Schools across the UK have regular safeguarding training. We as teachers are taught to look for signs of abuse and neglect in children. This is essential training, and I don’t want to undermine the importance of paying attention to children to notice when something is going wrong. I would, however, like to suggest that something else should be added to this training.
Children are unsafe because of the adults in their lives, yet how often do we look properly at the adults in question? School drop-offs, pick-ups, parent meetings, parent workshops, coffee mornings, school events – all of these are opportunities to spot the parents who are fighting dragons.
It’s easy to assume that the people who commit child abuse and neglect their children are psychopaths. Evil people who have no right to anything except having their children taken away from them with no questions asked. We see these cases reported in the media – warnings of what happens when systems fail. This is a reality, and a devastating one but I would argue it is a small part of reality. More often than not, neglect and abuse happen because parents are ill-equipped to deal with the demands of parenthood and/or life.
Consider these scenarios:
A mum gets diagnosed with cancer. Her husband works hard to keep the money coming in as she has to give up work. The child comes home to their mum in pain, their father absent. Dinner isn’t ready because nobody has the time, energy or skills to cook. Bath time doesn’t happen. The child is neglected until someone realises what’s going on.
A dad comes home after a long day of work to find his wife struggling with the kids. His dad always beat him growing up. He doesn’t want to do this, but he doesn’t know what to do to get the children to listen. He gets more angry and frustrated until he lashes out and hits the children. The children are now scared and act worse. The violence continues. The cycle gets worse until someone realises what’s going on.
A parent is left by their partner, left with 3 children. The split is devastating, and they have no-one they can turn to for support. Their mental health gets worse as they try and keep up with everything they need to do, and keep working to make rent. A drink in the evening takes the edge off. A drink turns into 2, into 3, into day drinking. Until they can’t function enough to look after their children. The children fall behind with nobody to help them with their homework, they go hungry with nobody fit enough to cook dinner. The children are told they remind the parent of the partner and are no good. The damage gets worse until someone realises what’s going on.
A child isn’t doing well at school. Extra homework is sent home to help, but no improvements are made. It turns out mum can’t read or write. The child is diagnosed with SEND. Mum is sent paperwork to fill out, but she can’t. Letters are being sent from the council about taxes not being paid. They are evicted, and the child falls further behind until someone realises what’s going on.
There are so many scenarios that could be mentioned here. So many warning signs that could be noticed if proper attention was paid to the parents. Who has had a life-changing event happen? Who looks stressed around the children? Who seems disconnected from their community? Who doesn’t have the language skills you’d expect?
When children are flagged by agencies as being at risk, schools are asked if they’ve noticed anything. The person or people being asked for this information are usually not in direct contact with the children, so resort to other means of gathering information. Do staff know what’s important to build a picture? To understand how the situation got to this point? None of it is an immediate turnaround, knowledge of context and development over time is essential. So when a parent shares in passing their divorce, their lack of English, how they did in school, their child with additional needs, etc, please report it. It may seem minor, but every little bit of information creates a bigger picture. The support could then be put in place that much quicker, that much easier, and received that much more gratefully. A school that shares this information can show they care and can help, which, for the child, could make all the difference.
I write from a school perspective, but this is applicable across agencies. Safeguarding works better when a community of understanding and kindness is created, when parents of children know that they won’t be judged for struggling. That when they show their dragons, they will be supported and equipped to tame or slay the dragon so they can be present for their children properly. After all, we’re all only human, and we’re never alone.
Abi Kennedy Writes 