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Daughter Issues - No help from Social Services

3 replies

navidson · 18/02/2015 16:36

Apologies for the length of this post, but I wanted to try and include everything so that the full picture of the situation could be displayed.

My partner has 3 children, 2 young boys and a 17 year old daughter. The daughter has always been moody and distant, but was a very high achiever all the way through school and achieved excellent GCSE grades. Around the time she started college, she met a young Muslim man online and starting conversing with him. This expanded into a relationship, which entailed her visiting him in Milton Keynes (where he resides) . The formation of this relationship coincided with a downturn with her attendance at college. Furthermore, there has been some police involvement when the relationship became known at college, with the boyfriends family ‘known’ to police from previous incidents.

This relationship has continued now for more than 6 months, but is not a ‘stable’ relationship in the way that most would view this term. They spend constant hours on the phone, screaming, shouting and crying at each other. She has become obsessive to the point of cutting herself off from the rest of reality and focusing purely on this individual. As a result of this relationship she has dropped out of college, reinstated to start another college, dropped out of that college too, and now spends most of her time in her bedroom or lazing about the house. She will not engage with Connexions and has shown little interest in obtaining employment.

This is only part of the problem. She is a hugely disruptive influence in the household, to the point of the rest of the family being fearful of being there when she is present (Which is 90% of the time). Over the course of the past few months she has

• Held a knife to the throat of her oldest brother
• Gripped her youngest brother so hard that bruise marks have appeared on his arms
• Threatened suicide as a way of manipulation
• Hidden knives in her bedroom
• Stockpiled over the counter drugs in her bedroom
• Engaged in all night long shouting matches on the phone – Keeping the whole house awake
• Smashed items in the household/garden
• Swore constantly and frequently at her siblings/mother – She is almost incapable of holding a civilised conversation with anybody

My partner has desperately tried to access any form of help – From Social Services to the Police to GP’s to CAMHS to Housing Solutions – and has still had barely any contact from any of these agencies. Things have gotten to the point now where my partner is at the end of her tether and believes that there is nobody out there willing to help her. She has had contact with Social Services, and has been promised assistance (she has been allocated a social worker) but meetings have been arranged and then cancelled with little or no notice – These meetings have then not been rearranged, so weeks then pass without any involvement.

It seems that the only way that anybody will pay attention to the situation is if something terrible happens, and that is the ultimate fear that my partner has. How do we get somebody to pay attention to the situation?!

OP posts:
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georgepigsdinosaur · 18/02/2015 16:40

Out of that list what are you expecting these agencies to do?

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SoonToBeSix · 18/02/2015 16:40

I have no advice sorry, other than to say please don't assume the threatened suicide is manipulative, you have no way of knowing that.
I do hope you get the support your family needs, just don't know what to suggest that you haven't already tried.

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supportingparents2014 · 18/02/2015 16:55

Hi, I can empathise with your feelings of disappointment towards the services you feel are showing ignorance! And rightly so! I've been in a situation myself as a parent needing support. My advice, keep making yourself visible. Fight for the attention you and your family need. From my experience after being ignored by services that were seen to be taking no action I took myself down to our local councillors surgery one Saturday morning and poured my heart out! As if by magic, people listened!! We now have the support we needed and there's light at the end of the tunnel.

In my opinion, your daughter must be held accountable for her choices. Let her own the (right or wrong) choices she makes.

Well done to you for seeking help. Keep going.

Sometimes we don't understand our teens journey.

K x

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