小彼得案提醒人们对小孩的呵护

音频下载[点击右键另存为]
There's never been so much attention focused on keeping our children safe. In the wake of the baby Peter Case, care referrals have soared, so much so the courts can't keep up, leaving many children lost in the system.

Sara Miles knows how that feels. She’s spent twelve years on child tending care.

I feel like a puzzle. I once described it as if I feel like a big glass in the puzzle. Every time I got move around because it was all broken inside, that was how I was feeling, broken inside, like a paining glass. Every time I got move it around that’ll be a big glass of me when, a piece of me when.

Recently there has been a 47 percent rising care of referrals, a backlog is building and many are blaming Cafcass----the children and family court service. They say it's an organization in chaos failing to employ sufficient staff.

There are currently over 12,300 cases going through the system, with a backlog of 721 cases waiting to go through the courts. And it takes on average 60 weeks for a decision to be made on a child's care case.

The boss of Cafcass admits the system’s under strain but denies it’s in melt-down. And even with an extra 1.6million pounds from the government, he says funding remains an issue.

We would love to have more but we're in the real world of difficult financial budgets for public services, and demand rising, we simply have to cut it off accordingly. But I would say that most children get pretty good service.

Sara now works with children in the care system. There is always a balance to strike between deciding on a case quickly and ensuring the right decision is made. She fears though it's ultimately the children who end up caught in the middle.

Laura Bundock, Sky news.