Social Workers to check if troubled families teach their children morality

For the first time ever, new guidelines are set to
recognise that the lack of a basic sense of right and wrong in children is a
sign of poor parenting, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Ministers are also preparing to tear up more than
700 pages of “pointless” child protection guidance in order to free social
workers from paper work and “tick-box” rules.

A series of targets and prescriptive national
guidelines are set to be abolished in a move that ministers hope will free
social workers, doctors, police and other professionals to do their jobs more
easily.

The moves follow a major review of the child
protection system set up after the Baby P scandal in which 17-month-old Peter
Connelly was tortured to death under the noses of a social workers, police and
doctors.

Last year Prof Eileen Munro, an expert in social
policy at the London School of Economics, called for a shift in “mindset”
allowing social workers to think for themselves about the best interests of
children rather than be tied by centrally set targets and guidelines.

Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minster, said that
the existing regulations had failed to save children such as Baby P while
leaving social workers “addicted” to rules rather than being free to think for
themselves.

He added that dense Government documents in the
past had been based on the “con” that the risk from “evil” people could be
eliminated by ever more regulation.

Mr Loughton is publishing new guidelines, which
run to just 68 pages – instead of 714 – for consultation today.

The guidelines are set to outline basic principles
to take into account rather than setting out a series of rules about what social
workers must do at each stage of the process of assessing the risk to
children.

Among questions the guidance says social workers
should consider when assessing people’s “parenting capacity” are whether
children are being taught “boundaries”.

This means helping children “develop an internal
model of moral values and conscience and social behaviour”, the new guidelines
say.

“This is [about] children knowing the difference
between right and wrong and learning that from their parents which is a very
un-trendy, old concept which I think might have its day again,” said Mr
Loughton.

“We shouldn’t shy away from saying what is right
and what is wrong.”

He cited the example of the case of the two
brothers in Edlington, South Yorks, who kidnapped and tortured two other boys
and the “horrendous” example set by their father.

“Clearly those children had been brought up in an
environment where clearly the father had no scruples or boundaries between what
is right and wrong and he absolutely engendered that in his sons,” he said.

“Most parents and certainly all good parents want
to do the right thing by their child but they want their child to know where the
boundaries are and what is the right side if the boundary and what is the wrong
side of the boundary.

“This isn’t about some moral code but it’s
actually about teaching a child that there is a difference between what’s right
and what’s wrong – those boundaries will be different for different types of
people.

“But the very fact that you will have a
discussion, you have an empathetic relationship with a child to teach them what
is acceptable and what is not acceptable is about good parenting in my view.

“And although it is not politically correct in
certain circles to have moral lessons within schools absolutely that must be
about what constitutes good parenting, to make sure your kids are doing the
right things.”