Whats more important, welfare or retribution?
- Details
- Category: What are people saying about child protection / social services / welfare workers
- Created: Saturday, 10 December 2011 10:37
- Written by Alecomm2
Hello Australia, do you see the similarity between this and other children? - Click here to view the YouTube Video in Reference.
The problem is the response on facebook is focused on retribution towards the perpetrator, rather than the welfare, safety and development of the young boy.
Responses to child abuse should be focused on the welfare and development of the child. What was done for this child to ensure this wouldn't happen again? Autistic and developmentally delayed children that have "challenging behaviours" will always be at risk of harm until the behaviours are addressed. That is what 'challenging behaviours' is defined as. There are many people that cannot handle people of all ages with challenging behaviours including parents, carers, hospital staff (e.g. the recent death of a difficult patient in WA) and even police.
While it is important to highlight the situation it is even more important that focus remains on the victim's human rights and those rights include both the minimisation of future harm and maximization of welfare and development.
Such video evidence should be a wakeup to provide the child with better care and intervention to prevent the harm, rather than wait until it happens again.
We don't know what prompted the man to hurt the boy, or even if the boy has challenging behaviours, but we do know that unless the root cause - rather than the end result - is properly identified the boy remains at risk of further harm.
I know this may sound like it is "blaming the victim" and so is politically incorrect. But we also have to be realistic and acknowledge that some human interactions do put people at risk of harm and they need to be addressed if they are contribute to the root cause of the problem.
The welfare of the child comes before all other considerations.
