A former front-line child protection social care worker from Kent has launched an online petition to urge the Government to stop the continual cuts in social care services.

She said that she, like everyone else, had been shocked by recent high profile cases such as that of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes who died at the hands of his father and step-mother.

But Gemma Irwin from Sevenoaks said that although there had undoubtedly been mistakes in the support that Arthur and others had received, the Government had to accept responsibility for its continued under-funding of the social care service that had placed staff under enormous pressure and with few resources to turn to.

She said: "Child protection is not a desirable or healthy environment for anyone to work in.

"I lasted just a year, it was so awful.

"You are under tremendous pressure with perhaps 35 to 40 cases to care for - in a 37-hour week!

"There are no resources because of the continued cuts. Social care is on its knees!"

Mrs Irwin said that she got married during her time in child protection, but said: "On my honeymoon, I was so dreading going back to work, I was in tears!"

After 12 months she switched to working in the fostering and adoption services.

She said: "Social workers spend less than one third of their time actually working with the vulnerable children and families they are assigned to. The rest is spent on bureaucracy.

"Imagine if we only had enough funding to recruit more social workers to lower caseloads and implement all the early intervention, family therapy and adversity support needed to really assist these families!"

"Instead, care workers suffer burn-out, stress and basically tread water to give all of our cases the bare minimum needed."

Mrs Irwin said that in real terms, local authority social workers' pay has fallen by a fifth since 2009.

Mrs Irwin said: "I want the Government to sit up and recognise how desperate front-line social services are and to provide the necessary funding to give children and families the help they need."

Her petition has already been signed by more than 4,600 people. You can sign here. https://www.change.org/p/government-give-frontline-social-workers-the-funding-they-need-to-support-vulnerable-families