CP senior social worker AMA

[HellnoH20]

I’m a Senior social worker currently based in a multi agency adolescent team that covers child protection, child in need, looked after children and assessments. Previously worked in a main duty team. AMA! :)

What’s the hardest part of your job? What’s the best bit? What would make it easier? Do social services tend to intervene too early or too late?

Are you tempted to ditch local authority work and move to private sector foster agencies?

How is recruitment / retention in your area at the moment?

Hardest part - (emotionally) is children coming to the realization that their parents/caregivers are not safe to live with/ convincing parents that their teens need love and support at a time when all they want to do is make them homeless and put them into care when their behaviour is difficult.

Best bit- seeing children stay safely in their families after (usually) intense work has been completed with the family
and also working with all different people- love this part

What would make things easier would be better funding for more resources. More staff and much much less paperwork!

The intervening part is a difficult one to answer, as thresholds are now higher and prevention is key.

I personally wouldn’t move to a foster agency, that line of work is not for me
however it is tempting to move to agency work- I am permanent and others in my team are paid double than me and we do the same job. Although they do not get sick pay, holiday pay or other local authority benefits

Recruitment and retention is difficult in my area, as it is all over the country, but this seems dependant on the team as some of them do not turn over much staff and others are a revolving door

When a child is taken off a plan, how confident are you that the family will be able to maintain progress and not slip back into their old ways once SS have no oversight?

Or is it that you don't move them off the plan until you are confident? If that's the case, how come some children are on plans more than once?

What are the most common issues you deal with?
Do you find most parents work with you?

In my experience they are moved off a plan when change has been sustained for a period of time (depending on what the issues are)

Additionally the point of the plan pulls together the professional network of universal and specialist services, so it usually is that the network continues to help the family maintain their changes and strengths to prevent further concerns arising even when social services are no longer involved.

But this really is dependant on why they were on a plan in the first place.

Children are on CP and CIN plans more than once for many different reasons, and it doesn’t mean that the same concerns are present each time. It is about ‘good enough’ parenting and the home environment being a safe and stable place for the individual child to grow up in.

Children can also be on plans for issues outside of the home, such as exploitation concerns, and often its supporting the family to keep the child safe outside of the home which is a whole different kettle of fish.

Tell us about a couple of recent cases and why the children or young people were welt risk of harm. What did the family do or fail to do to support their child. And what kind of work do you do to help?
Really interested in this are of social work.

How do you unwind?

I would imagine that your job can be emotionally exhausting.

At the moment I deal with child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation, along with edge of care. Exploitation issues are particularly prominent on the are I work in.

This, along with a lot of neglect- which really goes hand in hand with exploitation.

In my previous role (duty) it was mainly domestic abuse and substance misuse.

Most parents do work with me, some don’t but there are ways and means of talking to people and coming to an understanding of why you are involved and being clear on what the work with the family would look like. It’s rare to get absolutely no engagement at all.

I’ve found that a lot of people are frightened of social services and that is why they do not consent at times. It’s good to be able to show parents that you care about how their feeling and show empathy to the situation as they are often in crisis.

Great question! To be honest the car journey home is a great time to reflect and then I tend to not think too much about work when I am at home. I love my job but having some friends who do not work in anything remotely similar helps to remind me that I can switch off and not feel guilty. Also love a large gin on a Friday night

It is emotionally exhausting but I literally couldn’t imagine doing anything else

Without going into too much detail I’ve had one where the young person was abused (sexually exploited) outside of the home, groomed online etc.
The parent did not report it, they did not believe their child, they blamed their child for the abuse. This essentially caused the breakdown of family relationships, the child began engaging in more risky behaviors and the parent gave up.

On the opposite side of things, I have many parents who want to learn and understand how to help their child, the knock on effect is that young person feeling loved and a sense of belonging which is priceless

Interventions include creative direct work with both child and parents, parenting support, family support work, floating support, referrals to other agencies (camhs, drug and alcohol, specialist police teams). A lot of interventions are very simple, listening, building trust and educating parents so they can parent to the best of their abilities

That’s interesting OP. Thanks for replying

Are there things you wish that parents would do when children were younger to prevent them needing the support of teams like yours?

Great question @cuwins

What can a social worker help with for parents who have a disabled child in terms of respite care, help in the school holidays so we can spend time with our other children and myself as a carer.
TIA.

Yes of course, if there were less neglect and abuse issues when children are younger, then yes there would definitely be less need for adolescent support teams.
On the other side though, it’s not just parents. It’s lack of prevention services, poor funding for everything has a knock on effect. We then have teenagers who have experienced adversity in younger years and now are at risk of being exploited/ become homeless etc. or trauma plays out later on with challenging behaviors which parents understandably find hard to deal with.
And then the cycle continues with the same issues when those children become parents

Apologies but I have never worked in a children’s disability team, but from what I know - any respite is dependant on the familys individual circumstances

Respite is rarely used in frontline teams

@HellnoH20 , I’m interested that your authority has a specialist adolescent team. My DD1, who is adopted, is probably on the edge of care, due to ongoing violence (police involvement because of child-on-parent violence), aggression, harming her sister, who is seven, stealing (I can’t have any cash or bank cards in my home), plus threatening her vulnerable, elderly and terminally-ill grandmother, among many other anti-social behaviours.

I reached the end of my rope last Easter and my DD was finally put on a CIN plan; the only help she/we have had is three months of one hour a week support from an Outreach worker. This has now ended as the CIN plan was withdrawn, against my wishes, two months ago. My DD has multiple disabilities, including being registered blind due to her birth mother’s in utero drug misuse.

Our regional adoption support agency has not been taking on referrals for a year.

Honestly, sometimes it genuinely isn’t the ‘fault’ of the parents.

The last line: literally this.

How do/would you approach a situation in which an older child was quite clearly making false allegations (including about social workers themselves once involved)?

Would you always assume a RP is to blame for a child being in some way(s) dysfunctional?

Why is there so little acknowledgment of the damage NRPs can do, or of genetic predisposition to certain personality disorders which may manifest in children/teenagers despite being raised in loving, functional families?

I work as a cse residential carer I often speak to sw and suggest things for the children need more therapy as I see the real side of the trauma they have been through and sw don't always listen.

I’m sorry to hear that you have not had the help you feel your daughter needed on a CIN plan. From what you have written it sounds like your daughter would get more suitable support from a disability team given you are not able to have the much needed adoption support.

I agree with you that it is not always the environment the child is brought up in, nor is the behaviour of a child indicative of just parenting, or any other factor. There is simply no right or wrong answer and I sympathize with your situation. It must be really hard as a mum to go through that and I hope you get the support you need.

what is your professional opinion on Shamema and grooming?
and in your experience are people of different ethnicities treated differently?
such as the case of the woman on the run with the newborn?

It’s hard to answer that question without knowing more, but in general terms the approach would be to try and understand why the child is making false allegations

NRP’s should be considered as part of the family network whether they are in the child’s life or not

no, I would not always assume that a RP is to blame for dysfunctional behaviour, there are many factors to consider as a wider network of professionals and sometimes we will not know the answer. Peoples lives are very complex and it cannot be known for sure exactly why a young person behaves as they do but as you can imagine there may be indicators (health, environmental factors, mental health, and so on)

In my view she was a child that was groomed and trafficked.
Which leads on to your next question that I think it may have been a different outcome for her should she be white. I don’t think she would still be stateless.
I think that ‘risk’ is perceived differently, for if she had been groomed and trafficked within a Neo-Nazi group (and was a white child) she may have been treated differently by the authorities and probably the public perception of her would be different.

The women on the run with the baby is a bit different I think, we (as in the public) do not really know anymore around this case than what’s been told in the media so it’s hard to comment