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Parenting

My Lords, when working on the lines at Childline, I was always struck by the way children would defend and care about the most destructive and difficult parents imaginable. Faced with fathers or mothers who were alcoholic, drug users, abusive, violent or emotionally destructive, their primary concern was most frequently to hold their family together and to seek ways of making things better. Of course, there were also the children who wanted to escape the pain. I remember the two little girls in a telephone box, one saying, ““It was all right while it was me, but now he’s starting on my sister. Will you come and get us?”” In another case, a conviction for sustained sexual abuse was not achieved but at least the children were finally safe. I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for giving us the opportunity to take part in this debate and for all the excellent work she does for children and families. However, I should like to concentrate on the needs of parents at the extreme end of adverse circumstances and the support they require to bring up children who care for them and need them, despite all. These are the families who find their children out of control as they reach their teens due to poor parenting; they are unlikely to do well at school. Many have relationships that will not   survive this behaviour. They will be a part of the 10 per cent of separating families whom we talked about when we discussed the new Children and Adoption Bill. These families have neither the practical nor the emotional resources to resolve their problems. Most of them do not start by being single parents. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on drawing our attention to the fact that most people find themselves in this position because someone has walked out on them. When I was a family caseworker in the Family Welfare Association and then in Lambeth children’s department, these were the families we sought to help and change. That experience taught me that we could make a difference, even in the face of dreadful odds. But over the years, the kind of preventive work envisaged by the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 has disappeared, to be replaced by child protection and emergency intervention, with little room for conciliation and care. There are new approaches and programmes being tried. For example, district judge Nicholas Crichton, resident judge at the Inner London Family Proceedings Court, concerned at the procession of mothers addicted to drugs whose babies were taken into care only to become pregnant again and the whole process to be repeated, has set up a project to intervene and help them. Camden, Islington and Westminster, together with CAFCASS, have each contributed £10,000 to support it. And because this judge understands that these cases are never just about drugs or alcohol, the programme builds on measures to deal with relationship problems, domestic abuse, housing, mental health, income support and learning difficulties, and all the things you require to be a good parent. I hope that this programme is watched closely by government and that, if it succeeds, it is replicated in other parts of the country with more central support. Many parents will have problems that present themselves in less florid ways than drug or alcohol abuse, but they will affect their parenting skills. They would gain from parenting classes, children’s centres and social work intervention. In 2004, a series of studies produced by the DfES and the Department of Health as part of their Supporting Parents series, demonstrated how much these parents, in adverse circumstances, valued these experiences. Even parents without problems appreciate a little help; how much more would those who are struggling? I shall spend a few moments talking about sexual abusers and reminding your Lordships that they are not on the whole lone monsters, but family men. As a trustee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which treats sexually abusing men, I see both the damage they can do and the distress this can bring to families. The one place where these men could be treated in the community, the Wolvercote Clinic, has now been closed for four years, and the pioneering work of the foundation suspended. I am grateful to the Government for sticking with us in the search for another centre, but this issue needs more urgency. I have met these men and I have talked about their children. We should remember that they will return to being family members with all the dangers that that brings if they are not treated. Where can these parents turn in a society where to abuse a child sexually is the last taboo, where to come forward means imprisonment and life-labelling and little hope of treatment? The foundation, through its Stop It Now! programme, runs a helpline for those wishing to seek help, be they potential or actual abusers. We have been surprised by the number of men who are prepared to come forward. All of that is truly the difficult end of parental support—one that many would like to deny exists, but one where intervention must be highly skilled and committed. It is draining and soul-destroying work, but we continue to undervalue those who undertake it. In our society, that is simply not good enough. I hope that as the workforce strategy and the many other government programmes are put into place, we will at last tackle some of these problems, support our workers and give parents in the most serious emotional and practical difficulties the service that they deserve, if only for the sake of the children.