Extreme prejudice

David Brindle

The Guardian

"You don't want to reflect negatively on gay couples, especially in the social services. I'd be thinking: 'Am I being prejudiced? Is it my own prejudice that is making me doubt the skills of these carers, these two gay men? Is it because I'm homophobic?', rather than just asking yourself the simple question: 'Are they abusing kids?'"

Staff member, Wakefield council

Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey were the first openly gay couple approved as foster carers by Wakefield council, West Yorkshire. Within two years, their approval had been rescinded amid inquiries that led ultimately to their imprisonment for the sexual abuse of boys placed in their care.

An inquiry report to be considered by the council today points to weaknesses in process and practice and the failure of Wakefield, at the time, to create and sustain a culture of questioning and challenge. Beyond this, though, it suggests that Faunch and Wathey's special status led to a particular lack of professional rigour in the council's dealings with them and a reluctance to "think the unthinkable".

The case has already been seized upon gleefully by those who think social work is bedevilled by political correctness. In their simplistic interpretation, professionals feared speaking out lest they were accused of prejudice. But the report's conclusions are more complex than this. As indicated by the comments of a staff member to the inquiry, quoted at the head of this article, social workers felt uncertain of their own attitudes, and very often felt out of their depth in dealing with a same-sex couple who were, additionally, overbearing and bullying.

Lessons

The report's authors are clear on the lesson to be drawn: "Discrimination based on prejudice is not acceptable, especially not in social work or any public service." But they add: "Discrimination founded on a professional judgment on a presenting issue, based on knowledge, assessed evidence and interpretation, is at the heart of good social work practice.

"These anxieties about discrimination have deep roots, we argue - in social work training, professional identity and organisational cultures - and the remedies for these go beyond the remit of any single council or inquiry report."

This is, then, an important and potentially seminal investigation. Although there are no overall figures, fostering and adoption by gay and lesbian couples have become much more common since the Children Act 1989 explicitly stated that "it would be wrong arbitrarily to exclude any particular groups of people from consideration". Yet the report casts doubt on how well the system, and those who operate it, are able to respond to the issues and challenges that arise.

According to the experienced inquiry team - Brian Parrott, former social services director of Surrey council, Annie MacIver, head of Surrey's family placement service, and June Thoburn, emeritus professor of social work at the University of East Anglia - social workers dealing with same-sex couples "must be equipped to investigate in the same searching, confident and informed way as with any prospective carers and have access to training, consultation and specialist supervision to equip them for the task".

Faunch and Wathey approached Wakefield about fostering in July 2002. They passed the usual checks and the social worker who assessed their suitability told the inquiry that, despite some ambivalence and nervousness on the part of colleagues, the team responsible for foster care was "largely keen and excited". One manager described the couple as "trophy carers"; another said they had a "badge" that made things less questionable.

The assessment report is described by the inquiry team as "more akin to an 'advocacy' report, listing the evidence that would suggest that [Faunch] and [Wathey] would make good foster carers, rather than an evaluation of strengths, vulnerabilities and risks for the fostering panel to consider". The panel, which included two colleagues of the assessor, one of whom had run a course attended by Faunch and Wathey, approved their application in July 2003. In August, they received their first child on placement.

In all, 18 children aged eight to 14 were placed with Faunch and Wathey in the 17 months to January 2005. They were typically troubled boys, some with learning disabilities and several who had been sexually abused. Although concerns surfaced even with the first placement, it was not until the 18th child told his brother's girlfriend of being sexually abused that investigations began. "Opportunities were not taken during 2004 to intervene and prevent the abuses children experienced," the report concludes.

In June last year, Faunch was sentenced to six years in jail and Wathey to five, both having been convicted of multiple charges of sexually abusing four boys in their care.

The inquiry team is at pains to stress, as was the trial judge, that the case should in no way be taken as evidence that gay men should not be considered as foster carers. But the report poses inescapable questions for councils and fostering and adoption agencies about their approach to, and understanding of, same-sex relationships, their confidence in challenging potential carers in such relationships and their reaction when others make such challenges.

Experts are welcoming the report's candour. David Holmes, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, says: "People who are assessing carers must have the confidence to include sexuality as an issue for consideration, just as they should consider previous relationships, domestic violence or abuse suffered as a child. There is no subject that's off limits.

"If for any reason a social worker does feel anxious about issues of sexuality, they should be talking to their supervisor about it. That's precisely why we have supervision in social work."

Robert Tapsfield, chief executive of the Fostering Network, agrees. "It's essential that people doing the assessment and approving foster carers have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the community from which the applicant comes, in the broadest sense. And there is help and training for this. Even in 2003 it would have been possible without difficulty to get advice from people who had made placements with gay foster carers and understood these issues."

Backlash

It is important that the Wakefield report does not create a backlash against gay foster carers - or the recruitment of more of them, Tapsfield says. "It would be an extraordinary shame if this was to have an adverse effect; that gay and lesbian foster carers are more likely to be recruited today is much to be welcomed, especially as there is a continuing shortage of carers."

Stonewall, the charity working for equality for gay and lesbian people, wants no special privileges for same-sex couples seeking to foster or adopt. "They should be treated exactly the same as everyone else, with the same process and scrutiny," says Alan Wardle, the charity's director of public affairs. "The welfare of the child has got to be the prime consideration, whether the carers are gay or straight."

Nor does Ian Johnston, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, think that the circumstances of the Wakefield case mean staff had any special defence. "A complaint is a complaint, no matter who are you are dealing with," he says. "These people should have been investigated, regardless of what their sexual orientation was.

"It is difficult to challenge people, to confront them, and there is of course a great problem with these cases in creating an expectation that the workers will always get it right. But the important thing is that we have now put in place a regulatory system [under the General Social Care Council] and we would expect to be able to give a much stronger reassurance that if things are found to be wrong, if people have failed to deal with situations like this, then they will be called to account."

The inquiry report makes 41 recommendations for improvement in the foster care system in Wakefield and beyond, but notes that "a great many" changes have already been made by the council. The authority was awarded no stars for its social services performance in 2002, but last year received two (out of four) for children's social care and three for its capacity to improve.

Faunch and Wathey have been banned for life from working with children. They will remain on licence for three years after their release from prison.