BBC NEWS | UK | England | At a glance: Ainlee Walker child protection report

The Ainlee Walker case revealed that child protection workers were "paralysed" with fear by the parents of the two-year-old, who was starved and tortured by the couple.
The report into the tragedy by the Newham Area Child Protection Committee (ACPC), paints a picture of fear, intimidation and manipulation created by the parents, which "isolated Ainlee from all those people who could have protected her."

The report's conclusions and key recommendations are outlined below.

Report's conclusions

A detailed consideration of the circumstances surrounding Ainlee's death focuses attention on a distressing life experience of poverty, neglect, ill-treatment and violence.

Agencies and individuals were not able to successfully protect her and her brothers from parents who were unable to offer her the care and support she needed.

There must be a renewed commitment of all the agencies involved to work together to improve the protection of children in Newham for the future.

Report's recommendations

The 70-page report includes a number of recommendations relating not just to social services but to the police and health services as a whole.

Priority should be given to training in the area of direct work with dangerous families.

Each agency should re-assess the process of record keeping and tracking information relevant to child protection.

All staff undertaking direct contact with families should have basic child protection training.

Where parents are intimidating, a professional meeting should be held without the parents present to ensure a proper exchange of information.

Remedial action should be taken in the case where a worker is incompetent.

Case conferences and their decisions should be monitored and where there is dissent from one of the partners, the minutes should be passed to the child protection committee for the decisions to be accepted.

Midwives' awareness of child protection should be reviewed and practice regarding record keeping, report writing, liaison and referrals should be addressed.

Child protection supervision systems should be introduced for midwives and communication between midwives and health visitors need to be improved and formalised.

Improved awareness of child protection issues for GPs and their responsibilities, through training, auditing and monitoring.

Patient registration with GPs and transferring to GP records should be addressed.

Plans to appoint a named and designated nurse for child protection should be made a priority.

A&E departments should liase immediately with midwife and health visitors for all babies under 28 days old who attend A&E.

All housing caseworkers to be reminded of the importance of maintaining adequate file records and ensuring file records are passed on securely to the appropriate caseworker when a tenant transfers.


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