Historical novelists engage in research to ensure the authenticity of facts, and read as many related books, non-fiction and fiction, as possible. In my blogs I share the more fascinating fruits of my labours.
As outlined the first book of the series, the impetus for the creation of the Spinningdales team was the Maria Colwell scandal. So, who was Maria? Why did her short life hit the headlines? And why did her death result in a range of national initiatives, like the one in Midbeckshire?
In 1960s Brighton, a feud existed between two branches of Maria’s family. On one side were relatives clustered around Maria’s mother, Pauline Colwell, and on the other those around her aunt and uncle, the Coopers. Shortly after Maria’s birth on 25th March 1965, her father died. Unable to cope, her mother asked the Coopers to look after Maria. Meanwhile, an older sister and three older brothers were taken into care, while her eldest sister had always lived with her maternal grandmother. Apart from one brief period, Maria continued to live with the Coopers under a care order. Six years later, Pauline Colwell met Mr Kepple and they married. Whereas Mrs Colwell seemed content to leave all her other older children in care, she had always made it clear that she wanted Maria back home. Now settled with Mr Kepple, she pressed social services for her daughter’s return. At the time, there was the acceptance that children should be with their birth parents whenever possible. The social workers were therefore resigned to the imminent revocation of the care order. Attempts were made to reintroduce Maria to her mother gradually. However, the process was faster than the social services thought desirable because of her mother’s determination to fight the care order. This was replaced with a supervision order.
Subsequently, a harrowing number of reports of Maria being beaten and locked in her room arose. In April 1972, a neighbour, Mrs Rutson, was so worried about her that she contacted the NSPCC. It is to the credit of the NSPCC Inspector, who was covering her own and an absent colleague’s workload, that despite the parents making excuses to prevent her seeing Maria, she visited until they produced her. Maria’s face was severely bruised but the parents claimed she had hurt herself falling on her scooter. Thereafter there was mounting evidence that Maria was being mistreated - and from so many sources, the housing department, several school teachers, a school nurse, education welfare, yet more neighbours, and the police. The problem was that, time after time, the messages did not reach Miss Lees. She was unaware that Maria was suffering. Admittedly, she also failed to visit for five months. However, she was carrying around 70 cases, about 10 of which were child protection ones. She was well qualified but had limited experience and as a ‘generic’ social worker dealing with every type of social problem in every age group, her ability to develop an understanding of the dynamics of child maltreatment were limited.
Much of the reason for this can be traced to the family feud, with the Colwell side seeking to divert responsibility away from Pauline Colwell, whereas the Coopers were still bitter that Maria had been taken from them. Additional factors include the availability of an appealing photograph of Maria, and a predominantly right-wing national press which delighted in attacking what were seen as ‘leftie’ social workers. Early in the first Spinningdales novel, Sue reads a cutting about the tragedy, and although the ‘Brighton Oracle’ is a fictitious newspaper, the report of the case is a redraft of one written at the time. The excoriation of Miss Lees, whose practice appears to have been capable and caring, was extreme. It left child protection professionals at the time fearful because they recognised it could just as easily have been them in the firing line.
There were demands for a public inquiry. The subsequent Report1 makes heart-breaking reading as a picture emerges of a once happy child becoming frightened, traumatised, maltreated, and eventually beaten to death. A notable feature of the Report is that one member of the three-person panel, Olive Stevenson2, felt impelled to disagree with her colleagues and thus wrote a minority report showing her understanding of the complexities of the role performed by social workers. Olive, with whom I was acquainted, was a highly intelligent, experienced social worker, and an insightful academic. While her minority report was valued by social workers, the government, press and general public leapt on the more judgemental findings of the main report. Nevertheless, this main Report is valuable because it identifies the key issue as a failure in communication and absence of any system for coordinating all the people who were involved and expressing concern. The action taken by the Government, based on the Report, was constructive. In each local authority of England and Wales, Area Review Committees of key child protection agencies such as health, education, police and social services were appointed. These ARCs were charged with devising local procedures to ensure an efficient and constructive response to child protection concerns. In several areas the NSPCC pooled resources with the local social service and health authorities, to facilitate local procedures through ‘Special Units’. Spinningdales is based on this practice model.
The Spinningdales novels give many examples of the team devising ways to engage and communicate with children of all ages. And yet when I eventually became a University Lecturer in Social Work, this essential recommendation was totally ignored, and students had absolutely no training in communicating with children. I eventually found social work courses so grossly inadequate in relation to child protection that I transferred to an Early Years department. Here, to my delight, students once given the dismissive title ‘nursery nurse’ became graduates displaying consummate skills in relating to children. On a brighter note, while research3 attests to the lamentable paucity of training for direct work with children on qualifying and even post-qualifying social work courses, social workers themselves have invariably taken the initiative to ensure that they have the requisite skills.
References
1. Committee of Inquiry into the Care and SupervisionProvided in Relation to Maria Colwell (1974). Report of the Committee ofInquiry into the care and supervision provided by local authorities and otheragencies in relation to Maria Colwell and the co-ordination between them(Chairman: T. G. Field-Fisher) London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
2. Parsloe Phillipa (2013) Olive Stevenson. The Guardian10 Oct 2013 Obituaryhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/10/olive-stevenson
3. Handley, G and Doyle, C(2014). Ascertaining the wishes andfeelings of young children: social workers' perspectives on skills and training. Child & Family Social Work, 19 (4): 443–454,