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Action must be taken early
MORE children need to be taken into care earlier to stop them being damaged beyond repair by "hopeless and cruel" parents, a South Yorkshire MP has said.
Caroline Flint, the Labour MP for Don Valley, said children at risk should be removed from their inadequate parents "sooner rather than later".
She made her comments during a speech in the Commons in which she spoke of the "horrendous and brutal attack" on two boys in Edlington earlier this year by two savage brothers.
The torturers, aged 11 and 10, had been known to social services and police for several years but had been taken into care just three weeks before the brutal attacks.
The case led to Doncaster social services opening an inquiry, its seventh serious case review since 2004.
Ms Flint said she agreed with Martin Narey, the chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, who in September called for less effort to be directed at "fixing families that can't be fixed" but for social workers to be braver about removing children at risk.
She told the Commons: "I believe, as does Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's, that in some cases, children should be removed sooner rather than later.
"For a number of reasons, over several decades, keeping children with their families appears to have assumed priority status."
The MP said there is not enough attention on children from problem families who "survive early childhood but who are so damaged that their futures are bleak, and who become a danger to themselves and others".
She added: "Sadly, some families are badly dysfunctional.
"No parent is perfect, but some are hopeless and cruel.
"When parents are heavy drug users and live in an atmosphere of selfishness fuelled by addiction, how can a child be fed, cared for or emotionally supported?"
She heaped praise on a child welfare charity called Coram, which finds prospective adoptive parents for children under two years old whose future is being decided by the courts.
And she said a lot of media coverage about Edlington after the attacks had been "unfair" and that the former pit village is "far from broken".
"Photos used in one newspaper showed a street with derelict houses that was demolished years ago – a new health centre stands there today," she said.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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