Social Services - am I naive?

[Autumnwoman]

A FB friend/acquaintance has recently had her children removed by Social Services, pending an X-Ray on a 5-month old baby's rib. She says he was injured by a toy (trying not to be too outing, for her sake).

She seems like a lovely lady - I don't know her well, but she used to do some cleaning at the school where I work. She had a troubled past herself in and out of care, but has always come across to me as trying to make the best for herself and her family. I often see her playing with her children in the park etc.

If she genuinely has had her children removed because of one bruise on a baby (and suspected broken rib), surely this is massively excessive. I understand there are places kids don't often bruise and it can be a cause for concern, but surely removing her children for this is a HUGE step.

Or am I naive, and will there be a massive history, and this is the last straw, as it were? Is this likely to be the tip of an iceberg, or do kids really get removed for one suspicious incident? I want to support her - but want to make sure I'm offering support in good faith.

@RonaldMcDonald that is a fair point. The poor little one isn't confirmed to have such a serious injury yet.

It must be very traumatic. But honestly I've had 3 babies and they have never ever had even a bruise until they were mobile. Even with older toddler siblings occasionally playing too roughly near them. And especially not on the torso, it's more likely they bump their little heads or legs. It's a worrying injury for sure, on the ribs.

The x ray is done before the removal so the pending x ray is bs. X rays come back in a matter of hours surely you have seen casualty.

A close relative of mine done a degree in social work, and by the time she'd finished her degree with the amount of placements she had done she decided she could never work in social work based on the amount of blatent lies she was forced to tell in reports etc making out some parents shouldn't have their children when they were perfectly capable.
I also know of a couple where there was malicious allegations made against the father by his cheating ex to prevent him from seeing the child when he left her. Social work got involved and he had to jump through hoops to be able to see his child even though he had done nothing wrong, low and beyond it turned out the social worker allocated to the case had been a friend of the woman's mother. Full situation was totally corrupt. So no tbh OP I don't think you're necessary being naive. Social workers do some amazing work and I take my hat off to them but many people who have never had any encounter with them take everything they say as biblical when it's often far from the case!

a baby has a broken rib how active do you think 5 month old babies are ? Please don't get sucked into this you barely know her you don't know how it happened or if she is coping with her children support her if you want but please be neutral.

Children ARE removed from parents after a single injury, if there’s suspicion it’s not accidental. Even if there are no other red flags.

I actually know multiple people who have had kids up to the age of about 3 fall down stairs/of highish things and such, and none have resulted in broken bones. I thought this was a bit odd, but if its true that kids bones bend instead of break, this makes perfect sense. I thought it was more that a lot of kids..tend to go a bit floppy when they fall or whatever as they have no fear of falling as such..not like older people.

And I agree it is so hard to read about, it's so upsetting. I'm afraid OP that you simply don't know what happened and I would be neutral with her until she either gets them back or it's clear she's not. How would you feel is you spent a load of your time and emotional energy helping her and looking after her only for it to turn out she had seriously hurt her baby?

I would believe and support your friend. It’s the better outcome.

I had a polish couple as patients, and they had a baby. They adored him, the most doting parents you could imagine. When the baby was 4 months old he had a fractured skull. Parents claimed mum had accidentally banged his head on the bannister when going up stairs, then they said dad did it, then mum did it but dad witnessed etc etc. Baby taken into care and paternal grandma came over from Poland to look after the baby, and neither parents were allowed access.
Finally a year later dad confessed to losing his temper and whacking the baby’s head on the wall. Mum was allowed to move in with grandma and baby. Then suddenly all 4 of them went back to Poland, and I strongly suspect the parents are back together. I fear for that little boy.
You can never ever know what goes on behind closed doors.

I believe you have to see a magistrate to remove a child because the LA take over parental responsibility.

Therefore there must be sufficient evidence to remove the child while they investigate further.

People are capable of many things
SSD do make mistakes however it is unusual imo

Sad

@User3405678 are you saying social workers are taught in their degree to lie on record in order to convince courts that parents are not fit to raise their children?

However it is not the case that SS are infallible and mistakes are never made.

Exactly. Same with courts.

Nobody can know either way.

Theres more to it than shes telling you. The fact that shes been in and out of care herself can be a big red flag. Lots of lovely parents arent capable of keeping children safe and parenting them despite loving them.

OP most parents do their best - even if their best isn't good enough - and so yes you can offer to help her by helping her find the sort of professional help and support she needs, and talk to her about what happened. You don't need to form a view about exactly what happened to do this. If you have a look at "Family Rights Group" online, she might well benefit from advice from them. She really needs a solicitor with relevant expertise. The rights and and wrongs will come out, and at this stage it is appropriate to be helping her do the right things and get the right advice - in summary, you don't need to make up your mind about the merits to help her get the right help.

It is possible that she is telling the truth.

It is possible she isn't.

It is possible that she doesn't always cope and flips her lid and loses her temper too much. And if so even then it is possible that she would be fine with the kids in the future with the right help and support now - she might well have to fight for that, it wouldn't be offered - so again, family rights group and solicitor will help.

Whether SS have it right and get it right will depend on how good the individuals people working on her case are, to a very large extent - their acumen, their good judgement. Some SWs are really good, some are not.

It is often hellish becoming a looked after child, out of the frying pan into the fire, and her baby will be very negatively impacted if the wrong decision has been made, so it is worth helping her get the right advice and help for that reason alone.

The fact that shes been in and out of care herself can be a big red flag dear goodness what a sweeping generalisation. A bit like saying when someone has been abused it can be a red flag.

Abusive parents come from all walks of life and whether a difficult childhood is unresolved trauma in adulthood depends on the individual - you cannot second guess. It isn't the background which matters it is how well the person has dealt with what has happened to them.

Not all 5 month olds are immobile. One of mine could drag (to saw crawl would be an exaggeration) himself all over the place at that age.

In my experience of these things if it seems like there must be more to it, there is.

@User3405678
I have experienced the lies of Social Workers. They even write totally illogical lies. If a lie is spoken it is harder to prove but a written lie is provable.
I have even seen borderline criminal behaviour from Social Workers and children suffering as a result of actions or inactions of Social Workers.
If Social Workers are so educated and well trained they should get it right whatever the situation but that does not seem to be the case. Adults and children are harmed by them but there does not seem to be any repercussions to these Social Workers.

5 month old babies can get bruises. My DS was slightly deficient in one blood factor when he was tiny and he got lots of bruises.

Also if she has other children, I'd say it's pretty easy for a 5mo to get hurt. I remember my brothers having fairly big steel tonka toys. Could easily have hurt a baby.

I know someone whose 3yo tripped over and fell onto the baby who was laying on a playmat.

That said, who knows. If she is only a FB acquaintance, I don't think you can really get involved. You don't really know enough about the situation.

I'm going to agress with PPs that it would have taken some force if the rib is actually broken.

When DS was about the same age, young, stupid and exhausted me left him on the bed while I went to get a nappy from the other side of the room. He rolled off and smashed his head of the radiator and screamed the place down. Didn't even bruise and he hit it hard. Babies are really quite hardy when it comes to accidents. I think there's more going on here

*agree, even. That'll teach me to preview first

I think there must be more to it.
My children have had several injuries over the years for which we have been to doctor/minor injuries/a&e
DS1 has fallen and split his head/chin open about 4 times when younger (he runs up and down in his own little world and falls over stuff), he rolled off the bed when he was about 6 months old, when he was 14 months I popped to the loo and he managed to get into the kitchen and into the recycling and cut his finger tip badly on a tin can. Oh and around the same age he climbed up on the rocking chair in his bedroom to reach something slipped and slammed his mouth into the wood which resulted in tearing his frenulum (the flap between your lip and gum) On Googling the only way to do this is blunt force trauma most likely a punch!!
DS2 has had his head and chin glued a couple of times. He also ended up in hospital with concussions age 2 as we were out in a garden place walking over some stepping stones in a stream, DH slipped and pushed him out the way as other wise he was going to land on him hard and DS banged his head on a wall and had a massive egg.
DD has broken her arm (although at school) but there was a whole week of accidents which I was sure was going to result in social services coming round!!!
Monday - we went to soft play with friends and she slammed into somebody and got a massive black eye
Tuesday - she fell over DS and twisted her ankle
Wednesday - she got stung by a wasp
Thursday - we went to the park with friends and she fell down a grass bank and bent all her fingers back so we took her to minor injuries to make sure not broken. So in she walked, linking with a black eye and bent back fingers!!! The nurse questioned her ALOT about her injuries but nothing else ever came of it.

So really if none of the above resulted in social services taking my children off me (and not even ringing or visiting) then I imagine there is more to the story than just a one off accident of a baby falling on a toy.

@WorrierorWarrior same here. It's utterly diabolical.

@corythatwas

PP have mentioned that injuries to an immobile baby is one of the few instances where SS might remove a baby at once- if you think about it you will see why! Small babies are very vulnerable and an injury as serious as a broken rib could involve enough violence to cause a serious risk to the baby's life. If her story doesn't match up, then they have to wonder if this might not be the case.

Of course this leaves room for mistakes- some babies do have brittle bone disease or Ehlers Danlos syndrome which leaves huge bruises and scars for very little apparent reason. My ds, who is 20, has a large scar on his elbow for an injury that was so slight we can't actually remember what he did to himself and a bald patch on his head where he thinks he scratched an insect bite as a child: the resulting scar means no hair has grown since. Babies have been removed from after getting covered in bruises crawling on a carpet- that's the kind of thing that can happen with EDS. My dd (thankfully now grown up) keeps dislocating her shoulder. We were suspected of child abuse when she was little though thankfully old enough to be interviewed.

But these disorders are rare and violence against children is, sadly, not that rare. If an adult has hurt a tiny baby enough to break their rib then that child may well be in serious danger. If its safety lay in your hands, would you take the risk?

They will have listened to her carefully and hopefully taken all considerations into account.

Very true - EDS (well, what they called it at the time) was a very useful cover for my being regularly battered and recurrent shoulder dislocations from being dragged around.

I'd rather they took the more cautious approach.

@BrieAndChilli I'm so sorry but I did laugh at the wasp sting on top of everything else! Poor DD