My sister has been hurting her son

I don't really want to get into a discussion about taxes here. I see your point but realistically campaigning for that is not going to help my nephew in this current situation, and he is my priority.

I do not curse all social workers, I am certain there are excellent ones out there who truly want to do a good job. I don't believe we have met one of those yet. And, sadly, when they get it wrong it leads to children being injured or worse so, yes, I will curse them every time they get it wrong. Initially, the social worker advised us to send my nephew back with my sister and partner as "best case scenario they would not do it again and worst case scenario we could gather more evidence of the abuse". You don't need a crystal ball to see how nonsensical that is - allowing him to be frightened and injured further. She didn't see why that was categorically never going to be something we allowed.
Since then, I'm yet to see her demonstrate any real competence so, yes, I curse her.

If my sister can prove that setting up a camera before taunting, yelling, swearing, pinching, shoving, hair pulling, shaking or slapping a preschool aged child is simply misunderstood discipline then I will be shocked. If she can explain away the things he told us her partner did during bath time as "not knowing how to handle an autistic child" I will be shocked. If they can give a reasonable explanation as to why my 5 year old nephew believes if a door closes then he will never get out until he is "sorry" or why he believes car boots are where naughty children go, I will be shocked.

I expect social services to take this case seriously. I don't think I'm unreasonable in that expectation. I expect my sister and her partner to receive punishment, not free nail appointments or cappuccinos. I expect the priority of everyone involved to be my nephew and his wellbeing.

I am not naive. Nothing about what social services do shocks me anymore. Oddly they never push back all that hard when we say no to their nonsensical requests, almost as though the things they ask of us are not actually acceptable.

My nephew will not be returned to his mother because we will not allow it.

In our area in the uk the parents get a solicitor, an advocate, any help from charities who provide them with rehab, therapies, personal assistants etc. The child's social worker is also responsible for ensuring parents have access to medical help again eg for drugs or mental health during assessments.
After court proceedings of child doesn't return home parents still retain contact with child's social worker. And our sgo team provide them with a dedicated worker, mental health support in form of counselling over the phone and free legal advice. Also pays for them to do parenting and other such courses despite the fact that they no longer parent the child. Lots of charities fall for the sob stories about how desperate they are to see their child and how we have stopped it. We didn't they stopped turning up. Probably 5 x a year I'm emailed or phoned by someone acting on their behalf saying how they want to see their son. I say yes if child agrees and ask then to send letters to start things off and they never do. Then a new support worker tries again etc etc.
When my child needs physical therapy or play therapy because of what they did to him I pay privately or join the nhs queue. No support for the victim just the abusers.

We tried complaining. We tried speaking to her supervisor. It's all logged but certainly has made it difficult to trust her judgement and advice.

In our area in the uk the parents get a solicitor, an advocate, any help from charities who provide them with rehab, therapies, personal assistants etc. The child's social worker is also responsible for ensuring parents have access to medical help again eg for drugs or mental health during assessments.
After court proceedings of child doesn't return home parents still retain contact with child's social worker. And our sgo team provide them with a dedicated worker, mental health support in form of counselling over the phone and free legal advice. Also pays for them to do parenting and other such courses despite the fact that they no longer parent the child. Lots of charities fall for the sob stories about how desperate they are to see their child and how we have stopped it. We didn't they stopped turning up. Probably 5 x a year I'm emailed or phoned by someone acting on their behalf saying how they want to see their son. I say yes if child agrees and ask then to send letters to start things off and they never do. Then a new support worker tries again etc etc.
When my child needs physical therapy or play therapy because of what they did to him I pay privately or join the nhs queue. No support for the victim just the abusers.

i am really confused. is this in the UK? how does she have a social worker? you have to be really very mentally unwell or significantly disabled. does the little man not have an allocated social worker as a consequence of the abuse? much more needs to be done to support your nephew and you parents.

Charities keen to jump in and help them prove they changed in the 6 weeks they work with them

Yes, this is something I have found baffling. My sister was able to access to 5 or 6 different support groups/therapies etc almost immediately. Yet everything for my nephew, we have had to seek out, pay for and evaluate ourselves. It feels totally the wrong way around.

She has a social worker and an advocate (I forget the job title) who are purely there to be on her side, it seems. There are no sides, from my perspective, as that makes this sound like a petty playground kerfuffle. But my nephew has not been assigned anyone to be "on his side" other than my parents who have no formal training in this area.

Yeah we are foster carers. I fostered a 7yo that graphically described how her dad had been sexually abusing her and also allowing his friends too. She was so brave. Re told it to social workers and then again for the police. Case built against the dad and he was convicted but during the 9months we waited for court dad was allowed 3 x hourly visits per week fully supervised by social services. He regularly guilted her upset her, whispered about changing her story when he thought he couldn't be overheard. Problem is my child isn't adopted we have an SGO. This means bio parents retain parental responsibility. Whenever someone has PR they are generally legally allowed info about and or access to the child. There is so much support for the parents that have had their kids legally taken its insane. They have their own social workers, support workers. Charities keen to jump in and help them prove they changed in the 6 weeks they work with them. I get absolutely zero support for the child. He's only entitled to what other kids queue up for on the nhs. No fast tracked therapies etc. Yet his mum has had multiple rounds of private therapies to.cope with her 'loss'. As soon as support workers change or pull away we don't hear from her again untill someone encourages her. It's shit.

Thank you for those insights. I appreciate you taking the time.

My parents are incredible. Stronger than I would have imagined. My mum is learning everything there is to learn about trauma and about autism. My dad is working every hour under the sun to ensure they are financially strong enough. My fear is that they will burn out.

My sister has been offered some visitation, as I understand it, but often doesn't turn up and when she does she leaves shortly after. She is furious that her partner has been cut out entirely by social services.

What agency does this person work for? The coffees, lunches, and especially the nail appointment seem very odd to me. Admittedly I don't know much about how the child protection system works, legally or from a social work perspective, in the UK (I'm in the US), but that level of personal, as opposed to professional involvement, seems really strange to me.

Well, apologies. It was meant to give you a shake and say you’re doing what you can now but that there’s no point being guilty because you didn’t know so it’s pointless and not helping anyone. Clearly didn’t work.

Yeah we are foster carers. I fostered a 7yo that graphically described how her dad had been sexually abusing her and also allowing his friends too. She was so brave. Re told it to social workers and then again for the police. Case built against the dad and he was convicted but during the 9months we waited for court dad was allowed 3 x hourly visits per week fully supervised by social services. He regularly guilted her upset her, whispered about changing her story when he thought he couldn't be overheard. Problem is my child isn't adopted we have an SGO. This means bio parents retain parental responsibility. Whenever someone has PR they are generally legally allowed info about and or access to the child. There is so much support for the parents that have had their kids legally taken its insane. They have their own social workers, support workers. Charities keen to jump in and help them prove they changed in the 6 weeks they work with them. I get absolutely zero support for the child. He's only entitled to what other kids queue up for on the nhs. No fast tracked therapies etc. Yet his mum has had multiple rounds of private therapies to.cope with her 'loss'. As soon as support workers change or pull away we don't hear from her again untill someone encourages her. It's shit.