Will we ever really know everything???

[namechange1234567]

Regular poster but name changed as I've previously shared some info and don't want to out my DS.

More,or should I say now correct info has come to light regarding DS's history today.

My heart is breaking to think just how much worse life must have been for him than we ever thought as its looking highly likely that there was physical abuse, something his previous useless SW was adamant didn't happen. I know I/he will never fully know as thankfully he was too young to remember and perhaps it was rather naive of me to believe that his SW would know what was really happening but seriously how the fuck nobody noticed or asked the questions about the visual evidence there for all to see is beyond me.

I feel sick to my stomach not only for him but for all the others still in the system who don't have their 'person' to shout and ball and to protect them, if it wasn't for me pushing and asking questions this new info wouldn't have come to light. This I might add is in addition to the incorrect medical information being provided in LAC/adoption reviews which resulted in DS being at medical risk for over a year.

It's all come about in the last couple of months but today's news has been the tipping point for me.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here and that many many more children have had much more horrific starts to life (many continuing to do so) but it seems to have broken through my shields today, I've got my living breathing miracle asleep upstairs and it's no longer about feeling sad for a faceless child, he is my child and I never ever want to him to feel that fear again or to even think that he was just a name on a list and not worth the effort to those people who's job it was to protect and care for him. The courts that despite overwhelming evidence that birth family were not capable (or willing) to keep him safe and well deciding on numerous occasions to give them 'one last chance' and sending him back into what must have felt like hell for him.

I feel he has been let down by the system more than his birth family if that makes any sense, birth family knew no better, the countless professionals most certainly did.

I just wanted to post and get it off my chest, I've had the rage all day that not only would anyone dare not to cherish this amazing child but that the system designed to protect him let him down for so long.

Shields will be back up tomorrow, if I think too much about all this I'm not sure I could cope.

DS has been hugged and kissed to within an inch of his life today, just wish I knew what was going on in that little head of his.

Rant over

[Italiangreyhound]

namechange1234567 so sorry, this must be very hard. I remember getting a letter detailing some incident the social worker thought I knew and did not.

Thinking of you. At least, I know it is little condolence, that you know you can be prepared to answer questions later in life. Our children have survived some terrible things, they may one day have questions, so knowledge is of use, even if it is something painful to carry.

Bless his little cotton socks. Bless you.

[Kr1stina]

I'm so sorry

You have every right to be absolutely furious .

Please rant away .

I too am far more angry at some of the so called professionals who let down my children than I am at birth family members . There are some in particular that I am scared of ever meeting , as I'm not sure I could control myself .

And I am generally a very very controlled person ( as those of you who have met me will know ! )

( I mean bumping into them at a shopping centre etc, I have no reason to ever deal with them professionally )

The answer to your question is of course that, no, we will never ever know everything our children went through. They are the only ones who know - they carry it in their minds and bodies

[dibly]

I'm so sorry. We've had similar things come to light and it's horrendous to imagine our children so helpless in an inadequate system. Not remotely mumsnet, but gentle hugs.

[Kewcumber]

You weren't very controlled when you saw the mouse in the middle of the night Kristina...

DS didn;t have a history of neglect or abuse but I did go through a stage of feeling heart broken for his loss when I faced up to the reality of it rather than the idea of it before he was real and I loved him.

I think it doesn't fully hit us until we love them and then you have to face up to the fact that you can never make your childs life perfect and you love them so much that anything less than perfect isn't good enough for them.

You do get a degree of acceptance about it over time and the need to get on with life helps. I too have the rage with the professionals occasionally luckily not too many yet

[namechange1234567]

Thanks all, I think you're right about it hitting home more now that he's here and much loved, this must be what 'going all momma bear' means!!

I still have the rage and beginning to think it will never go! I'm chanelling it into a formal complaint rather than muttering obscenities under my breath all day....can't have DS's first clear sentence being fucking fuckers what were they fucking thinking

I totally get the even the best SW (sadly DS SW during this period was far from the best) in the world will never get the full story especially when birth family are hostile, however, the cock up made by the doctor was 100% avoidable and I want his head on a plate answers.

[Kr1stina]

Kew - A mouse on the floor I can just about deal with . A live mouse in my bed was a bit much. I thought I did well not to scream the house down

Name change - just my opinion, but I would be very very wary of making any complaint about SW. At least not until my youngest child was 16. Or I was living outside the UK and didn't intend to return .

They don't like complainants and they are very very vengeful .

I know three families who have lost a child because they made a complaint about SS and it was found it the favour of the complainant ie their complaints were upheld by a higher authority

One was an adoptive family and the other two were permanent foster carers.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't mean they lost a child and then made a complaint.

I mean they made a complaint, it was dismissed by the authority . They appealed to a higher authority and it was found in their favour . They authority lost face and mad to pay out money .

Then these families had children removed from them for supposedly unconnected reasons.

[mydutifullaunderette]

WTF Kr1stina I thought I was almost unshockable (sadly) but that has smacked my gob completely! I obviously have a streak of naive left in me after all. Those poor, poor families - all the families, I mean by that. not shocked by the mouse; used to have a cat and still have the shivers remembering waking up with a vole running over my hair

Namechange I know what you mean about the rage, I really do. I can just about cope with heartbreak of discovering things that come out later naturally and were genuinely not known by any adult at the time (although finding the stuff out via letterbox was a bit of a shock - does ANYONE read these things before forwarding them??) but it is being told stuff later on that was always in the bloody file, but they swore blind there was nothing like that, that really takes my blood pressure off the scale.

(I have diverted my rage recently by writing a blistering "bog off" letter to the planning committee, as someone wants to build a block of flats on a bungalow plot next door - someone official still gets a blasting, perhaps a bit unfair they get all my attitude, but after what Kr1stina said, maybe better that for now it isn't the SWs.)

[namechange1234567]

I'm waited by for the AO to come through then they will all get blistering bog off letters then I'm leaving the country! the fact they remove children because parents dare to challenge is disgusting. Thankful my SW is very supportive and has taken a number of her own complaints forward in recent times regarding the level of 'service' given by the child protection and fostering teams. I can't tell you how much I want to be rid of the lot of them and carry on with our life without them

[Kr1stina]

mydutifullaundrette

How to object to a planning application

www.hampdenfieldsactiongroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HowtoobjecttoaplanningapplicationEbook.pdf