Deborah Orr in today's Independent

Very good and moving too. It's very difficult - I see families living in such desperate circumstances, but there simply isn't enough if me to go round. All of us try our best, but without sacrificing ourselves, our best is nowhere near good enough. Society has been so shattered that even if there was all the money in the world, I wouldn't know where to start. So much unhappiness, so much poverty.

I gather common sense is removed & the process of form filling & targets takes over in most cases. I do find it a huge concern that the human nature of the people involved of these cases allow it to happen - they failed in there job, so I would say should not be in the position to allow risk to be taken.

As from Deborah Orr's POV, I'm with her , I do think that people would judge me if my Children are scruffy or dirty from eating, this I know stems from my Mum & Nana.It does not bother me if either of the children are messy etc... they are just kids, but that thought it always there, Isabel goes to school in the morning prestine & comes out looking like Worzel.

I don't think I would ever work within the public sector, as I have experienced how the systematic failure can be the enemy rather than the hero.

Interesting article. ?

Well, on occasion, if a social worker had turned up at our house, R would have been covered in chocolate - like the time he found the M&S luxury dark chocolate ginger biscuits I'd left next to the armchair by accident and had himself a small party while I answered the front door.

But I'd have been embarassed, made a joke about it and taken a cloth or a wipe to him at the first opportunity.

Not making an effort to clean up a chocolate-covered child for social work visit would ring alarm bells to me because most people want to present a good image to the general public, let alone people in authority, but it's not like having a sticky child is an arrestable offence.

I completely sympathise with social workers, GPs etc on the front line - I think some parents are just lazy but some are downright devious and they're good at presenting what the professionals want to see.

Even if you could keep throwing money and practical help at questionable parents, you can't force people to be committed, engaging parents who want to invest time and energy into their children.

And of course, should you remove a child at risk, social services aren't exactly hoaching with good foster or adoptive homes for toddlers or older children either. I can understand the policy of keeping families together wherever possible when so many children have left one bad situation only to be abused at a care home or private home and then dumped with little help at age 16 years.

The SureStart centres really seem to be making a difference however to young families though - the centres I went to in London really seemed to be giving opportunities to parents who wouldn't normally be aware of or able to afford music and yoga and baby massage classes, access to child psychologists and so on.

There were a few mothers I knew in Archway who I suspect were raising their children in quite different ways than if the SS centres hadn't been present.

What Zeb said about chocolate ?

There are no foster places in some areas. Even places with relatively low need have to send children miles and miles to get a placement, and then it's probably short term and they'll end up being moved and moved again before pitching up in a children's home and labelled "too damaged for adoption"

It's appalling, but I can see how the Baby P case could have happened. Just the other day, we were discussing public sector work on here, and the levels of depression and apathy that go with it. Christ, I wouldn't want to be a social worker anywhere, least of all Haringey, and I'm a glutton for public sector punishment.

Which of the caseload full of dirty, neglected children should the overworked social worker focus on? How can we know that Baby P stood out so very much from all the others?

That's a veery interesting article, Mr JK, thanks for posting.

I take issue with the bit in bold, Rache. When was society "shattered"? The fact is the vast, vast majority of children in this country are better off than in in "unshattered" yet desperately poor countries, and better off than they've been here at any other point in history.