Sharon Spewsmith cant get a job

jamespir

Anihilator wrote: »

Oh dear

Firstly as the head she won't have mean responsible for everyone under her. Authority will be delegated and only certain incidents would reach her.

Secondly the law is not based on common sense, she cant go around confiscating children as she wants without due legal cause. Unfortunately thinking someone is a bad parent isnt that. there must be evidence.

Yes she should have been severly rebuked and ensured her department learnt from their mistakes but she is a scapegoat and people like her cant be held responsible for the actions of murders. Its completely unthinkable any parent would allow their child to be murdered.

if shes the manager of a team shes responsible for evrery on in that team no excuses if i worked as a manage in a building firm and one of my employees didnt screw down a nut properly and over several vists to the property still didnt id be up in court for neglect and perhaps manslaughter shes to blame for this that child was beaten to death how can that go unmissed

MrsTinks

Is it just me who gets the feeling that she'd have been damned if she did and damned if she didn't?
If they go and remove a child 99% of the time there is outroar, if they don't and something happens there is outroar...
It's a job I personally wouldn't want - no matter what pay you gave me! Why? Because I'd end up in jail from assaulting the first parent/person I came across who had abused their child... The selfcontrol and professionalism you have to have to work in that sector must be enormous
I'm sure that her department didn't deal with ONE case... but hundreds or even thousands at the time. The only person REALLY responcible is the person convicted of murder! The others may deserve to be diciplined in their job, IF they failed to follow the rules and guidelines put down.
It's so easy to judge with the luxury of hindsight though isn't it?

junkmayle

DVardy - I think you have nailed it. No-one really knows how social services work and thats the problem. They have budgets funded with hundreds of millions of pounds of public money and they operate under more secrecy than MI6. I firmly believe that full transparency can shine a light into these murky corners where unsackable and unaccountable people can easily cover up incompetance, lying, waste and all the other negatives that secrecy breeds. There is no need to name any children or families, but if social workers are not held to account and public scrutiny then they will not attract high calibre people. Lynzpower points out that Haringey is 'rough'. Of course it is. Thats where most of those types of people live. I suspect that the social work department in Kensington (I think thats the wealthiest area in London - apologies if wrong) are very underworked. A bit like a soldier moaning that Afghanistan is 'a bit lively'. Yeah, it might be a crappy job but hounding middle class white parents who shout at thier kids whilst avoiding the genuine cases in 'rough' areas where kids backs are broken certainly doesnt endear people to social workers

Anihilator

jamespir wrote: »

if shes the manager of a team shes responsible for evrery on in that team no excuses if i worked as a manage in a building firm and one of my employees didnt screw down a nut properly and over several vists to the property still didnt id be up in court for neglect and perhaps manslaughter shes to blame for this that child was beaten to death how can that go unmissed

Actually you wouldnt, unless you had failed in your own duties and not managed the situation correctly. I.e you were aware they were doing stuff wrong and didnt make any effort to resolve the situation. Also if you had decided prior to an incident to sack the employee and had no evidence you would find yourself paying a substantial compensation payment and also in trouble with your own superiors for mismanaging the situation.

She is not to blame. I am yet to see any evidence that she wasnt managing her team properly, had suitable evidence to take the child into care or did anything wrong. Its an unfortunate situation but the outcry would be far more if social services suddenly started taking every child into care because of what they thought might happen without damn good cause.

Managers are also normally only held responsible for staff incompetence if they have missed it completely and made no attempt to sort the problems.

mountainofdebt

junkmayle wrote: »

If you have an injury, that's fair enough but someone worked really hard to write a spell checker to help people in your situation. I pointed it out simply because the social worker I enjoyed kicking back in thier box 5 years ago submitted all thier reports to the family court in exactly the same format. It was fun at first, making them look like complete morons, especially as they had the cheek to keep referring to themselves as 'professionals', but it soon ended up like shooting fish in a barrel and needless to say, they lost, big time. Back to the subject, I think that if someone is taking 100K of public money, if the !!!!!! hits the fan, I dont expect them to hide under the desk and bleat that they feel 'suicidal'. If Peter's murder came totally out of the blue, I could understand but that family was well known and was able to deceive so-called intelligent social workers with ease. Personally, I think that foreign doctor has got off lightly too. Totally incompetant and should never doctor in this country again.

On the basis we're being picky, I thought I would correct your grammar for you. I have also underlined your spelling mistakes.

junkmayle

I think its more the way that Mrs Shoesmith has conducted herself that has caused so much outrage. She doesnt seem to even acknowledge that Peter has died and is more concerned her feelings and with getting her grubby mitts on the cash. If I were in charge of, say, aircraft maintenance, and one of my team failed to tighten a vital nut, I would like to think that I am human enough to feel responsable (thats for mountainofdebt to underline) for any deaths caused, even though it would not be my direct failing.

Mistymaid

Isn't this a major problem in the country today though - people want the position, the power, the money, but not to take the responsibility for it when things go wrong?
Do these same high flyers turn down bonuses, 'Oh no, couldn't possibly, give it to my staff,' or yet another promotion or place on a board?

She was in charge, she was ultimately responsible and if the system didn't allow her access to see failings (and the Peter case wasn't the first one) she should have been making changes so she could see the failings.

I will though also admit as another poster mentioned, the woman didn't, originally, seem the least bit concerned that this little lad had died, much more interested in saving her own neck - and that was most worrying.

MrsTinks

Misty - i'd bet she may have been very concerned and upset - but bet you a quid that ended up on the cuttingroom floor... I take 99% of anything on tv and in papers as very biased at best and often speculation or lies at worst...

Mistymaid

I know what you're saying Mrs Tine, really I do! But she'd failed in her position before, she'd been in trouble for mis-managing a similar situation.

What on earth happened to honour?

Because I tell you, if I'd have been in that position I'd have fallen on my sword and walked away telling the world I'd failed at my job and if I'd managed to get a job cleaning toilets I'd have counted myself extremely lucky and got on with it.

That little lad suffered and heaven only knows how many others have suffered and are still suffering due to the inadaquacies in both our system and our society (that'd be us)

I think it would do the woman good to learn some humility, because she did, excuses or not, fail.

Put it another way, would you want a child in your family to be monitored under a system managed by this woman - really?

lynzpower

junkmayle wrote: »

DVardy - I think you have nailed it. No-one really knows how social services work and thats the problem. They have budgets funded with hundreds of millions of pounds of public money and they operate under more secrecy than MI6. I firmly believe that full transparency can shine a light into these murky corners where unsackable and unaccountable people can easily cover up incompetance, lying, waste and all the other negatives that secrecy breeds. There is no need to name any children or families, but if social workers are not held to account and public scrutiny then they will not attract high calibre people. Lynzpower points out that Haringey is 'rough'. Of course it is. Thats where most of those types of people live. I suspect that the social work department in Kensington (I think thats the wealthiest area in London - apologies if wrong) are very underworked. A bit like a soldier moaning that Afghanistan is 'a bit lively'. Yeah, it might be a crappy job but hounding middle class white parents who shout at thier kids whilst avoiding the genuine cases in 'rough' areas where kids backs are broken certainly doesnt endear people to social workers

You are wrong. I worked in a wealthy authority and I was snowed, all the time. Everyone was. As you must know social workers have a duty to investigate every referral, whether they turn out to be a waste of time or not. You do not ignore any case unless you are instructed to do so by your manager, although the time you spend on those families has to obviously be prioritised. It was also a major issue within the Authority that I worked that 98% of the families we worked with were from poorer backgrounds, yet many of the children killed by their parents are from 'white collar' backgrounds, why was that? Teachers and health professionals were routinely found to be "ignoring" suspicious presentations as the parents seemed "educated" and "well dressed" . It is not the social workers role to be "right" it is a social workers role to work in partnership wherever possible with families to get to the information and present that information to court.if those parents are untruthful or hostile or deflective, it makes it hard for the truth to be heard.

Im sorry you have had a bad experience but court reports and typing on a forum are hardly the same medium.