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Social Services

36 replies

Missy89 · 08/08/2018 22:51

Hi Mumsnet,

Just looking for some guideance and advice really, and whatever help anyone can give will be much appreciated honestly!

This all happened friday night, my little girl was taken away from me by both police and social services. I had attened a meeting the day before with the social worker and helalth visitor to discuss the allegations that had been made against us when a neighbour from across the road reported us (we know this as the SW told us).
So thursday i attended an appointment with my DD and mother-in-law anf met up with the SW and HV. SW explained what had been reported to them which included me not being seen with my child (which is totally wrong because we are pretty much glued to eachothers hip), my partner drinks and smokes heavily which is also wrong as he hasnt touched a drop of since before our DD was born, he has been accused of videoing 5 year olds in underwear and shoes running around on the car park outside (which is false aswel as there not being a 5 year old living anywhere near us) and the list of allegations continues (can post full list if it helps), was also told by HV that i have missed appointments and check ups for my DD, she had apparently sent them in the post and also hand delivered but i have never recieved one. They measured and weighed her while i was there and told me nothing other than she was okay. I am also pregnant and have missed antenatal appointments due to being scared about meeting up with health professionals as i was poorly treated during my first pregnancy and felt like they was no help for me nor the baby.
I was told by my SW she was going back to speak with her colleauges, and nothimg if anything would be done for 72 hours as it was over the weekend.
Anyway onto whay happened friday... Was like any other day at home through the morning playing with my DD, just a normal day, ordered a chinese around and settling in to watch a movie with DD and partner.. next thing i know someone is banging on the front door. Go upstairs to speak to whoever it is a the door, for them to tell me its the police (CID) and they just want to 'talk', i ask them what for and they just repeat themselves. Anyway come downstairs speak to my partner, he goes out to speak to them, they dont tell him any of there names, dont show any badges and become quite aggresive towards him. They ask to come into the property to which my partner doesnt refuse just requests that they wait until either his mom comes up or until a support worker arrives. They agree and wait outside for about 5 mins. Im in the house with DD and im petrified they are going to take my little girl away as they have turned up out of nowhere, so i hop the fence and sit in at next door neighbours until we know whats happening (she has had SS out before so understands where i was coming from)
Anyway.. everything kicks off outside, officers hop the fence and force entry into the house to look around, we did have a number of dogs plus small puppies which were all up for sale, all of which worshipped the ground my little girl walked on and were no danger to anyone let alone my LO. The house was a little cluttered as we are in the process of getting ready to move into a bigger place as we have another baby on the way. Police storm through, assaulting my partner who has a big cut on his foot, scrapes and bruises all over him aswel as winding the dogs up, causing a right fuss which causes all the neighbours to start coming out to stare (so embarassing). This goes on for well over an hour, i come out of the neighbours house with my LO to be told she is being taken into police protective custody although they originally were letting her go to her grandmothers. DD ends up being taken away by a SW (not the one i seen orginally) who takes her to the hospital for a check up (for no reason, without my consent) and calls me later on thag night to tell me my daughter is underweight (although was told by HV on thursday she was fine). She gets placed with a foster family who we know absolutely 0 about, we requested to the EDT SW team that she has specific food and nappies as they are what she is used to, along with explaining her daily routine which we dont want her messed up in as we worked hard to get her into one. As we understood she would be taken for 72hours under police protection then released to home or atleast family as the foster family was only short term basis. We were also told we needed to sort solicitors over the weekend which we did although they told us zilch.
We were called by our assigned SW on monday at 12.15pm who tells us we need to be in court for 1pm and the court itself was atleast 1 hour away so my partner got ready straight away and made his way over, i was told by solicitors to stay at home as i didnt need the stress with being so heavily pregnant. Partner waited in court for over 4 hours to be seen by a judge at around 5pm who put into place a 'Care Interim Order' which noone did lf has still to this point explained what it is or what it means/what is happening now. We have been given supervised visits at a visitation centre were we are supervised by either out SW or someone they know.

Both me and my partner have ransacked the house, cleaned, painted, polished, hoovered, bleached, you name it we have done it and the house is 10000000x better than how it looked when police came out, SW has even said it is one of the best houses she has been in. The pups that we had for sale have been given up to a puppy charity for free who will rehome them and our other dogs are due to be collected by a breed specific charity to rehome the as this is what SS want us to do.
We have jumped everytime they have asked, we have done everything they have asked of us and they still wont give us our DD back. We went for a visit with her today (first time since friday) and she is a totally different little girl. She is a shell of the little girl we have bought up, she wont look, cuddle or kiss either one of us, she kneels down and just puts her head to the floor, she just isnt the little girl we had before. We were told we were allowed to take her snacks aslong as they were 'healthy' so we did for the SW to tell us not to give her more than one small bag of multigrain biscuits although she was asking for more asif she was starving.

If anyone can please help it will be muchly appreciated, i NEED my little girl back before they ruin her life!!!!!

Tia

OP posts:
greathat · 09/08/2018 12:28

How many dogs were in the house and are they related to the cleaning you had to do? If There's a lot of animal faeces around that would be pretty serious

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 09/08/2018 12:36

Why did you climb over the fence?? Did you think they’d just go away when they discovered you weren’t at home?

Hopeandeggs · 09/08/2018 12:43

I'm sorry if my post seems harsh by the way. I could come on here and tell you all the horror stories I know about social services and the mistakes they make but I don't think it would do any good.

Families often struggle to accept they have been struggling and instead of being open and engaging or accepting help they feel like the victims of the big social services monster. They often reach out to other families who are in the same situation or who have had children taken who feel the same way.

This leads to them hating social services, feeling entirely wrong and not engaging.

Yes social services make mistakes, yes they can be a nightmare but being a set of parents who've realised that things maybe weren't as they were, have openly accepted that and are doing everything they can to engage are more likely to have SS return a child to.

Sunnybeachbabe · 09/08/2018 12:59

Sorry you're going through this, it sounds like a nightmare.
Well done for making a start by rehoming your pets and cleaning the house. As pp said, SS won't give your dd back because of a single step in the right direction, they will want to see a sustained effort to turn things around. These are the things I'd recommend:
1.Get to know your sw, listen, be polite, be honest and show him/her how suggestions and comments are being taken on board (yes I realise this is the last thing you feel like doing but think of your children and fake it till you make it)

  1. Get yourself and your dp on a parenting course and attend every session (even if you think you don't need it)
  2. Be honest with yourselves, do either of you need to attend drugs or alcohol counselling?
  3. Keep the house and garden clean, safe and tidy. Show that the children have somewhere appropriate to come back to.
  4. Show you have a good support network, ask friends and relatives to give you honest feedback and support where you need it.
  5. Get a noticeboard and pins or a big calendar up in the kitchen. Keep a record of every appointment and show up to each one five minutes early, clean and smartly dressed.

It'll take a while if hard work but you clearly live your dd and unborn child, put in the things the ss want to see and you can get them back. Good luck Thanks

Jammin3 · 09/08/2018 12:59

Having had experiences with SW, I couldn't have got them to take my sister out of my parents house even though she was clearly being neglected by them, the house was a shithole and they still didn't take her. They just don't swoop like that.

The thing isn't you haven't actually said on what grounds they took your daughter away. You're missing out details here. WHY did they take your child away?

You hopped a fence while pregnant but you couldn't attend court?

i was told by solicitors to stay at home as i didnt need the stress with being so heavily pregnant
And how stressed do you think your child is?

The fact you had to do a huge clean paint and polish job on your house strikes me that your house too was also deemed unsuitable for your child and you knew it. You haven't attended antenatal appointments was a flag - suggesting you weren't considering your babies health.

Tawdrylocalbrouhaha · 09/08/2018 13:11

It is not possible to know from your OP what the real concerns of SS are here, or what is likely to happen next. Hopefully your SW and lawyers will be able to update you today.

Do you mind me asking whether you or your DP have learning difficulties? I only ask because he asked for his DM or support worker to be present before allowing police inside, so I am wondering if this could be part of the issue?

WellThisIsShit · 09/08/2018 15:43

Ok, so, my post is a bit long, so please stay with me!

It starts a bit hard, and gets kinder, I promise. So... the hard news first...

You have to go to everything, and listen really, really hard to what they say.

Not just what you want to hear, and not just the little random details they throw in, or random stuff that happens. Listen with your ears and brain for the really BIG reasons they think your child is not safe or cared for when she’s with you.

And then you listen to what you have to do to fix it. Not what you want to do to fix it, but what they want you to do. Because that’s what you need to do, and quickly.

So, listen out for what, and when. It’s no good doing things if it’s already too late.

Sounds like you made a really good start with the dogs, and it sounds like you did that quickly, so that’s good too, so well done for that.

But although you did that all quickly, ss will be watching and waiting because they need to know you can keep it up longer term. So they can’t act quickly back to you... they have to wait and see. And you have to keep on proving it for a while yet.

Your post doesn’t really focus on the big reasons why they took your dd. I’m not sure if that’s because you don’t want to write it down here, which is fair enough, or you are still pretending to yourself that there isn’t a reason / they didn’t tell you a reason, and that’s the attitude which will get slap bang in the way of you getting your child back.

Because if you’re busy pretending you don’t know why, and shouting out to everyone how unfair it is, you can’t work on the reasons and prove you’ve made the changes necessary to meet their objectives... to get your daughter back.

I’m sorry but that’s the way it is. You have to face it, and start proving you’re a good parent who can change things if ss think things need changing. You need to prove you can put your child first and make a safe, risk free family environment for her.

It probably feels bloody awful, but just keep thinking about your daughter and do whatever you need to do.

If you genuinely are confused, you need to get a lawyer involved and listen very carefully to what they are saying.

The chaos is probably one of the reasons, and there’s certainly something not usual happening where you can escape over a fence whilst heavily pregnant yet not turn up to court. Think about what message that gives people... it’s not a good impression and there’s no excuse that makes it ok.

Alright that’s all the straight talking I’m going to do. You’ve probably had a bucket full of straight talking and it’s pretty awful to be having to go through this, and also having to admit you’ve done some stuff wrong, and you need to improve some of the way you are living and the way you are parenting.

It’s horrible having people judging you Sad

But, in order to get through this, you have to listen to the right people. This is super super super important. You’ll have other people trying to give you advice... and some of it will sound much easier to take than the stuff I’ve written here. Some of it will sound really attractive and seductive... trash talking social services and telling you all sorts of conspiracy theories and tall tales.

Do not listen to people who tell you how evil social services are and it’s all an evil plot and you don’t have to listen to them etc etc etc. Those people sound very attractive at times like this but they dont help you get your little one back.

They just want another chance to rant about how evil social workers are... they will promise a lot but they don’t deliver.

I’ve seen it over and over again on here and other websites.

The poor families end up so much worse than they were before, and they are so busy fighting ss and calling them names, they don’t realise that they are missing all their chances to get their children back until its too late.

Please be smart, and take the route that feels harder, but ultimately gets your baby back to you, and that’s by proving you are a good mum and you can make a good home and a good family life for your daughter. Flowers

Sunnybeachbabe · 09/08/2018 17:03

Excellent reply, please listen to @WellThisIsShit 's advice op!

NewUserNameTime · 11/08/2018 13:14

Great post by shit

Slartybartfast · 11/08/2018 13:20

go with Shit's post op.

user1457017537 · 11/08/2018 13:20

Op you are not coming back are you

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