Child protection social worker- ask me anything!

[NynaeveSedai]

With the recent rash of social worker related posts recently which have been FULL of frankly bollocks I thought I would offer to answer any questions.

Disclaimer - different local authorities do things slightly differently though national standards should be followed, and I'm in England so can't talk about the rest of the uk

Hi, I was wondering how long is appropriate for a child to stay on a cpp for emotional harm when there is no improvement in the situation? Would it qualify (If that's the right word!) for a TAC? The harm has been established & the ex partner is uncooperative with the sw? Where can SS go from there? It looks like intergenerational abuse from an outsiders pov.

I'm due to start an NHS placement working with children alongside my higher education course and need an enhanced DBS check - would the child protection plan show up on this ? Thanks

I'm really not sure. Try contacting the LADO for your local authority to ask?

Hi, I was wondering how long is appropriate for a child to stay on a cpp for emotional harm when there is no improvement in the situation? Would it qualify (If that's the right word!) for a TAC? The harm has been established & the ex partner is uncooperative with the sw? Where can SS go from there?

The only place we can go is court. It wouldn't go to a TAC as that's for low risk families.

OP thanks for this thread very interesting.

What criteria are you assessed against when year end when having your appraisal?

The reason I ask is that you occasionally here talk on here of “targets” to eg remove nice white babies for adoption, so this might help dispel these myths.

The only place we can go is court. It wouldn't go to a TAC as that's for low risk families.
Thanks for your reply. I understand that it is already in the court system but apparently the child has been quite damaged & they don't know what to do going forward - worries about running away etc. Just wondering if there's some sort of protection/intervention if the child is left in a place of harm - seems a complete contradiction to me.

Thank you for this thread OP. I was wondering how often you feel scared at work?

What do you think about parents putting photos/videos of their children all over social media?

Fabricated or induced illness, do you see it as a real thing? I used to work in a related area (not professional) and this was suspected by the professionals on several occasions, but not often directly recorded (I suspect in case the parents requested their notes and kicked off).

Are you aware of those 'secret' Facebook accounts set up to slag you off, and do you have a 'spy in camp' (we did).

How did you get/get into your job?

How likely would it be for a child to be removed from the home because he or she had become violent and abusive to their siblings and mother? Obviously this would be a last resort but what work would be done with the family before this stage was reached? Thank you.

ihatethearchers not the OP but I had several cases of fabricated illness on my case load during my five years front line CP, one came with a diagnosis established which made it straight forward. The others didn't and it was very difficult and time consuming for all the professionals involved to build a reasonably robust case.

What criteria are you assessed against when year end when having your appraisal?

The reason I ask is that you occasionally here talk on here of “targets” to eg remove nice white babies for adoption, so this might help dispel these myths

Good question. We don't have year end appraisals, we have PDPs which are reviewed yearly. In most cases they look at progression, training etc but if a person was struggling in an area they would look at developmental needs.

In terms of targets, we as teams are continuously assessed as to whether we are meeting them. The targets are mostly about timescales; child protection visits, child
Protection conferences, health checks etc. We get 'reminded' if we are out of date but the responsibility lies with the management line really.

We have targets for care proceedings from the date of issuing to get them completed within 26 weeks. If we fail to do that the local authority can be fined.

I don't know what adoption targets there are as I don't work in that area, but there are no targets for removing children. It costs £1000s just to issue care proceedings, foster placements are £££, there would be no benefit to the local authority in removing children needlessly.

Just wondering if there's some sort of protection/intervention if the child is left in a place of harm - seems a complete contradiction to me.

The protection is via courts. A care order can be granted, and if an older child keeps running back to family we can get recovery orders and the police can serve harbouring notices on family if they don't return them.

I was wondering how often you feel scared at work?

Not that often; but with some families we only see parents at the office, or in pairs, or with the police. It can be intimidating if someone really loses it - more often it's a teenager than a parent and they can be quite unpredictable.

What do you think about parents putting photos/videos of their children all over social media?

As a social worker that's none of my business unless it is causing the child harm.

Fabricated or induced illness, do you see it as a real thing?

I'm sure it's real, but very rare. Much more common is parents seeking mental health or developmental diagnoses for their children for trauma or neglect related behaviour. That's of a piece but more I think from a defended/guilt position and being unable to take responsibility for causing harm to their children.

Are you aware of those 'secret' Facebook accounts set up to slag you off, and do you have a 'spy in camp' (we did)

Yes, no. Can't waste energy on things like that!

How did you get/get into your job?

I had friends who were social workers, applied for unqualified jobs and was successful

secret Facebook accounts also for better and worse OP, service users are usually pretty direct at telling social workers what they think of them so it's not likely to contain many surprises.

Regarding parental drug use I have to agree that it's not always worthy of ss involvement. For example I only found out in my early 20s that both of my parents regularly smoked weed.

I never saw it or any of the paraphernalia, they both held down full time jobs, they divorced when I was 10 but both kept their houses reasonably clean and tidy, I always had clean clothes, never went hungry etc and generally a very lovely childhood.

Another family I know however have never touched drugs of any description but the youngest of three siblings was taken into foster care at 14 because her father didn't want to know and her mother couldn't cope with her.

From an outsiders perspective it was absolutely the right desicion and should have been done far earlier (daughter in foster care agrees with me)

High functioning drug use is probably as common as high functioning alcohol abuse to be honest. (By which I mean getting out of control drunk and being hungover the next day).

If parents keep a lid on it so it doesn't affect the children then it's not our business. It's important to know that social services aren't the parenting police and it's not our job to comment on questionable parenting unless it is clearly causing harm (and significant harm) to the children.

As my law lecturer said 'the law allows parents to harm their children. What it doesn't allow is significant harm'

The definition of significant harm changes over time with our understanding of child development, and to a certain extent with societal trends. But the important thing to note is that we aren't there to judge or tell off parents for mildly shitty parenting (we are all capable of and guilty of that sometimes)

Would parents teaching their children criminal activity is acceptable (say stealing or whatever) count as significant harm. Like if there was a family who had a longstanding habit of thieving across generations and they passed on this habit and justified it to their kids? It’s harmful in that it doesn’t really prepare the kids to be law abiding members of society but would it be “significant” harm?

If 'teaching' means actively involving them in stealing and criminal activity, then yes. If it means engaging in criminal activity with children in the home then probably not.

OP:

"Fabricated or induced illness, do you see it as a real thing?

I'm sure it's real, but very rare. Much more common is parents seeking mental health or developmental diagnoses for their children for trauma or neglect related behaviour. That's of a piece but more I think from a defended/guilt position and being unable to take responsibility for causing harm to their children."

Really?
I am very very shocked that you see it that way. Just about days it all!

Perhaps I wasn't clear.
I don't see FII often. What I do see is parents with children who have been through many assessments, or whose parents have tried to get them assessed for various 'diagnosable' conditions when what the child is demonstrating is the effect of trauma or neglect. This is similar in impact as FII but it is less about meeting the parents emotional needs and more about diverting responsibility for the child's behaviour.

That's not to say that children don't have developmental disorders or disabilities, obviously.