Professionals get specialist help to safeguard ethnic minority children

The London Safeguarding Children Board's culture and faith project has been examining issues such as spirit possession, witchcraft, female genital mutilation and trafficking since last June. It will issue the guidance when the project concludes at the end of this year.

Since the death of Victoria Climbié in 2000, several high-profile child deaths have been linked to abuse resulting from cultural or faith-based beliefs. In 2004, three-month-old Samira Ullah was murdered by her father because he was convinced she was possessed by an evil spirit. Khyra Ishaq was starved to death in 2008 by parents who believed she was possessed.

The work in London, where ethnic minorities account for 40 per cent of the population, could prove a testing ground for other parts of the country to learn from its findings.

Andrew Fraser, chair of the culture and faith sub-group at the London-wide body, said safeguarding across faith communities and cultural groups is one of the most challenging aspects of child protection. "The key to safeguarding is engagement with parents, carers and communities," he said.

Confidence in safeguarding

The project also aims to raise the profile of statutory safeguarding services among local communities. "This work will hopefully lead to more confidence in the system, and therefore, an increase in referrals of concern from those community groups," said Fraser. "Ultimately, more children will be protected."

Emma Aiyere, safeguarding children co-ordinator at Bexley Council, has been auditing safeguarding procedures in every London borough on behalf of the board, and held focus groups with professionals, families and the wider community, to identify how safeguarding needs to change.

The sessions have revealed that professionals know little about cultural norms in ethnic minority communities, while families are wary of safeguarding agencies. "Many professionals are not sure if they're dealing with a cultural issue or a safeguarding issue," Aiyere said.

"One of the most important things to come out of the focus groups is the need for more trust and confidentiality," she added. "There is a feeling that professionals jump to conclusions and make assumptions."

The charity Trust for London is behind one initiative that is helping to inform the culture and faith project. Its work on safeguarding children's rights and issues of witchcraft and spirit possession in African communities has found that professional knowledge is patchy at best. Grants manager Rachael Takens-Milne said local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) must approach the issue as an ordinary child protection problem but cautioned that professionals should not "think that anybody who has those beliefs must be maltreating their children".

"That means LSCBs making sure they have knowledge and knowing where they can turn for expert advice," she said.

"More churches and pastors need training in child development and child protection. We're really keen that LSCBs recognise that all local churches and faith organisations have access to children and need to be on their radar, in terms of offering them training and support."

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KNOWLEDGE IS KEY

Mor Dioum, director, Victoria Climbié Foundation

Many professionals are scared to challenge issues involving faith or culture. Sometimes it is because they are afraid of being accused of being racist. Or sometimes it is down to ignorance, because they are not familiar with a particular faith or culture. But we must not shy away from these matters. The challenge for professionals is to have a better understanding of issues around faith and culture. No faith or culture should override the protection of children.

We need to find new ways of working with this issue. One important measure is to improve cultural competency training for professionals. We also need to involve communities with child protection work. The London Safeguarding Children Board's culture and faith project is an innovative way of doing this.

An example of where we missed the voice of the community was in the case of Khyra Ishaq in Birmingham. Many members of the community were aware that the child was being starved. People had witnessed the child picking up breadcrumbs outside in the street in the middle of winter. What is so shocking is that none of them informed the relevant authorities. One of the reasons is because they don't understand the work of social workers; they do not understand the roles and responsibilities of these frontline staff.

In order to engage with these communities, we have to make people aware of the role of the statutory agencies funded by the public purse to protect our children. Unless we do that, it will be extremely difficult to engage communities effectively and without that engagement it will be difficult to improve child protection. The authorities have always tried to avoid being seen as if they are policing culture and faith, so there has been a delay in getting to grips with these issues. However, we are making progress. We must ensure that there is continuity around this work if we are to prevent further children from dying.