Victorian Child Abuse

According to Kincaid Victorian Britain was ‘neglectful of the young…’(REFERENCE) During this period children were often forced to work long hours and in poor conditions. Many children took on dangerous job roles that involved working down mines, as chimney sweeps or with heavy machinery in factories. Mortality was high in Victorian Britain, vast amounts of children were orphans and whilst there were laws in place to protect animals, no current legislation was in place to protect the children of Britain. However this was all to change when the 1873 case of Mary Ellen in the United States went world-wide and led to the evolution of child protection in Britain. Eight year old Mary Ellen died after being a victim of severe physical abuse caused

Victoria was physically abused and as a result killed by her great aunt despite being in contact with public service professionals such as police, doctors and social workers on twelve occasions over the space of ten months. The Lord Laming report (2003) was published as in inquirery to Victoria’s death. Laming’s report highlighted that there was poor communication between services furthermore that joint multi-agency working was needed in order for cases such as Victoria’s to be prevented from being repeated. From Laming’s report derived the green paper ‘Every Child Matters’ (2003). The government saw failings in the current child protection system as highlighted from Laming’s report and created five outcomes that children had the right to and were believed to have support with. These were to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic well-being. The government believed there was need for a ‘whole system’ change therefore the children’s act (2004) was put in place. The act focused on multi agency working between professionals and stated that better communication and data sharing was needed. Along with the act the government built Sure Start centres in deprived neighbourhoods that used multi- agency working and provided nursery education, family support, and health care for the public. Despite this the Munro review (2011) following the death of baby P, an infant killed by his mother and stepfather after being psyically abused, highlighted many of the same flaws in the system as Lamings report. Simlar to Victorias case many professionals were involved with the case of baby P however again they were unable to work effectively and prevent his death from occurring. MP at the time David Cameron targeted the Social services department and stated that the ‘…department gets one hundred