Hi Queen
I once had an erroneous report made against me (I wouldn't say malicious because I think it came from a good, if misguided place), I have a daughter with ASD and the report actually led me to hook up with an excellent social worker and MAT and TAF and really finally got the the help I needed for my DD. Everyone I worked with during the process was exemplary and I made some really strong relationships with the professionals during the process. I was deemed 'An excellent mother who works exceptionally well with all agencies and who takes extraordinary steps to ensure the wellbeing and best course of action for her daughter' by the ed psych I worked with. All was going well, DD was permanently excluded from school at the age of six (before diagnosis), and with the help of the professionals I worked with, was a pupil at a PRU for a year with gradual integration back into mainstream, where she's now doing brilliantly with an EHCP and full-time TA.
However, whilst she was at the PRU she had a bad day and lashed out against her teacher (who she loved very much), obvious three day exclusion and reintegration interview, during which, as is her way she became very defensive and when her teacher challenged her about her physical attack on him, retorted with, 'Well my Dad hits me really hard all the time' (this is simply not true but I knew it would be reported as a safeguarding issue in such a setting).
As I was expecting, I received a call the next day from a CP SW I hadn't dealt with before, asking me to come in for a chat. Which I did. And was immediately treated as though I was a child-abusing criminal.
She asked me about the allegations, and I told her I'd been expecting a call due to the conversation and gave her a brief precis of the situation, the professionals I'd worked with and DDs current situation. But she was having NONE of it, I was told my word meant nothing, that children are listened to and that my husband and I were to attend for another interview the next day. Also that my children were currently being visited by CP SW at school, pulled out of their lessons and interviewed.
The children told me that night that people had come to speak to them, but I asked them nothing about what had occcured during the conversations as I didn't want to be seen to be predjudicing them in any way.
At the meeting the next day with me and my husband it was explicitly stated that my, my husband's and my DC's accounts all tallied and there was no case to answer, however my husband and I were asked to sign an agreement that we would not physically punish our children, which I refused to do,
A) Because I saw that as a tacit admission of guilt that something had happened, which would remain on file.
B) Because even though I (or my husband) resolutely do not use physical punishment it's not illegal.
C) In the past I have at times had to use a pressure-point grip on DDs wrist to make her stop doing something injurious to herself or others, so have had to use physical intervention to prevent serious consequences.
At which point this particular SW 'lost her shit' at me (to use the venacular), she threatened me with the police, as an allegation had been made, with a report to her superior for a Child Protection Plan, she kept referring to my husband as 'him'.
I stayed calm, held my ground, thanked her for her time but told her I would not be signing anything and if she wished to take it any further, she was welcome. As we left the room she SHOUTED 'Goodbye then' and slammed the fucking door!
Now, even as a sharp elbowed middle-class woman I was shaken by the experience and I do wonder how those who are perceived to be lower in the pecking order are treated and if there is a level of authorative coersion rather than actual assistance occurring sometimes.
Sorry for the essay, it was a profoundly affecting experience for me that made me seriously consider how difficult it must be to navigate the whole area of CP, both as a parent who sometimes lacks the skills to do so and a professional who is also sometimes lacking.
Not sure what my question is really.
Do you have any thoughts on my experience and how interactions could be improved, in circumstances where people may not be;
A) On a level communicatively
B) Distrustful of each other.
?