People who work in safeguarding children

[masshmama]

I work with children and families in a very deprived area. I feel that I have insight into a different world that a huge percentage of the population doesn't know exists.

The insane and awful things I see are normal to me now, I feel almost desensitised, it's a constant battle to maintain good enough expectations of parenting.

I feel these people are 'hidden' almost. No money, no voice. Poor mental health, no voice. Lack of education, no voice. Even simple things like, they don't have a smart phone so they don't have easy access to the internet or social media in a world where everyone else does.

If you work with these families, maybe in social care, community children's health, teaching, you will know what I mean.

I feel like we will never be able to break the cycle, it's all just too ingrained through generations and generations and our interventions will never be enough.

I hate it.
I hate the money thrown at it in terms of programmes and buzzwords and meetings which ultimately suit the middle classes not the people who aren’t getting it right.
I think that the underclass of recent generations had more respect. Community, work ethic even if dirt poor. We’ve gone back hundreds of years to the drug addled, gin drinking,don’t give a shit school of parenting. Mostly because the gap between rich and poor is too vast again.

I think we will look back on this period of insisting that it’s better for children to stay with their birth parents, and we will wonder what on Earth we were thinking.

So hard to break the cycle. But is care always better? Siblings split up, foster home to foster home to childrens home. For some thats the reality. FEal profesionals are stuck between a rock an a hard place.
Lack of funding for support. You read the history of the abusing/neglecting parents and you think no wonder they are how they are. (Not always obviously.)

The sad truth is that children will always fall through the crack.

The aim is to minimise that as much as possible, but having a whole sector that is responsible for the wellbeing and welfare or children, that is underpaid,overworked and understaffed doesn't offer the best foundation.

All you can do is to accept that you can't save them all ,but always try your best, especially if you are in a position to make a difference.

There’s a tipping point though isn’t there?

I work in mental health. I’ve worked on surestart projects (largest council estate in Europe) and I haven’t come across the families you describe.

I do believe you, it worries me that things are worse than I thought.

I think a lot of the problem is modelling. If you don't know what something looks like or how it feels, you can't recreate it. Agencies can try to make up for this by using techniques that hopefully prompt change in behaviour, but it's not the same as lived experience and it's hard to make a real turnaround consistently, day in day out, when the overall situation eg poverty, social isolation etc, hasn't improved. I mean, even when people know on an intellectual level and can take in the theory of how to act, it's hard in practice in the actual moment itself.

Parents spend 18 intensive years teaching their children how to live. They spend the rest of their lives supporting them in that in varying degrees of intensity. It's impossible to replicate that with weekly or even daily meetings especially when starting from a net negative position.

Having said that, there are successes. It's not all hopeless. And even one person out and doing well - just think of all the different people whose lives they will touch, the family they'll have who go on to do the same, the massive massive benefit there is for everyone from just that one person being able to live the life they should. It's not nothing, not even remotely, and I'm sure you've had more than one success.

It is hard though. But what you are doing is important.

Watching the TV police programmes they often say it,s the same few families that take up the majority of their time.

Yes I agree with everything you've all said.

@DrinkVeneer absolutely. I think we often feel that a 45 min visit every week or so is enough, when that's less than an hour in their 24, it's nothing. But absolutely, the successes certainly are there and we're making a difference to some people.

@Daffodil101 I think we are probably just a few miles away from each other.

I worked with a young mum years ago with her first child, I worked SO hard with her and she made really good progress, it felt like a good outcome and I was really proud of her. She's now back under my service, 9 years on and 2 kids later and in a position 10x worse than when we first met. I'm going back in doing all the same stuff I did first time around. I can't help but think 'what's the point in all of this!?'

Obviously, there is a point. I suppose this is a very negative sounding post, I actually love my job and the families I work with. It just hit me yesterday the overwhelming feeling of it all.

The thing is though, as you say yourself, you see the failures who end up coming back to you, but there are also successes. I had a horrendous upbringing. Had my first child at 18, was with a very abusive man and it’s no exaggeration to say he very nearly killed me. I ended up in a refuge so SS were involved. We had some difficult years. I’m probably the sort of person you’d work with. But over time I got a job, I then did an access course and went on to uni (the first in my family to do so). Got a well paid job. My DC are fully grown up now, happy and stable. I appreciated the help I got.

You have to remember you can’t help or change everyone. I’ve worked with vulnerable people in a different setting and so I do understand that it gets you down when you see people making the same mistakes. But the key is to hold on to the fact that you do make a difference to some and that’s enough.

I work in mental health. I’ve worked on surestart projects (largest council estate in Europe) and I haven’t come across the families you describe.

I think the families that need them most, are sadly the families that don't use them.

I grew up an immigrant on an estate, on fsm as my parents had health problems...but my DM signed us up for every programme and initiative going...free drama lessons at the local private school...off you go, half term youth group off we went,...anyways DBro and I are both graduates, and my DC are growing up in the 'posh' bit of town.

So thanks from us, some families do really appreciate you and benefit

Mashmama, are you in Wales?

So nice to hear about your successes, and that is the reason I do it.

No @Daffodil101, NW England

Ah so am I, but the estate was in Wales

I'm proud to say I provide that voice for children who need to have their views heard. I'm not a social worker or family support worker but those people are amazing and do an incredible job.

I find it really hard when I'm laid in bed at night sometimes.

I am a foster parent, I hope I am helping to break the cycle. I grew up with a mentally very unwell mother who was abusive, I went into foster care and it wasn't fun, Now I foster because I want to do it well and I believe I do but the system lets us down too but that's another story.

I agree with @daffodil101, I work in mental health and despair at the 'condition ' of many 16 year olds I see with self harm . It almost feels too late to help, the majority of these children have experienced neglect, abuse and exposure to unimaginable experiences. Parented by the earlier generation exposed to the same deprivation. I firmly believe that the numbers of people diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder is a direct consequence of society being determined to try to keep children with their birth family. I know it's controversial but I can't help but feel that our policies are just perpetuating the cycle.

I work in DV, and it can be very difficult to see the effects on the children.
I do love my job, and it’s wonderful being part of helping someone resettle and recover after being in an abusive relationship.
In a small number of cases though I’ve felt like the kids have just been along for the ride in what is the adults very dysfunctional life. But then you have sympathy for what they must have gone through as a child.
It can be very hard emotionally. I can see how some workers can develop compassion fatigue, how after 17 years I haven’t I don’t know.

I do not work with families like this but until recently I lived in a very poor area and tbh I was shocked by what I saw sometimes. It’s hard to say where “struggling” ends and just plain neglect or abuse starts. Some of the worst effects I have seen on a child was from a home where the mother was abused by her boyfriend and although she claimed the children were safe and didn’t know it was clear to everyone who knew her that most of their problems came from the environment they were in.
But really there didn’t seem to be anything that anyone could really do to help. I have no idea the solution to that!

I've been in safeguarding in Early Years first for twenty years, also NW England . In that time, in our LA, the threshold has risen so much. When I phone something in now I pretty much get told it doesn't meet the threshold every time.

There just aren't the resources any more.

I'm now seeing the children of my first set of children.

There are specific things that stop me sleeping at night but my general worries are about poverty of aspiration, many of the kids I work with don't even leave our small town to visit local places.

Redwillow, Same here, I am now seeing the grown up children of the first women I supported, come in for their own support with with children of their own. It’s a shock when it first happens.

Yes, I agree with everything you're all saying.

It feels like what we're doing is like a drop in the ocean. Nowhere near enough.