ONCE again another truly horrific attack involving children has hit the headlines.

What makes the sickening attack on the two young boys in Doncaster even more shocking is that the perpetrators were themselves just children.

The product of a “toxic” home background the un-named criminals – aged just 10 and 11 at the time of the attack – have, not surprisingly, been described as “evil,” “sadistic,” and “devil brothers”.

They have been given an indefinite sentence with a minimum tariff of five years. Their case inevitably brings to mind that of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who killed James Bulger, as well as that of Mary Bell who was just 11 when she strangled two small boys in 1968.

Thompson, Venables and Bell have all been given new names and new beginnings.

The fate of these children who commit such brutal crimes is a contentious issue and there is no doubt that there are many who believe that such evil can never be erased from a person and that any attempt to rehabilitate is intrinsically wrong.

And, as is often the case in horrendous crimes against children, there will be many people baying for the blood of the social workers and others who have been involved in the case.

Despite the horrendously difficult decisions and the flak that will be thrown if things go wrong, there is no shortage of dedicated people willing to put themselves in the firing line by working with troubled young people and their families.

Young people and mature students are not being deterred from entering the professions, according to the Head of the Centre for Children, Young People and Families at Leeds Trinity College in Horsforth.

Andy Lloyd, who has more than 20 years experience in social work, has worked in the area of child protection and juvenile offending before moving on to manage a family support charity, and then on to Leeds University.

Since September he has been in charge of the centre, which was set up in 2008, and tonight he will deliver the centre’s inaugural lecture: From James to Peter: Finding hope in a generation of tragedy.

He said: “I am proud to be a social worker and I am still registered as one. It is a fantastically rewarding profession. There are a range of professions where if you believe in the welfare and well-being of children you can really make a difference.” The centre is specifically aimed at looking at the wider children’s workforce and equipping students to progress into jobs such as teaching assistants, family support workers and parenting support workers.

“What is clear is that there are a growing number of really important roles in the community, and schools based, which are not social work or youth work, they are support work roles. That is what we are trying to get involved with.”

Despite the populist view he argued that there is a huge amount of good work being carried out by social workers and other professionals, and he said support workers played an absolutely essential role in this.

“No single professional can address the needs of complex and needy people,” he said. “It has to be a whole range of people.”

And as well as the highly-publicised cases where things go wrong he stressed: “There is very little written about the hundreds and thousands of children and families who are supported really well each year.”

Andy, 45, who lives in Horsforth and is married with three children, went into social work to make a difference and to tackle social inequalities and injustice.

Coming from a good, caring home environment it proved to be an eye opener.

“I had absolutely no personal experience of social work – I had no idea what it was,” he said.

“The first thing I did was work in a children’s home and it was a real culture shock,” he said. “I was suddenly thrust into quite a different world and it was quite bewildering.”

He believes most people would find it difficult to comprehend the truly awful lives that some children have.

“I think that one of the things that makes it hard for us to understand what goes on is that for most people the experience of family is generally good.”

And while it might be better for some than for others it is still a shock to be confronted with the sheer misery that makes up some children’s lives.

“When you come across children whose lives are so deeply unhappy and miserable and unpleasant and abusive it is actually very shocking,” he said, “and I think we all struggle to understand how and why people behave in those ways towards children.”

Some of the things social workers and support workers see could easily become overwhelming. “You need to maintain boundaries and not allow what you see to be so devastating that it damages you emotionally,” he said.

Andy was working in child protection when his own children were born.

“It made me more determined to ensure that children have as good as possible as life. Sometimes families find themselves in real difficulties,” he said. “It almost always comes down to circumstances rather than deliberate choice.

“Obviously there are some really troubled people who think that hurting children is part of what they do – but I don’t believe that is the case for most families.

“Most families find themselves in difficulties through circum-stances and I think it is the job and the role of local professionals to work really hard with them to address those circumstances.”

In his role in youth justice Andy has worked with young people who have committed a whole range of offences, from the least to the most serious, and he does not believe in writing people off or throwing away the key.

“Everybody has the potential to change,” he said. “I am not sure how easy it would be to do the job if you didn’t believe that.”

A case in point, he says, was that of Mary Bell who was just a child herself when she killed two children in 1968.

She rebuilt her life and went on to raise her own daughter. In cases such as Mary’s as well as in the case of Thompson and Venables and the two boys who carried out the sadistic attacks in Doncaster, their own awful backgrounds have gone some way towards explaining – although not excusing – their horrific crimes.

And although Andy stressed he did not want to comment on individual cases, he stressed how important background was in subsequent behaviour.

“It is never wise to not look at the background of an individual when trying to understand why they behave in certain ways.

“You can see a piece of behaviour which if you leave it in a vaccuum seems utterly inexplicable, but when you start to look at what is going on in their lives you can start to understand.

“The important thing is that it doesn’t excuse what has gone on. You can’t excuse the sort of behaviour we see but what you can do is try to understand why it is happening.”