Getting started

'Officer ignored report of sex abuse ...' - The Guardian, 19 December 2015

How many more times do we have to read such an account - 'She said he had ignored her report and that the abuse had continued.'  

There is an established system that may help prevent this kind of failure - the 'Independent Visitor Scheme'.  An IV is a volunteer ordinary member of the public, not the 'Independent Reviewing Officer' (often quoted) who is a local authority staff member, but rather, 'someone who can be a consistent figure in [the lives of young people in care], when there is no one in their family who is able to take this role.  An Independent visitor is there to befriend a young person, offering them consistency, support, advice and encouragement throughout the time they are in care and often beyond this time.'

Of course this doesn't guarantee whistle blowing, but surely to goodness given the long-term nature of the commitment to the young person, it would increase the chances of their being heard and, better, a problem being properly addressed.

And yet - although under the 1989 Children Act local authorities have a duty to provide IVs for all young people in care who have little or no contact with their family, in my considerable experience over nearly 30 years in a wide range of roles and contact with several voluntary organisations specialising in child protection, I have only once found professionals actively aware of the value of this, but even then I doubted how enthusiastically they were promoting it to the young people in their care.

Perhaps the reason is obvious, but I like to think and hope not