Why They Don’t Care About the Children

SWANK Black Paper Series

Why They Don’t Care About the Children

The Systemic Disassociation of the Welfare Industry

Filed Under: Institutional Psychopathy / Bureaucratic Conditioning / Professional Evasion

Author: Noelle Bonnee Annee Simlett

I. Introduction: The Myth of Caring

We are told social workers care.

That their job is to protect children.

That their failures are rare, tragic, and accidental.

But the evidence shows otherwise.

Across decades of abuse, child deaths, cover-ups, grooming networks, and punitive removals, the question remains:

Why don’t they care about the children?

The answer is chilling, but simple:

Because they were never trained to.

They were trained to manage, document, and deflect.

II. Children Are Not Seen as Human—They Are Seen as Risk Units

The moment a child enters the system, they are reframed through:

1. Codes
2. Thresholds
3. Assessment tools
4. Case files
5. Budget lines

What was once grief becomes “emotional dysregulation.”

What was once abuse becomes “complex family history.”

What was once a person becomes a procedural object.

III. The System Rewards Control, Not Compassion

Social work institutions don’t promote people for caring.

They promote them for:

1. Risk aversion
2. Narrative management
3. Silence under pressure
4. Rapid closure of difficult cases

The question is never:

“Did you protect this child?”

It is always:

“Did you follow procedure?”

And if the procedure failed?

Blame the child. Blame the parent. Blame the context. But never the system.

IV. Emotional Disassociation as Institutional Culture

To remain in the field without breakdown, most professionals dissociate:

1. From the child’s pain
2. From their own conscience
3. From the consequences of inaction

They call this “professional detachment.”

But what it really is, is emotional anesthesia.

And once a worker disconnects from care, the child becomes disposable.

V. It’s Easier to Blame a Child Than Challenge an Institution

When a child discloses abuse, it means paperwork, risk, and confrontation.

It means going against foster carers, managers, judges, or police.

So instead of caring, workers default to:

1. “She’s attention-seeking.”
2. “He’s manipulating the situation.”
3. “We can’t substantiate her disclosure.”

The child is framed as the threat.

The system is protected.

VI. To Care Would Mean Admitting the System Is the Abuser

And that would destroy the entire myth of child protection.

To care—truly care—would force social workers to:

1. Break rank
2. Expose corruption
3. Demand justice
4. Risk their careers
5. And admit they’ve been complicit

That is too much truth for most to hold.

So they don’t.

VII. Conclusion: This Is Not a Crisis of Funding—It’s a Crisis of Humanity

We don’t need more training.

We don’t need better paperwork.

We need systems that require humanity—and remove those who fear it.

Because until then,

children will keep screaming into procedural silence,

and no one will hear them—except those the system tries to discredit.