The Hidden Power Podcast Ep 2: Progress in the Field of Child Protection with Eileen Munro

Ed Straw
Philip Tottenham
Eileen Munro
17 October 2020

‘Professor Eileen Munro turned decades of inadequate child protection on its head with one simple question: are we helping or hindering the front line?

In this episode, she reflects on the successes - and revealing failures - of her review into child protection. Eileen covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. It is fascinating.

Talking points:

  • Centralised processes can't protect children, and this centralisation is an unavoidable consequence of the current state of governance
  • How child protection can work much better, when the system is re-aligned to its purpose
  • Key role of feedback, service sampling, education, and the news media.

In our commentary Ed and Philip Tottenham pick up on these and other points, specifically the governmental conditions that allowed for success, and especially: leaders believing they have grasped the systemic nature of necessary change, when in reality they haven’t. What to do?’