AIBU to keep reporting my sister over concerns for her children?

My cousin is a social worker but in a different country I often ask her questions about her job just out of curiosity really. Last time she mentioned the most serious cases referred usually come in from schools and are always treated as urgent. Talk to the children’s school about your concerns.

Well yes.. if one of them dies or is seriously harmed, then yes. But the reports would all be there for the investigation to see that received and ignored

I'd be sending it to the head of Social Services and the Council member who has the portfolio for Social Services and my MP. Redacted of names in the first instance if I felt that was necessary.

Nonsense talk isn’t it

Who are the relevant authorities!?

You won’t necessarily know whether something is being done or not though especially if you are reporting anonymously. If there are that many police call outs over fights etc they will have a picture building

just keep reporting with actual evidence if you have it

Please keep fighting for those children.

I might up the pressure to a written complaint pointing out that you have a list of how many times she has been reported to social services and what for and that if one of her children is seriously harmed or heavens forbid dies, you will be releasing that information to the relevant authorities.

LADO is for allegations against professionals

Those poor kids - good for you.

My advice would be:

1. Evidence. ANY videos/photos/calls/texts/voicemails that specifically refer to your sisters drinking/fighting/neglect, are evidence. Compile everything you can.
2. School. Contact the school and ask for a confidential meeting or call with the head. Lay out your concerns and actions to date and ask what they can do to support you. Do they have concerns? Have they got someone in school who could talk to the children and ask them how things are at home? Have they ever considered reporting? Empasise the confidentiality.
3. Some sort of diary. This will be tricky but between your bother and cousins, are you able to pull together a couple of weeks worth of a diary? EG: Monday: Sister bought 2 x bottles of wine. Baby dropped at neighbours. DC dropped with another neighbour. Tuesday: Sister at bar. Got into fight (see photo attached) and so on?

Even though it must be so frustrating, don't give up. You might be the person that saves these kids from a lifetime or damage and maybe even sets your sister on a better path. Thank God for people like you.

Cases like this make my heart ache for the poor children. Report, report and keep on reporting OP! Have you considered approaching the MP for her area to get them to give CSS a kick into action? And I am surprised the police are not being proactive too? How long before one of those kiddies has an accident because of her neglect? Some people do not deserve to have children 😡

You are definitely right to keep reporting. Do you know that nothing is happening though? I appreciate the DC are still with her, but removing them is always a last resort. Could she be having visits from CSC and the DC be on a protection plan and you not be aware of it? I would hope that is the case.

Keep reporting, it builds a picture and evidence. Unfortunately people can make malicious reports and this stops genuine reports from the public, especially anonymous ones, from being seen as concrete evidence. The more that come through, particularly if they include names and are from different people, the better. It would be best if the person who is telling you she is drunk when caring for her children or leaving them in unsafe places calls the police themselves at the time so there can be a professionals report which can be used as evidence.

True. You may not see the involvement. Are you expecting the children to be removed immediately? That's really unlikely. If there is a child protection plan for example you wouldn't necessarily know that?

Tell them you want to stay anonymous but please speak to them directly in your own name and share what you know. Anonymous referrals are very difficult to act on. People often say they are malicious and without being able to get more information, guage the motivation/honesty/plausibility of the referrer by speaking to them we often have no option but to accept what the parent is saying especially where there is no corroborating evidence. That doesn't sound like the case here if the police have been involved. Have you googled children's services in the area? What's the Ofsted rating? Any special measures? Some areas are really not doing well and if she's living somewhere like that you might have to make a bit of noise to get them to respond - raise a complaint if they don't act on your concerns.

Please keep reporting to the police or anyone. .

Could they live with a family member?

These are exactly the type of situations when children end up being abused by people.

I agree with PP’s reporting anonymously via Crime Stoppers is not the way to go about this, nor really is you reporting second hand information. It needs to be people who have actually witnessed the behaviour reporting it to child / family SW team and not anonymously, if SW get such an anonymous report they will waste time trying to establish if it is a real or a malicious report ( you would be surprised at how many malicious reports they get) they should seek corroboration by checking to see if there have been other concerns reported about this family.
By someone giving their name and reporting what they have witnessed much time could be saved.
Reports from schools or other professionals will be given more weight and they have a direct system to report concerns that the general public don’t have access to.
Why is your family reporting to you instead of taking action themselves do they want to try and help these children or not?
Sad to say children’s SW are met with such a wall of need that things have to be pretty bad before a case will meet the threshold for SW involvement, so even if they investigate nothing may happen. She may be offered advice or parenting classes or group work but would she actually bother to engage?

I was in exactly this situation with my sister. Awful as your sisters parenting sounds, what has emerged since about my sisters care of her children is actually too bad for me to write. I reported and reported. The children were removed then returned, again and again. The damage is lifelong and continues to affect their children, but I do know that I did everything I could. Please use your name, it really doesn’t matter what she thinks of you. Those children are suffering serious harm and at risk of worse.And don’t just phone, send emails so your actual allegations are recorded in their files, otherwise they record it as malicious or too vague or whatever.
Be very clear, include video evidence if you have it. I’m so glad you have made a better life for yourself.💐

Are you certain nothing is being done, you won't get feedback as an anonymous referrer, there could be professional involvement but she may not be telling you and not sharing your details with professionals. All police referrals will be sent to school, health and social care. Also if police are attending they can use their powers to remove children so they must believe it's safe enough?

However if it is the case that no one is intervening, keep sending referrals. You can share your name and they won't share it with her if you stress you want to remain anonymous.

I wish people wouldn't give such wrong advice. NSPCC just pass concerns on to social services via the means of confusing forms - just report to social services please! And the LADO is nothing to do with reporting concerns about children.

God. It’s one of those stories you read about where SS and the police could and should have acted before a tragedy took place but didn’t then we point to lots of failures, slap some wrists and move on.

I hope nothing dreadful happens here but it’s shocking to me with a baby and toddler she must have HV involvement, she’s also been reported to SS numerous times and keeps getting arrested to boot but nobody takes the children away.

She must be very good at putting on a front if managed to pull wool of multiple social workers; the police and schools

Carry on reporting and definitely contact the school

has anyone said you should not report?

OP you are doing the right thing. Keep reporting until something changes. I know a mother whose children were taken away and it was the reason she needed to completely turn her life around

Report it but don't report anonymously. Social services need to be able to contact you to get all the details. They won't tell your sister who called them as they aren't allowed to but the authorities having your details allows them to treat this as a serious concern and follow up with you.
So sorry for you having to do this. You are doing the correct thing. Priority has to be for those children.

You can also contact the health visitor.

Hopefully she will run out of the enablers looking after her children, or hit rock bottom in some way and have to get help before these children are damaged any further. Sad, but unfortunately this is what normally has to happen
SS all over there world are so stretched on resources and can be slow to action.