Children's services aim to keep as many families as possible together
Critics of the child protection system undermine the vast amount of good practice in difficult and complex circumstances
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Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming said parents suspected of child abuse should flee the country. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
Media portrayals of children's safeguarding and protection are the most influential way that most people find out about their local children's services.
Stories around "forced adoption" and headlines like "Child taken from womb by social services" are a great disservice to those who work hard to safeguard and protect vulnerable children.
The latest pronouncement by John Hemming MP – "emigrate to get a fair trial" – is possibly one of the most dangerous, ill-thought-through suggestions we have seen in some time. And, as the Family Rights Group has said, advising parents not to co-operate with services could put children at risk, and undermines the good work carried out by children's services in conjunction with children and their families.
By advising families to essentially go on the run with their children, Hemming advocates children being placed into a situation where no one can ensure their protection from harm. Children's services aim to keep as many families as possible together, by providing support, help and care; it is in no one's best interests for children to be taken into care unnecessarily.
In more than 90% of final care hearings, there is no dispute over whether the "significant harm" test has been satisfied – that is that parents do not argue that their children haven't been either subjected to or placed at risk of significant harm.
There may be disputes over the final care plan for the child in some cases, but it is crass to suggest that social workers are driven by anything other than the needs of a child, within a timescale that is right for that child, or to suggest they are being encouraged to place more children for adoption.
Care plans and proceedings are needed to ensure that every child has a secure, long-term future, and adoption is only possible when all other options have been exhausted. Not all social work is perfect but while we must never condone poor practice, to suggest that individual failings are indicative of systematic failure is ignorant and naïve, and undermines the vast amount of good practice being conducted in difficult and complex circumstances.
As of March 2013, more than 68,000 children were in the care of a local authority in England, and for the majority this will have been as a result of painstaking legal processes to secure their future. Most children come into the care of the local authority due to neglect or abuse, and the decision to separate them from their family will involve balancing the evidence of several conflicting factors with margins for error that are too narrow for many of us to comprehend.
The effect of that decision will only become apparent over time, but we must be clear that every social worker is bound by a duty to try to identify the best interests of each individual child and that they are not driven by supposed adoption targets.
Andrew Webb is president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services; he is among the panelists for our live discussion on child protection from noon on Monday 27 January
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