I am a child protection social worker AMA

[Dipsandcrisps]

Ask away

Hi there - thank you so much for doing this! It's not easy to be the public face of something that some people have so little respect for x

My question is, at what point will a parent with 50/50 shared care be made aware of concerns relating to the other parent? Is it a case of privacy for the parent and so the other will only be informed when they may be required to intervene, or would it be that the children are the ones you are working with and hence the other parent should be informed at all times?

Hope you're enjoying your maternity leave x

My question is -

How long does SS give parents to “turn their lives around” whilst their children are living in foster care, having their education disrupted to attend contact, being constantly let down when parents don’t turn up for contact, living away from their siblings, going from foster home to foster home and reaching the age where they are considered “unadoptable”. Why do children have to suffer so their parents have time to prove they are useless parents?

Shouldn’t there be a limited time frame - say 6 months? Some children within the care system are lingering in foster care for 5 years!! Why shouldn’t children be able to be adopted early on and look forward to being a valued member of a loving family for the rest of their lives? Why are parents given way too much time to prove they will never be “good enough” parents?

@SaltedPeanut Some children within the care system are lingering in foster care for 5 years!!

As I understand it this is often to do with the appeal process as parents can appeal the decision and this can take years to come to a conclusion. Meanwhile the child canot be adopted incase the parent's appeal is successful.

As this is AMA where are you @Dipsandcrisps?

[quote Dipsandcrisps]@JenniferSantoro shall we call it the reporting sandwich? Honestly sometimes I received many a call from teacher at 4.30pm, also I know it’s not much comfort but that call has often led to me not finishing until 7-8pm [/quote]
In my experience social workers are an extremely hardworking and dedicated bunch. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they are often late finishing. It takes a certain kind of person to be that dedicated. I think like many statutory agencies they get a hard press which is largely undeserved. 💐

Good to have you here as I have been always curious about this. So if not too naive, and starting with the absolute basics - what is your main role and what is the purpose? In addition how big is this an issue in today's society and generally from your experience what are the root causes (and trends) and can these issues be eradicated or rectified in the UK? Are we mainly addressing issues owing to bad or abusive parenting, lack of parental responsibility, lack of knowledge, or challenging social economic issues and other non traditional new fluid blended family lifestyles arrangements?

My only experience with those who I am assuming is your potential client base is in the various charity fund raising events in which much city generosity, despite the economic Covid Brexit challenge, is donated to needy causes in the wider community. As a mother and relatively well traveled globally including poor undeveloped regions I cannot begin to understand and appreciate that there is still much diversity closer to home today.

I thank you in advance for your expertise in this and trust you don't misinterpret my curiosity as being too naive nor not setting the right tone on this sensitive but important subject matter. Many of us are clueless but would genuinely like to explore ways in which we may assist rather than wrongly misunderstand the circumstances and complexities involved. As with Covid this year has been an absolute eye opener as anything can happen to anyone as circumstances can easily deteriorate beyond one's control.

@fatgirlslimmer

As this is AMA where are you *@Dipsandcrisps*?

Looking after her child? Having a life? I'm happy to wait for an answer and grateful for her giving any time at all to it.

I have a question I've always wanted to ask a social worker.

What age is too young to allow your child to go to the local shop or park unsupervised?

😒

A friend of mine has been referred to social services by the police, because they were called by a neighbour reporting a disturbance. Her son (he has autism and ADHD) was having a meltdown, which of course involves lots of noise, shouting, banging, throwing things. He often harms himself during a meltdown, but can't remember doing it, so he will say someone else did it to him- his parents, a teacher, school friend- seemingly whoever comes to mind.

She is yet to hear from social services but is understandably really worried. Can you tell me what might happen please? I'd like to be able to reassure her. I really feel for her because she seems to do such a great job with him.

Can an SGO really be enforced when a child is 15/16, wants to return to birth parent who is now remarried, settled and has another child with no SS involvement. Issues leading to SGO were undiagnosed MH issues (now treated) no other risk factors like drugs, alcohol, criminality etc.

@DontWorryBob

A friend of mine has been referred to social services by the police, because they were called by a neighbour reporting a disturbance. Her son (he has autism and ADHD) was having a meltdown, which of course involves lots of noise, shouting, banging, throwing things. He often harms himself during a meltdown, but can't remember doing it, so he will say someone else did it to him- his parents, a teacher, school friend- seemingly whoever comes to mind.

She is yet to hear from social services but is understandably really worried. Can you tell me what might happen please? I'd like to be able to reassure her. I really feel for her because she seems to do such a great job with him.

Hi, I am also a CP social worker. She will be contacted within a few days of the MASH team receiving the referral. It may be that they read the report and decide that it doesn't need assessment or just needs a quick phone call to mum to make sure everything is okay. If it is passed to an assessing SW they will make contact within a few days of getting the referral and arrange a visit to explore what support needs the family may have.

Where do all the social workers go? None of you seem to stay in the job for long. (At least not in a local authority setting). Why is that the case?

Can I ask why there is so much emphasis on keeping children with unfit parents? I witnessed a young child who had been brought in by a SW after school staff (nursery) alerted them he had a burn on his hand. His young mother was a heroin addict and attended and said he'd burnt it on the electric fire that morning, but she hadn't sought medical attention, just sent him into nursery. While in her 'care' in the A&E cubicle, she disappeared for half and hour to score heroin, then returned, clearly high.

This has always bothered me as the poor kid was withdrawn and clearly not happy.

@Suzi888

Where do all the social workers go? None of you seem to stay in the job for long. (At least not in a local authority setting). Why is that the case?

Lots of reasons - lots leave to have families and move into more relaxed jobs with less hours and pressure, lots of SW's move around to different local authorities and private agencies or into education or mental health teams. I've been in my team for 4 years but in my LA for 10 years. It's common to move around teams. A lot just burn out.

@goldenharvest

Can I ask why there is so much emphasis on keeping children with unfit parents? I witnessed a young child who had been brought in by a SW after school staff (nursery) alerted them he had a burn on his hand. His young mother was a heroin addict and attended and said he'd burnt it on the electric fire that morning, but she hadn't sought medical attention, just sent him into nursery. While in her 'care' in the A&E cubicle, she disappeared for half and hour to score heroin, then returned, clearly high.

This has always bothered me as the poor kid was withdrawn and clearly not happy.

Research tells us that if we can keep children (safely) with birth parents then outcomes in later life are often improved. 1/3 of care leavers have been homeless, nearly 40% of 19-24 who have been in care are not in education or employment.. Parents are given every opportunity and as much support as they can/will accept in order to bring about change for their children before we resort to that painful, final removal.

Sorry for hijacking OP. I love Social Work and want questions answered if I can!

@Smeeglz

Can an SGO really be enforced when a child is 15/16, wants to return to birth parent who is now remarried, settled and has another child with no SS involvement. Issues leading to SGO were undiagnosed MH issues (now treated) no other risk factors like drugs, alcohol, criminality etc.

The parent can go to court to have the SGO discharged. This would be the only way for it to formally end, although many teenagers will start "voting with their feet" and that risk needs to be balanced as post 18 many children return to birth parents anyway.

Hi great thread! Hoping someone can answer my question. To keep it short, a domestic incident occurred between DH and I and I called the police. There was a referral made to SS as DC was in bed. Took SS 2 months to assign a SW who came out once for a very informal chat, declared that we clearly didn’t need their support and that she would be closing the case immediately, no assessment or investigation was ever Initiated. My question is do I have to keep relaying this incident which happened 2 years ago to every health care professional who asks about social services involvement? For instance at the hospital the doctor asked about any social services involvement with the family and I had to go into the whole story, she only seemed interested on whether there was a CPP in place. The same for a paed appointment. Also, if I were to get pregnant again and the midwife asks this at the booking appointment do I again have to relay it all?? Even after 2 years I find it difficult to speak about as it was a very painful time in our lives.

TIA

Hi lovely, I'm so surprised it took them 2 months to come out..at my LA we go out within 3 days usually. Glad they closed it down.
If an assessment was never done, no, you don't need to declare. It sounds like you were "MASHed" as we call it, they did a quick check to see if the incident warranted any assessment and decided no. The police report will however be on a file that CSC keep so health professionals may have access to that but I would say don't declare and if you are asked about the report specifically then say "we had 1 visit but no assessment was done so we had no CSC involvement." They'll be able to see we took no further action so will likely not bother asking. However, midwife will always ask about DV so it's up to you what you want to share.

Is it ethical for a social worker to lie and make false accusations about a parent in order to gauge body language reactions during their assessments... accusations that could put a child in jeopardy ? Then deny making the accusation later? What would you do if you had cast iron evidence of the false accusation and later denial? Is it worth reporting? Or is it “standard practise” to gather evidence in this way?

@Sunflower166 thank you so much for responding!! You have really helped ease my anxiety. Thanks again and keep up the great work!

@Bruce123

Is it ethical for a social worker to lie and make false accusations about a parent in order to gauge body language reactions during their assessments... accusations that could put a child in jeopardy ? Then deny making the accusation later? What would you do if you had cast iron evidence of the false accusation and later denial? Is it worth reporting? Or is it “standard practise” to gather evidence in this way?

Hi there - no, completely unethical to lie or make false allegations. I'd need more context to be able to go into more depth..Is it that an allegation was put to the person and you feel they were just saying it to gauge the response? Or was it that the SW had tentative evidence of the concern and was putting it to the person with the view of seeing if it was true?

SW made accusation to both parents “that the children had stated that parent A (who had custody of children) had been violent to parent B”...quickly adding “but neither parent should talk to children about it”. The accusation was false and both parents A and B knew it to be false and confirmed it was false.

To flush out the SW lie, Parent A documented the false accusation in an email asking why the children were being left with a parent (A) when accusations of violence were being made by the children about parent A. Shouldn’t the children be taken away from a parent where violence was alleged? This email copied in SW’s manager.

SW then denied children’s accusation had been made by the children in the written response to parent A with manager copied in. But an audio recording of the meeting exists which could be used with the Email to expose the lie.

Parent A didn’t follow it up with SS at the time through fear of SW retribution and fearing losing custody of the children. A SW who lies clearly can’t be trusted!

But parent A knows that this could be a highly dangerous tactic to try to flush out concerns about truly violent parents. What if parent A had beaten up the children for telling “lies” to the SW- when in fact the SW had made the false accusation of parent A’s violence!

This incident is eating away at Parent A because of the danger of violence which this tactic of “false accusation making” to try and flush out body language/ parental response poses to children in the future. The SW is still practising.

What professional guidelines are there about lying while evidence taking? Is this a minor infraction or a major professional issue worth reporting?

Sorry - I am back!

What consequences - if any - are there if a parent doesn't conform to the CIN plan? There has been a meeting (yeay!!) at which all parties agreed a couple of important referrals for the child. One parent has now withdrawn consent for the referrals to happen. So nothing is happening as a result of that meeting.

Parents are separated.