Opportunity Costs

Forgive my change of plan - I intended to write about confidentiality, but events overtook me. On February 15th the Waterhouse Report - 'Lost in Care' - was released. This is the most extensive public inquiry into child abuse ever carried out in Britain.

The author of the report, Sir Ronald Waterhouse, detailed extensive physical and sexual abuse of children in care during the years 1974-1990. Scores of residential workers are alleged to be involved. It's estimated that up to 650 children could have been victims. At least 15 young people have committed suicide.

The statistics are chilling. What is most disturbing is the scale - not the crude numbers, but the tiny area in which the abuses took place. The inquiry looked at half a dozen children's homes in a county in North Wales - a largely rural area with a total population well below that of a small city. That's what makes the statistics so chilling.

Anyone who has ever worked in a rural area will know the feeling of claustrophobia, the feeling that you can't go anywhere, do anything without everybody knowing. In a big city you're an anonymous face in the crowd. In a country district, somebody notices what you do, and soon everybody knows.

Indeed, there seem to have been numbers of complaints and investigations in North Wales. Matters finally came to a head after one social worker made vigorous complaints - she was sacked. Even then, it was years before the full details emerged.

The Waterhouse Report enjoyed a brief day of coverage in the national press. But then, the British public may be fed up with reports into abuses in children's homes. There have been scores over the last few years. They all make recommendations about what should be done, they all express outrage that vulnerable, damaged young people should be exposed to such a breach of trust.

What if this is the tip of the iceberg? Vulnerable young children at least survive (usually). They grow up and, in maturity, find a voice to express themselves and alert others to what has happened. Virtually every inquiry has occurred years after the abuses took place - because nobody wanted to believe the children at the time. Virtually every inquiry establishes that staff had complained, but were ignored, disciplined, even sacked - a process guaranteed to ensure that everyone else keeps quiet.

But what of the elderly? Or the mentally ill? Or people with learning difficulties? Perhaps they never achieve the status of being believed. How many of them are tortured, abused, or even murdered without their story ever being heard?

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