To think a lot of posts on this social services Facebook group can’t be entirely truthful?

@ijphoo - that is why we need proper funding of social care and have adequate support instead of the shit show we have at the moment where services are cut left and right. I am so sorry for your experiences.

@ijphoo that sounds hellish, I’m sorry

My children (then young teens) were on Child Protection Plans. I could not keep them safe. I really, genuinely and truthfully could not keep them safe. My eldest has autism and serious mental health issues. He MH issues escalated significantly when he was 14. His bevaviour was impossible to manage. We had to get rid of every sharp object, and even lock away thread because he would hurt himself with it. His brother is also neurodiverse and used to attack my eldest because he could not stand the noise, the tension and the chaos. My eldest disclosed this abuse.

My husband (sorry but also ND) tried to manage the situation, but was heavy handed. My management was ineffective. My husband's heavy approach was also disclosed. Social services became involved.

When SS became involved, there was supposed to be partnership working between school (neither child was attending by then), MH services, learning disability services and Children's Social Care. However, due to the focus on child protection, CSC were leading the case.

That is when everything was interpreted as inadequate parenting.

This was a long time ago, but the only way we could work effectively with CSC was to separate the family. I lived with my (by now psychotic) eldest and my husband struggled to live with a very angry mid-teenage boy.

Intervention and child protection ended when my eldest reached 18 (he had been arrested and sectioned by that time).

Through forums such as FRG, I learnt that many families in which there were complex additional needs were subject to inappropriate interventions from social care. My sons needed the CP Plans, but they needed the other services as well. My parenting was hopelessly inadequate, but how on earth can you parent in the midst of serious and multiple mental health crises? It was simply damage limitation.

Well, that's my story out anyway :)

I remember that programme, just shows you now different peoples standards of cleanliness are, their flat was covered in dog shit and urine. The young boy didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. I wouldn’t have left a dog in his care.

People always talk about Protecting our Children on here as if it proves social services worth. Yet in the first episode, Tiffany and Mike were clearly loving parents who were gaslit by a very , very annoying and patronising SW. The way they talked down to Mike when asking him to "voluntarily" agree to have his son taken into foster care when Tiffany was in hospital for pre eclampsia was horrific. Their flat was very clearly not filthy either, and neither were they drug/ alcohol users .

I used to work in a mental health team which supported the safeguarding team when needed (this was in the US). Parents would tell us their houses were messy - we would need to dispose of our clothing and shoes after being in there.

That's the same denial of responsibility as you see with criminals caught in the act.

"I wasn't burgling the house, I thought it was my mates house, I got the wrong door" etc. So.... do they usually smash the window of a house their mate lives in and ransack the bedrooms, cupboards and drawers, piling up any laptops and jewellery and pocketing valuables?!

Deny, deny, deny. That's the attitude.

@shopmyfeelings

I know, that's what I thought, and it is something I'm looking into.

It's a complicated situation and there seem to have been multiple instances of procedures not being followed, with evidence to prove it, however, it has been difficult to get these addressed, probably due to lack of resources etc.

But I have no reason to doubt the source of the information and am always wary of blindly accepting things, and so far many things have been confirmed by written evidence.

It's just a bit of a mess really.

I think @BruhWhy has a great point

"It's denial. They latch on to the most minor issue they're given by the SS to improve and ignore the rest."

Advice like not to grab them turns into "SS told me I was a bad parent because I stopped them running into the road". But it is a nuanced profession, and I don't doubt there are overreaching, unpleasant social workers.

This is a very old show, but I found it really interesting to watch. Following families with social worker involvement, think there are 3 full episodes on YouTube. It shows how they try and have oversight, accountability - multi agency involvement etc. I'm not a social worker so I found it interesting learning more about it. It's obviously quite bleak so content warning for anyone particularly sensitive to neglect -

I don't think that information about the guardian can be true, it would never be allowed by the court.

The GAL will be a social worker but they will work for CAFCASS, have a distinct role and duties.

I think I may be in the group your on about some of the parents are just in complete denial and you can just read through what they are saying to gather the truth.
my child was on a CPP due to my mental health after I tried committing suicide and was sectioned reason was emotional abuse At the time I couldn’t see why as I just wasn’t in the right place.
luckily they were only on it for 6 months and I did have a lovely social worker and I accessed the support with a psychologist and CMHT. My dealing a with adult social services have been hit and miss some amazing SW and some truly neglectful ones.
I also do think we were treated better as we are white in our 40s middle class respectful jobs and could articulate ourselves in the core group and conference

Agree that solicitors may not be the answer for lower level cases, but some sort of neutral advocacy or support could reduce the tension in some cases as perhaps SWs don't explain exactly how the processes work and it can be a lot for parents to take in.

I recently discovered that Mackenzie friends now charge for their expertise in many cases which can be prohibitive for low income families.

I also discovered that a SW can also be a child's GAL, which surprises me as it used to be that GALs were independent and there to represent the child only. This suggests a potential conflict of interest.

All good reasons why introducing body cams for SWs is not an unreasonable step.

Didn’t think about that! Sneaky fuckers 🤔

I'm from a traveller background too (bus/squats) and this is the experience of way too many people I know and/or their kids. I see little kids at raves with their parents totally mangled on ketamine etc, parents sharing drugs and alcohol with their young teen kids. An awful lot of neglect, parents leaving their kids with anyone on site so they could go and score, kids living in leaking unheated caravans on sites full of drug addicts. Thankfully my parents were completely responsible (we had a lovely bus and I had a great childhood!) - sorry to hear your experiences.

Despite all this I've never known anyone to have any real social services involvement or be put on a plan unless they were put in prison or long term sectioned. So no I also don't believe a 'messy house' is going to result in SS involvement!

I also noted that she complained about being repeatedly woken up by the sw calling to ask about what her child was learning (the nerve!)

Which strongly implies that she was asleep during normal working hours despite having multiple children with additional needs in her sole care.

@TourmalineGiraffe I think your posts have been the most sensible on here.
No doubt there is lots of denial, or as a poster said unable to recognise the issues, but we if we believe all SW are good who never wrongly accuse or make false statements it makes us feel safe to believe we will never find ourselves in that situation because we're not like them.
I have personally found myself in a terrible situation which ruined my life for a long time because lies were told about me by those in a position of power, not SS related, so I can absolutely believe there are some out there that will abuse their power.

Even with PP saying there is no way a social worker would call someone a bitch.

I mean you would really hope not and I am sure the vast majority would not dream of it, but we do tend to take our own small experiences and disbelieve any thing else.

As if a police officer would ‘arrest’ a young woman and murder her.

As if, a young nurse would murder small babies in her care.

As if serving police officers would share images on WhatsApp, of women brutally killed for a laugh.

As if a president would ever speak about grabbing women by the pussy.

As if a doctor could systematically kill patients in his care for years.
And on and on.

Placing the people in any profession as beyond reproach is dangerous.

I’m also a student social worker, although have worked in social care for many years, and I must have missed the Gaslighting Training course too.

Is it compulsory? I’d hate to fail my degree, I’ll drop my tutor a message and see if I can get on the next training course.

@sashh
I understand the concept of unschooling. I think it's a crock of shit but I also understand not everyone parents the same way!

What I do find disturbing is parents inflicting a very poor education on their children.
Life is way harder for adults who have poor literacy skills and I sadly see this at work. It can have a huge outcome on an individual's potential.

I only know one person who this has happened to. To read her Facebook you would think they had removed them for fun and that she was an amazing mum. The reality is she wouldn’t get rid of an abusive partner, was a drug addict and lived in a mess. They had babies just ‘because’ with no thoughts of how they might adequately house or feed them until afterwards.

This poster is going down the 'unschooling' route which basically means, well to be fair people do it differently, but can be just waiting until the child asks to learn something, so you don't start teaching the child to read yo wait until they ask and then you may teach them or these days you might find an app.

It can be a fantastic way to learn for some children who are curious about everything, it can also be devastating for a child who craves routine.