Compensation for abused foster girls: KNBP’s response

Friday, September 18th, 2015

The children – aged four and five at the time – were abused by their foster carer. A Midland council has been told to pay compensation to two adopted children who were humiliated and smacked by their foster carer and forced to take cold baths and wear nappies. Read the full story here.

Kids Need Both Parents believe this is a clear example of how a child’s voice can be disregarded and not be heard. The council failed twice to act on the worried mother’s concerns, even though both children admitted the truth about the abuse. If the local authority worker deemed the issue was a ?serious cocern?, why did the council decide to take no further action? Surely the children’s initial statement was enough to act on the situation? Moreover, the adoptive mother tried to complain through statuory ‘three stage complaints process’ but they refused to enter the second stage ? why did the council refuse the second stage? Was the case not important enough?

The £200 compensation will not eradicate the psychological affect that this has had on the two children. They were ignored and treated unacceptably, no amount of money can do them justice.

Furthermore, Dr Jane Martin, of the LGO, said:

?While I recognise that councils often have difficult judgement calls to make, the statutory children?s complaints procedure is not optional and is there to make sure vulnerable young people?s voices are being heard.?

If the procedure is there to make sure vulnerable young people?s voices are being heard, again, why was this not followed through? Dudley council need to review their process and learn from this case. The child should always be put first, their voice should be heard and taken into consideration. If we continue to ignore children, more cases such as this will contuniously arise.