A renowned child protection officer,Sam Agyei has advised members of the African community in the UK and parents in general to use wisdom and seek  professional advice on issues affecting the feeding and nutritional well-being of their children in order to be covered if things did not work out.

"If a child is not feeding and growing well any parent would be worried.we have to use wisdom and seek advice, that way if things do not work out you always have evidence"

Mr. Agyei made these remarks in an interview with Voice of Africa Radio  on Wednesday when the station dedicated its People's Parliament programme to the 'struggle' of Gloria Dwomoh, sentenced to three years imprisonment last Friday  for "force-feeding" her daughter to death.

He did not particularly comment on this case since according to him he was not aware of it but prefered to put the issue into context.

" I have to be honest. I do not know the details about what has happened but lets just put things into context. Whether  this woman is a Ghanaian or whatever is irrelevant. This issue is about children, a mother, a family"

The social worker stated if the evidence showed that Gloria indeed force-fed her child then it  had to be contextualised how many other children she had  and whether  they were brought up properly.

Mr .Agyei explained that in child protection, there are families that come to the attention of the social services where a child is said to be not 'thriving' in which case  different angles are looked into in order to provide the best solution. 

He advised "if your child is not feeding very well you have a duty to seek medical advice,they have to investigate how the other children turned out, their records, if the mother has taken the child to a GP or healthcare provider for help."

"If this woman was known to the community,that is,she was using the healthcare system, attending a GP, then there should be a link about the complaint she would make"

As parents ,Mr.Agyei indicated it was frustrating where children are not eating properly and  in that context a parent who is very concerned because their child will not eat and has tried many different things, could at times be wrong in their judgement but added "I am not saying this is the way people in Africa feed their children"

Asked if Social Services since Baby P and  Victoria Clombie have become over-zealous,Mr Agyei answered in the negative.

" No, If you go to the depths of this case you will see that one side of the story is shown. The number of professionals involved with Baby P's case, the decision making with the case was not brought to the public and it is that which makes a bad name in the press for the social services."

In the case of Baby P,he said the decision was not made by the social worker alone as these cases go to multi-discliplinary conferences but because social services are the lead professionals it looks as if those are the people that should be blamed.

"We are talking about partnership here, together, we are talking about people seeking help, it could be you, it could be me. Just because you a nurse or a doctor does not mean your child cannot go through health difficulties. If  this woman was given advice by her local healthcare service, was she following it? Then if something happened to the child they could check the records and see what the root cause was." 

 Records in this country shows that sometimes things happen, the community sees it but no one contributes until something happens then they say what they had noticed ,what was happening but did not take any action - child protection is everybody's business,Mr Agyei stated.

 " That is why we have to learn from our lessons. With social workers, if you do - you are damned, if you don't, you are damned. An example could be if you go and see a mother on Friday and lies to you and tells you she doesn't have a partner, but she does and he is a druggie  who collects the child on Sunday, you have no way of knowing that and your assessment will be based on the information you received and witnessed on the Friday. If Monday anything happens then your job is on the line. So with these types of situations you must always put them in context." he concluded.