Jean Moore - The ABC of Child Protection

Jean Moore

First published 1992 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright J Moore 1992

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 92033655

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-34326-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-429-43925-4 (ebk)

So many people have played a part in the writing of this book. My grateful thanks must go to Beryl Day who in this and so many projects has offered her support and encouragement. Warmest thanks must go to Alison Leake who struggled tirelessly with my syntax and content. Ivy Pestell deserves special thanks for undertaking all the irritating jobs that have to be done before a book reaches the publisher. My gratitude is extended to all the professionals who have attended my courses and have taught me so much, and to Joan Searl who has typed untiringly manuscript after manuscript. Last but most significantly my thanks to Peter my husband who created the space in a very busy life so that the book could be written.

My original intention was to add a new chapter to The ABC of Child Abuse Work to acknowledge the changes emanating from the 1989 Act. Instead, stimulated by professionals attending courses, I began to write an entirely new book, leaving The ABC of Child Abuse Work to remain in its own right. I chose the title The ABC of Child Protection not only to use the current terminology but to emphasize that any understanding of child abuse must be used to create skills to protect children and understand abuse through the eyes of the child.

I have echoed one or two thoughts in the prologues of both books so they can become companion volumes.

Child abuse is such a painful subject that it is easy for the child to get lost. Unconsciously, trying to avoid the pain, workers get enmeshed in policy meetings, endless re-drafting of procedures and turgid discussions concerning criteria for registration. Recent inquiry reports have emphasized how professionals have been diverted from their main task of protecting children. Jasmine Beckford and her sister Louise were 'regarded as mere appendages to their parents who were treated as the clients' (A Child in Trust 1985). The case conference in the case of Tyra Henry (Whose Child 1987) 'paid very little attention to Tyra and her needs', and finally in the case of Kimberley Carlile the worker 'lost sight at times of the possibility of child abuse' (A Child in Mind 1987).

Part of the problem is that it is not easy to focus on the child when the child inside the parent is crying so loudly. We therefore miss the tears of the abused child. So let's begin by focusing on the battered child.

This is not a simple task. Children can also be abused by poverty, poor housing, inadequate health facilities and attitudes of racism, sexism and classism. It is not easy therefore to discover to what extent the long-term difficulties displayed by a child are due to an identified act of abuse or to the insidious effects of the child's situation and environment. We also know now that the non-injured siblings of the abused child are at risk 'of long-term problems' (Lynch and Roberts 1982).

The story of Mary Edwards clearly shows that the problem is not just the physical pain of the original abuse, but also that the continuing effects of cruelty can lead to a lifetime of damaging interactions. Mary was blinded in one eye by her mother when she was a toddler and was scarred by cigarette burns on her thighs. She was removed and placed in care:

The eye was a great stumbling block to my social and emotional development. At the age of ten I became very aware of my eye, as it was opaque. I felt ugly, different, nobody wanted to look at me. How could anyone love someone with a funny eye? That's why I haven't got a family, I thought. I remember constantly wanting to be loved. I longed to go to bed early to escape from reality into my fantasy world. I conjured up this beautiful image of a woman with an eternal smile - all-understanding, all-patient, with nothing to do all day but to sit and cuddle me. When morning arrived I was angry - resented the intrusion of real people.

Mary resented the staff in the children's establishment and could not accept the overtures of her foster parents who, after a series of incidents, asked for her to be removed. At seven she frequently truanted from school. She already had problems with men and on one of her absences from school, she met a man who sexually abused her:

I didn't know what he was trying to do but I know I didn't like it, as he hurt me. I lay like an obedient child and when he finished my reward was money which I immediately spent on sweets.

Mary's early teens were chequered by self-denigrating behaviour and when told about her early abuse and the imprisonment of her mother she said resolved, I'm the daughter of a jailbird. No wonder nobody wants me. The people who were kind were so because they were paid to look after me.'

It's easy for the lay public to believe that the problem can be solved by a successful prosecution and removal of the child into care. Seen through the child's eyes however, the picture is very different. Suddenly strangers arrive. You are in hospital. Painful tests take place 'in order to make you better.' You know what rules to follow at home to avoid further hurt but here the rules are different and confusing. Just as you are settling down you go to a foster home. More strange faces. You think 'This is all my fault, if I'd tried harder and been really good none of this would have happened.' You get to know and trust one social worker, then she leaves the office to have her own baby. This is a prelude to a whole string of workers who are responsible for 'your case', until you leave care. At last you get rid of all the officials but, having longed to escape, you find the world is a very lonely place. Your parents don't want you, but you hope perhaps they may have a change of heart. Each of your trips home is yet another rejection.

No one person's experience can ever be fitted into neat compartments but perhaps the long-term emotional effects can be divided into the following five responses, with some children using all responses at different times.