ABSTRACT
In 2000, 8-year-old Victoria Climbié died at the hands of her carers – a greataunt and her partner – after an extended period of horrific mistreatment. What made Victoria’s death particularly distressing was that she was known to a range of local authority and other children’s agencies – housing departments, social services departments, the police, hospitals and a charity – who between them failed to arrive at coordinated effective action to save her. The subsequent independent statutory inquiry, chaired by Lord Laming, concluded that Victoria’s death was the consequence not simply of the actions of her carers, but of ‘a gross failure of the system’ (Laming 2003: par. 1.18). ‘I am in no doubt,’ Lord Laming stated,
that effective support for children and families cannot be achieved by a single agency acting alone. It depends on a number of agencies working well together. It is a multi-disciplinary task.
