Let the state step in and look after your kids

[SockYarn]

Scottish minister just interviewed on telly about the whole Cummings debacle.

She says that in the situation of one parent falling ill, the other suspecting that they might be ill you should stay put and call on Social Services if you can't look after your child.

Do they REALLY think people are going to do that? Send your kids into foster care - because that's what they are talking about - with absolute strangers, rather than moving to be close-ish to relatives in case you get sick?

The world has gone MAD.

[Gingerkittykat]

Social services could have arranged to transport the child to the grandparents, it doesn't mean foster care.

[SockYarn]

Social services aren't a taxi service.

If I were in that situation, and it's possible as we don't live close to relatives, then there are 101 other options before calling the state for help.

[BrokenBrit]

It’s rubbish in this case anyway as the child’s uncle and the fathers aide both live very close to the family and so could have assisted.

[StrawberryBlondeStar]

This feels a bit like when nurseries say you are more then 10 mins late they will call social services...

Cause social services just have people waiting around to pick up children from private nurseries.

I guarantee in this sort of situation people would just be told (a) are you sure you can’t manage and (b) is there not a family member who can look after child.

[SockYarn]

I'm talking in general terms - not about the specifics of this case. The minister said that in the situation of both parents being ill then your first call should be social services - not friends, not relatives. Even if they live round the corner.

[longwayoff]

Its all absolute BS. This is simply about DC believing rules are for other people. And that appears to be true.

[Thesearmsofmine]

If he interested to know how social services feel about that! I mean it’s hardly like they all well resourced.

[SnuggyBuggy]

Like fuck would any normal parent do that. Also are there really going to be loads of Foster carers willing to take potentially infected children?

[ThousandsAreSailing]

They took a trip, more that one it appears. The story about childcare is a bollocks excuse

[SockYarn]

But we're not talking about specifics.

The minister was clear - if you are ill, and your partner is ill, and you are worried about who looks after the kids while you're both ill in bed, you call Social Services.

And agree, like fuck would a parent do that.

[3LittleMonkeyz]

I have been in the situation of being very ill as a lone parent (needing to be hospitalised) and had two responses 1. Is there nobody else you can ask? If not we are concerned about your support system and will begin a formal assessment. Please find family or friends or risk losing your kids, essentially. And 2. Tough. We are not a childcare service. This isn't our problem.

[iVampire]

The parent could however arrange for the person who has agreed to look after the child to come and pick the DC up

I don’t think, despite the repeated use of the term at the press conference, that a DC with one symptomatic and one asymptomatic parent is a safeguarding issue

[Michelleoftheresistance]

If one of the richest, most powerful men in the country, working directly in number 10 with who knows how many PAs and aids and whathaveyou and a nanny at home, can't summon up either food or help with finding childcare without the help of social services or Durham, then frankly he isn't up to running the local knitting circle, never mind the country.

Multiple single parents on very low incomes have managed under the circumstances he's created, without anything like the resources he has at his fingertips.

[AJPTaylor]

I'm sure social services are delighted with that published suggestion.

[PicsInRed]

Look, they're not going to overtly admit this, but reading between the lines, Dominic Cummings was not considered able to have sole care of his child so they all went to family whilst Mum was gravely ill. Presumably the uncle (his brother?) is similarly useless.

Just look at how he carried his frightened 4 year old through a media throng, stopping to argue with them as he did so.

There are enough useless, reckless and terrifyingly inept fathers (just have a read of the relationships and sole parents boards) that this is sadly not far fetched at all.

Basically, Mum was extremely unwell, Dad was pathologically unwilling unable to step up in a way which wouldn't result in injury or hunger in the child.

I mean, it's Dominic Cummings, people. He is allegedly a psychopath. Are we really shocked he is not fit to care for his own child?

[Piggywaspushed]

The point is , under the circumstances at the moment, social services or the council, would point a parent towards local help networks who could do your shopping, bring medicine and help out. The 'army of volunteers' does exist.

I know this because this is exactly what happened with me.

[PicsInRed]

And, no, the fuck would I invite social services into my home when I could access help from family. They're all humans who could become infected in the community. Social services have a lot of power. Family will leave when the danger has past, get a deranged the wrong social services officer and you might never shake them off.

[PicsInRed]

*passed

[itdoesnthavetobefun]

During c-19 period, local authorities have been co-ordinating support. If a family contacted us, we'd ensure that a volunteer was assigned to deliver food and medication (our council will also try to arrange a dog walker)

As long as there is food, most people would manage to look after a 4 year old, even if looking after meant letting them watch tv for 5 days straight.

And they are stating that was the case here. Th child stayed with the parents and the only support was on food delivery.

[HoldMeCloserTonyDanza]

If you are well enough to drive 260 miles you are well enough to take care of a child and so there is o safeguarding issue.

Tens of thousands of parents experienced his situation when one of them became symptomatic. If they had all travelled cross-country the U.K. would have been overwhelmed.

The advice he created was what he should have followed, just like every other parent did.

[SnuggyBuggy]

Ive always thought of myself as law abiding but I don't know anymore

[Michelleoftheresistance]

Or possibly the story doesn't hang together in any way or make any sense because no one had Covid, they were just isolating in case, and it was his Mum's birthday. And the bluebells were out when he went back a while later.

If you ring the social services help desk and say I'm too ill to care for my child they'll probably talk you through suggestions to manage - at home, with your child - or suggest you call other family members or friends for help. They are not going to take a child into care unless the parent is taken to hospital and the child would be the only remaining person in the house. And even then, the first plan would be finding family to take the child. It's hard enough finding foster placements for children in serious danger.

[KaronAVyrus]

Because social services have (historically) such a great track record of looking after children 🤔

DC did act like a humongous dick over all of this, no doubt about it. But to state that if both parents are ill they should have total strangers in instead of a loving auntie/grannie/friend in is completely psychotic.

[Bubbletwix]

Either they were both too ill to look after the child (in which case they’re too ill to drive) or they’re well enough to drive, in which case they can get food delivered, stick 4 year old in front of the tv with a banana and some toast and get on with it, like they expect everyone else to. Moving the length of the country, “in case” he felt too ill to look after his child, is absurd. Had he had a family member come to them, in the situation where they actually were both too unwell to look after the child and the alternative was social services, I don’t think anyone would really criticise. But that’s not what happened.

And if it really was so clearly ok his wife would have mentioned it in her published account of their experience instead of clearly implying they’d stayed in London.

[Spillinteas]

It’s ridiculous this is even being discussed still. The figures of deaths are falling dramatically and we are in the way out of this.

Less than 0.5% out of 66 MILLION have died with coronavirus in the U.K.

As if parents are going to call SS and SS is on its arse as it is!