Social workers slammed for wrongly taking girl into care

[edam]

Thought this story was interesting. Social services took the girl into care without even asking the doctors if there was anything wrong FFS - just took it upon themselves to decide that being in touch with ss and taking your child to the doctor meant the poor mother was deliberately causing her daughter's illness in order to gain attention. Appalling - as the judge said.

 
 
Council must pay £500,000 for wrongly taking girl into care

 
A couple had their family life torn apart when social workers wrongly took their nine-year-old daughter into emergency care without good reason and kept her from her parents for 14 months, a high court judge said yesterday.

Mr Justice McFarlane castigated the social workers for "multiple failings" and criticised the family court magistrates who had granted the emergency order. The costs of the case, payable from public funds, were £500,000, including the parents' legal aid costs of £200,000, which the judge ordered the local council to pay. The judge took the unusual step of making his judgment public after a hearing behind closed doors, although the family, the local authority and the magistrates court are all unnamed.

He laid down guidelines to prevent future miscarriages of justice which are certain to lead social services departments and magistrates courts to re-examine their practices. He said it gave him "absolutely no pleasure to have to record the multiple failings of the local authority in this case".

But to do so was "necessary not only in order to come to a conclusion on the issues in this case, but also in order that lessons may be learned for the future".

He said the girl's mother had sought the help of social services and child health services because her daughter, the couple's only child, was displaying some "modest behavioural difficulties".

Mother and daughter had been referred to the child guidance unit for psychotherapy and the girl had been put on the local child protection register.

The notes of a social services planning meeting read: "No neglect issues. Home and care good. Mother and child have good relationship. Detrimental to move."

But social workers suspected it was a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy - now called fabricated or induced illness (FII) -a rare form of child abuse in which a mother or carer makes a child ill or fakes illness to get attention. At the end of a case conference on the girl in November 2004, social services received a phone call from a nurse at the local hospital.

They were told that the mother had taken the girl there with stomach pains and was asking to see a doctor after the nurse found nothing wrong. Within hours and without any information from the doctor, social workers were at the magistrates court seeking an emergency protection order allowing the girl to be taken from her parents immediately.

They acted without telling the parents and without seeking any medical opinion to try to confirm their suspicions. The girl had had medical treatment before and no doctor had suggested fabricated illness.

The council's actions were described by the mother's counsel as "outrageous" and "inexcusable" leading, as it did, to "the destruction of this family's ordinary life".

Those descriptions "do not, in my view, overstate the quality of what took place on that day", the judge said. The social services team leader, who had no detailed knowledge of the case, made 13 assertions to the magistrates, of which every one was "misleading or incomplete or wrong".

He ruled that the council had no case to take the girl into care and made her a ward of court "to facilitate the child's return home".

[meggmoo]

Bloody hell, that is frightening isn't it?

[Callisto]

How appalling and terrifying. And why did it take so long to sort out?

[waterfalls]

Bloody helol, I hope none of my kids ever come down with a mysterious illness.

[edam]

I've been interested in these sort of cases ever since Bunglie started posting. Something is very, very wrong. Wish there were social workers posting here who could explain how on earth these cases happen. Doctors I've spoken to about this have told me stories that are very frightening... even where the doc is trying to tell SS they've got it wrong they won't listen, to the point of threatening the doc.

[Callisto]

Can't believe the nurse rang SS just because the mother wanted a docs opinion. WTF is going on there?

[Callisto]

It doesn't suprise me - I have heard how powerful and secretive SS caqn be. Just hope I never have to have anything to do with them.

[colditz]

And to think I had people calling me ridiculous for pointing out that some people live in terror of the social services. They do.

This is why.

[meggmoo]

Edam, I was warned to take photos of my baby's bum and date stamp them as he had a very noticable MBS which the HV said alot of her colleagues would be unaware of and that I should do it as a precautionary measure as it could cause a bit of trouble. It scared the life out of me! And I said to her "why don't you just write it down in his notes?" To which she responded
"Oh yeh, I didn't think of that!"

[gscrym]

My mum was a social worker for 20 years. I think things work differently in scotland than from england. I understand that there are times when they do the wrong thing. It's always in the paper when that happens. It's never in the paper when they do the right thing. There was a case recently that my mum had been involved in, throughout the persons life. When the case was reported in the paper, there were so many inconsistancies. The social work department cannot comment on those due to confidentiality. I know that when it came to taking kids into care, my mum did it with all the relevent agencies involved (GP, HV, schools etc) and never removed a child in a dawn raid.
It's wrong that people should be scared of them and I think a lot of that is to do with poor communication between the department and the client. They should be there to help people. Unfortunately, it's a service that is needed.

[gscrym]

Incidently, she's retired now and has been for a while.
I do feel quite defensive about the subject as I know how difficult, stressful and rewarding my mums job was. I also know how good at it she was. What social services did in this case was inexcusable.

[expatinscotland]

Let's see, in the Edinburgh area alone, in the past 2 years, we've had kids who met their deaths because they were left with parents who were known to be current heroin addicts: Caleb Ness, a wee boy who spent nearly 6 weeks alone in a flat with a mother who'd died of an overdose, and in January a 2-year-old boy who died after drinking his parents' methadone.

The methadone boy wasn't even on Social Services' register for at-risk kids!

And let's not even discuss Carla Nicole Bone and little Danielle Reid, may their tiny souls rest in peace, both of whom should have at least been on the at-risk register b/c their mothers were known to be living with violent partners.

And yet they remove a child over something like this?

WTF?!

[gscrym]

These are also inexcusable cases. I remember reading that the little boy who drunk methadone had been moved around a lot and the family was under investigation from a different authority than the area where he died. There are no excuses for these cases. There can only be hope that for cases like these, there are thousands that are prevented from going this way.

[getbakainyourjimjams]

edam- the NAS has big concerns over MSBP because autstic children have been caught up in this. Unfortunately SWs apparently receive more training on MSBP (which is incredibly incredibly incredibly rare) than on autism which isn't.

I know of someone with an adult severely autistic dd. She went to a day centre and was picked up each day by her mother. One day her mother had an operation and so her father went to pick her up. The dd went ballistic (wrong person- she;s autistic- change of routine etc). So SS decided that the father must be abusing his disabled dd and removed her into care. Cue huge mess and a very distraught severely disabled dd. Now luckily reunited with her family.

Thye local SS keeps getting zero ratings. And in the past year 2 children who were known to SS have been killed.

[Uwila]

So, they had to pay the costs of the case? Still seems a bit unfair to the parent. What about their 14 months of Hell? I think they desserve a bit more. Free council tax for the rest of their lives, maybe.

[PeachyClair]

I dreaded this scenario when I was doing cild protection. And the number odf aprents I ahve referred for SS support reassuringt hem that asking for help was a good thing, and would be viewed as such. Scares the life out of me.

Have to say, with Sam's assessments we have been questioned each time on why we know about the disorder (I was brought up to research and go ina rmed) and they have given us impression that our knowledge makes them doubt Sam has issues that aren't made up. Makes me , Munhausens (now called something else anyhow?) is so rare!

[edam]

Munchausen's is now called Factitious Illness something else beginning with an I - FII, I believe. Presumably to try to avoid the fact that Munchausen's has been discretited - or at least hugely over-emphasised. Much like renaming Windscale when they'd managed to leak radiation all over Cumbria.

Personally I think there's a real issue about the hatred some professionals have for mothers here. Salem Witch trials all over again. Mothers have power (the hand that rocks the cradle and so on) and some people can't stand that. If I was a sociologist I'd write a paper on it...

It's undeniable that some parents harm their children, but I think anyone who still believes Roy Meadows, the guy who popularised MSbP, knows sh!t about sh!t is deluded. (The guy who gave ludicrous 'expert' evidence in the miscarriages of justice cases like Sally Clark's).

[expatinscotland]

'Personally I think there's a real issue about the hatred some professionals have for mothers here'

I agree. The level of outright misogyny never ceases to amaze and sadden me, too.

[PeachyClair]

It is sad, but I will maintain (as I always do) that I never came across any bad social workers when I was working in the field, although there were admittedly some whose best was unavialble to them because of workload.

Of course that doesn't translate to everywhere, but it was my experience.

[waterfalls]

I know someone with Munchausen's, and it is frightening, she is 28 and has claimed to have every cancer going, she goes to the extremes of shaving areas of her head to make it look like she has had chemo, she does'nt have any kids though at the moment.

[edam]

Yeah, I know Munchausen's exists, but Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy ie inducing symptoms in your child? Vanishingly rare, I bet. Bunglie was accused of having Munchausen's by Proxy because she was ill. Turned out to be a rare disease. But instead of admitting that hadn't been able to come up with a diagnosis, the docs pinned the label on her. God knows why. She's in a wheelchair now - some invented illness, huh?

[getbakainyourjimjams]

when I took ds1 to a hospital dietician pre his autism dx (but following urine test results from the autism research unit which showed a gluten free diet would help) the dietician got quite shirty with me. ds1 aged 2 was a passive little thing and when I told him to pick up the toys at the end he did. She looked at me and said "and who exactly has suggested that this child has autism?'' then did a hurumph when I explained we were waiting to be seen, and said something about him seeming ok to her. Well almost 5 years later- rising 7 he still can't talk and is now classed as severely autistic. Not sure why she saw herself as such an expert, but I did realise that afternoon that I needed to be careful.

[edam]

How many parents of autistic children have faced this kind of suspicion? As if it wasn't hard enough already, to have this kind of attitude from the people who are paid to help you must make your blood boil.

You know my sister's training to be a learning disability nurse? She told me she came across some appalling attitudes on her placements - social workers being incredibly patronising and judgmental about parents. Complete refusal to spend a second of their time trying to imagine what it must be like to be in the parents' shoes.

[earthtomummy]

I feel that as a SW in my prev. life, I worked in mental health, that I have to speak up for SWs. YOu can't excuse the terrible deaths that have occurred, like that of V. Climbie. However, many children are helped by lots of skilled and dedicated SWs but their stories are never heard. It doesn't make up for the fact that glaring and seemingly incomprehensible mistakes occur that have appalling consequences. In hindsight though - and the way these stories are portrayed in the press - everything appears to be so clearcut and straightforward. No case is ever that easy. When I worked as an Approved S W and had to assess people to see if they needed to be admitted to hospital under section it could be v. stressful. Esp. if the 2 psychiatrists with you disagreed. Depriving someone of their liberty or letting them stay and run the risk of them harming themselves or someone else, weighing up the evidence and reaching a decision is difficult. It is not usually absolutely clearcut. My DH worked in it for a long time and he said that on duty they were always having parents turn up insisting their children be taken into care because they couldn't cope at home - diff. adolescents usually. One parent said if her son was taken into care then maybe it would teach him a lesson. YThere are poor SWs out there, but lots are there who do great jobs. My colleague used to help his clients do DIY jobs round the house etc, stuff that was really above and beyond. It is truly a thankless task at times because social work means getting involved with people at vulnerable times in their life and working often with individuals who do not want their support. SWs are subject to ALOT of verbal and physical abuse - and I speak as someone who was headlocked and threatened with scissors. It is rewarding sometimes and interesting. DH and I often wonder how cases like this occur,but I have to say that even now when I hear that someone in W. London has killed themselves or someone else I wonder - panic - that maybe it was one of my old clients.

[wannaBe1974]

I think these are horrible, horrible stories, but I also think that SS are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If a child dies in their parents' care then SS are to blame for not knowing something was wrong, and yet if a child is taken into care unnecessarily social services acted too quickly and did the wrong thing also. And yet how many children are helped by SS, are taken away from abusive homes etc. I think that social work is a thankless task, they are overworked, underpaid, and it is extremely stressful.