A social worker has spoken out about life on the ‘forgotten frontline’ and the battle to keep children safe as the coronavirus pandemic piles pressure on families.
Chloe*, who works in Oldham’s children’s services department, has revealed that serious incidents of physical domestic violence have increased to a ‘worrying level’ under lockdown.
The NSPCC says that concerns about child abuse have soared since national lockdown measures were first introduced.
Social workers are seeing children with fractures, broken bones, bruises, and suffering emotional harm while living in a violent or verbally abusive household.
Oldham’s executive director of children services has previously revealed the authority had experienced a ‘tsunami’ of referrals since July last year, with reports of ‘really serious domestic abuse’.
“Unfortunately some of the incidents where it’s been a verbal argument has escalated into more physical things and sadly children have been witness to that,” Chloe says.
“We’ve also seen a number of injuries, and not just a bruise which is bad but we’ve actually seen an increase in the severity, so we’ve seen a number of fractures for children where we’ve had to investigate what’s gone on there.
Read the full article here:
