, Joanne Alper makes some interesting points, but also begs many questions. It is clear from her comment that she recognises that children who come into public care as a result of neglect or abuse are traumatised children. This means they have suffered injuries – specifically, as recent research tells us, brain injuries as a result of overwhelming stress. This is the cause of the behaviour she so vividly describes.

Children can recover from early trauma, but only if they receive skilled care. They do not just need families, they need therapeutic families who have the knowledge and skill to enable the children to recover. And these families must also work as part of a professional team around the child, a team that recognises and addresses the injuries the child has suffered.

These are children for whom the state must accept responsibility. What is wrong with our current system is not that it is expensive. Of course there is a cost to ensuring the recovery of our most injured children – and remember that this is just 0.5% of the child population we are discussing. What is wrong is that we do not yet invest enough in these children.

There is growing evidence in this country and around the world that skilled care over a long period can enable children to recover from early trauma. Akamas can prove, for example, that the courses we provide for carers, teachers and those who supervise and support them, change the way children are treated, and this changes the outcomes for the children. Adoption, which transfers all legal responsibility for the child away from the state, can never be guaranteed to provide this level of knowledge and skill.

And adoption support can legally only be provided as an optional extra if the adoptive family chooses to make use of it. All accountability is removed. Imagine taking your injured child to hospital, only to find that they are assigned to a volunteer who takes them away and is told they can ask for support if they need it!

Joanne Alper acknowledges a substantial breakdown rate in adoption arrangements, where the difficulty and stress is more than the adoptive carers, or the child, can manage.  There are no official records of the continuing progress of adopted people through adult life.  So we can only guess at the proportion of them who continue to face emotional and social difficulties originating in their early childhood.

Adoption certainly saves cash. But it cannot be relied upon to save injured children who need skilled care. Other countries in Europe invest in providing stable placements with a professional level of care for their most vulnerable children, and their children thrive. Let us learn from them.