[TheDon]

Originally Posted by freezin

It's more than enough!

I know what an "assessment centre" is. Baby P was a whole different thing. His mother did not have learning difficulties and they were not in an assessment centre. And a social worker ought to be able to tell enough about a child's parents' parenting skills by observing that child's demeanor and how he or she interacts with his or her parents openly.

No, his mother didn't. Yet social workers, despite visiting the family many times, were unable to tell that the parents were incapable of looking atfer him by the childs demeanor alone. Which is my point, you're claiming observation of the childs behaviour alone is enough to tell if parents are capable, but time and time again social services have been unable to use the childs demeanor to make the right call. Obviously it's not enough.

These things are also about a child at birth, not several months or years down the line, you leave a child with an incapable parent at birth and the first thing you know could be when the child is dead from neglect, you might not even have chance to check their demeanor, and with babies it's incredibly difficult to tell if anything is wrong anyway.

If parents really do need the kind of help that is offered by these centres, I'd question whether they are ever going to be fit parents. But if this is not just a hopeless gimmick, we'll see the assessment centres' success rates. I wsh them every success.

So CCTV observation is wrong, but judging someone as not being a fit parent based on a learning disability alone is ok? These centres are an alternative to taking children into care immediately, they give the parents a chance to show they are capable when otherwise they'd have lost their children based on their disabilities alone.

My aunt is deaf with severe learning difficulties, she had a child, and before he was even born he was put on the at risk register, and as soon as he was born they wanted to put him into temporary foster care until they could get a place in an assessment centre to see if she could cope. If the assessment centres didn't exist she'd never have got that chance.

It was THEIR bedroom for the duration of their stay, and and their child slept separately in a nursery. The intention might well be good, but what are social workers? Voyeurs? The cameras should never have been switched on.

In all likeliness they didn't know how to switch the things off, and never gave it a second thought.