Response from Darren Chesters
Interestingly Ben Capel uses the term "FASCISM". A term many parents affected by social services will immediately lock onto - the initials of social services (SS) often is used as a comparator to the Nazi Germany regime - with parents viewing the actions of the social services akin to the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime against Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents and opposition, homosexuals and those who did not fit the Aryan ideal, in particular those who were deemed ‘disabled’.
The association is perhaps more clearly marked by the authoritarian state rather than the extremes of murder and persecution seen in the Third Reich, nevertheless for parents there is a very real and definite persecution under-way. The primacy of the state was at the heart of the fascist regimes and clearly the actions of social services against families equate to a very similar meme. Hence, such comparisons are not only to be expected, but also carry a reflection of the reality. Families are split up, children are taken, often only merely on the say so of a social worker, rubber stamped by a judge, because the power invested in local authorities by the government to a ‘profession’ that has ill-served the nation for a long time is allowed to operate without accountability.
That lack of accountability has been recognised by some elements of the media, but it has for a long time been by individual voices with limited impact. Baby P was the turning point, first to scapegoat the social work profession in general - not because it was necessarily accurate, for example Ms. Shoosmith, sacked by Ed Balls went on to receive a six figure sum for her dismissal at an employment tribunal - but because it was headline news that sold, the media has always loved a pariah and after Baby P such an outrage needed a victim to blame. But Baby P was also a turning point because the criticisms levelled at the profession and the cases that emanated from it clearly placed social workers in the failure camp. Anyone of them could be held to account if they failed to protect on a Baby P level whilst they were doing their over-riding duty, to ‘help’ families.
Thus the irony is worthy of Swift, the over-riding principle of social work - to help and support families - even a key principle of the 1989 Children's Act is to ‘keep families together’ by support and intervention has transmogrified into a self preservation, risk averse approach to child protection. It has become so pertinent that when families are faced with social services their research on the internet simply brings them horror story after horror story, that very quickly their minds are made up to flee. Self preservation of the family unit becomes the driving factor, whether the threat to them is real or simply perceived through their research.
I believe it is this self preservation, that given the support of a semi-clandestine network of help and support that has, for the moment, piqued the media interest. The stories are newsworthy, offering an insight that is largely hidden from the general public's view, but also controversial and asking questions of the state.
For the moment it is of media interest and, as a powerful and telling commentary on the role of the state in the affairs of the individual, it should frighten and appal every parent, yet I fear it may just be a passing fancy that will itself be consumed by THE NEW FASCISM.
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