Tory imbecile on Radio 4 just now - social workers must recognise danger of fleeting relationships ?

[peridito]

Who was it ? Only caught snippets but think content going to be very distressing for lone parents .

Who was it ? Only caught snippets but think content going to be very distressing for lone parents .

You only caught snippets but jumped to the concludion that he is a tory (he probably is) and an imbecile (he isn't) and you started a thread about it.

TimTeleporter Maybe in the past but with having to have a degree and having had a childhood that left you with long lasting trauma I think very few actually get through the process now.
I know a couple of SWs personally and although they both qualified later in life, they both were horrified at the case studies they came across whilst i had first hand experience of the abuse and could spot it immediately

@KirstenBlest

Who was it ? Only caught snippets but think content going to be very distressing for lone parents .

You only caught snippets but jumped to the concludion that he is a tory (he probably is) and an imbecile (he isn't) and you started a thread about it.

Yup .Truly shocking isn't it ?

I read Dominic Lawson's article this morning and thought it was very sensible and in some cases pretty obvious.

What struck me was the fact that class and income are less of a factor than someone not being biologically related to the kids.

Makes sense - Arthur's mum was privately educated wasn't she?

And a middle class friend (one of the most sensible women I knew) divorced a couple of years ago and immediately jumped into a new relationship and was talking about having another baby etc before her divorce papers had even come through. It was a rollercoaster on/off relationship and she was just obsessed with that, could only talk about that all the time. And when they were 'off' she was going on dates with random men from OLD.

I was just flabbergasted by her selfishness. Yes, of course she has the right to live her life etc etc but also she had small children whose lives were being torn apart by their parents' divorce (plus other traumatic stuff going on at the time) and instead of focusing on them and being there for them she was suddenly acting like a hormonal teenager.

I thought, if it can happen to my sensible friend (who, in fairness, has never actually neglected her kids or been a bad parent to them) then I can only imagine what single parents who are less responsible bring into their kids' lives.

I started seeing a man while my DC were under a Child in Need plan. I told their SW straight away before I'd introduced him to the DC. They said they would do a background check. Time passed and we went to Child protection conference. No issues were raised about DBF and the DC were kept on the Child in Need plan (i.e there was no safeguarding issues). DC met DBF and all was ok. A year after I'd met DBF I found out they actually hadn't done the background checks.

So despite SWs being aware of the danger of a new boyfriend it does get missed. And this is due to the massive case loads. SW can never fully stop tragic things happening to DC (the responsibility for that lies firmly with the perpetrators) but they'd have a better chance with proper funding and a manageable caseload.

Let’s hope the inquiry will provide some answers and help to improve the way things are done.
If it’s true that visits were vastly scaled back because of the pandemic I think that is absolutely scandalous on an organisational level.

Oh there's blame shunted all over atm..the poem about teachers listening to childrens stories about monsters is doing the rounds and literally blames teachers for the deaths of all these poor children murdered by parents/ step parents/carers (including baby Peter who actually wasn't at school as he was a baby).

I get the sentiments and there does need to be an overhaul but the people to blame are the vile individuals who committed such atrocities!!

We don't know the full ins and outs of what the social workers saw/logged etc.. we have the words of family saying they rang but we can't know the records. There will be a full investigation and until that happens we can only blame those that took the life of a defenceless child.

A parent's new partner is one of the biggest new risks a child will face and you can see from reactions here, it's very difficult to say it. That does need to change.

What makes you think social workers are actually taught about this risk during their degree?

Don't see what's wrong about that? Sadly there are those (who introduce their children to a 'partner' they've known for a very short time, rather than taking it slowly and carefully. Surely you can't deny it OP?

My ex's sister was a social worker but she didn't alert me to him being abusive and violent and had a thing for women with a history of eating disorders despite being seriously overweight himself

@Snookie00

But it’s true. Children are considerably more at risk from a step parent than a biological parent. I’m a single parent with a new partner living with us so I’m not single parent bashing but it’s one of the biggest risk factors for children. Pretending it isn’t because you don’t want to accept reality is daft.

Agreed.

@BungleandGeorge

Let’s hope the inquiry will provide some answers and help to improve the way things are done. If it’s true that visits were vastly scaled back because of the pandemic I think that is absolutely scandalous on an organisational level.

This visit wasn't scaled back, though, because they went. And the police went as well.

TFrom my understanding Arthur was happy with his mum. She might have been unstable and an alcoholic but Arthur I don’t think was physically harmed by her. I think for all her issues she loved her Ds
It might not have been the perfect set up but it was probably like a lot of households, rich or poor, single parent or married couple. Let us not forget even the most middle class parents can have alcohol and drug problems
It was only when he went to live with his father and his partner did the abuse start.

The was a need for sadistic control. Why keep someone around that you don’t like other than to be your personal physical and verbal punch bag

Saying he couldn’t return to his grandparents because it was what he wanted and they didn’t want him to win shows a nastiness. I think it was almost a game to them and they didn’t want to stop the game and Tustin’s own children were probably grateful it wasn’t them
I think also that because he was never injury free enough to be returned. Taking him back to his grandparents might have saved Arthur’s life but the grandparents would have evidence of abuse and would have reported it.
Although it seems they did and it wasn’t followed up

Why did the hairdresser and her partner not tell anyone. If you describe a child as gaunt and broken and are witness to horrific taunting then why not report it to the police.
This isn’t just SS who are to blame. People watched as this child was abused and did nothing.

@Snookie00 and how about adoptive parents?

Just how exactly are social workers meant to stop their cases from having 'fleeting' or any other kind of relationships one wonders? Because in lots of my more chaotic families im hard pressed to even get in to see the families in the first place, much less build a relationship with them wherein I could say ' your man looks a bit dodgy there maybe knock it on the head' and they'd just say ' yeah good advice, you're right'
I'm hard pressed to help them feed their own kids and look after them and themselves adequately and oddly enough the people I work with are often resistant enough to that, never mind me telling them what they should do with their love life.

‘Single mums feel the need to move in with others for financial reasons.‘

Do they?

I didn’t, I had my own job, my own money and I was doing brilliantly by myself, I met my late dh and introduced him very slowly to my then 8 and 11 year old. We lived separately for years before we moved in together. In fact the girls asked him if he could move in as they got on so well.

I’m a widow now and a single parent now. Even if I did meet someone else I am able to survive financially without a man and he would not be moving in,

Hate the oh single mums are desperate for sex and money so they’ll move anyone in ffs. We’re not all like that

Dh was a fantastic, kind and gentle man who treated my kids with love and compassion, more of a dad than their own useless father,

A new man wouldn’t go close

@Kennykenkencat

TimTeleporter Maybe in the past but with having to have a degree and having had a childhood that left you with long lasting trauma I think very few actually get through the process now. I know a couple of SWs personally and although they both qualified later in life, they both were horrified at the case studies they came across whilst i had first hand experience of the abuse and could spot it immediately

Plenty of social workers with lived experience get through the process now. Many who do the social work degree and get a loan to fund the training. Their lived experience from a wide variety of backgrounds is welcomed and valued.

[quote DemBonesDemBones]@Snookie00 and how about adoptive parents?[/quote]
What about them? They don’t carry as much risk as a step parent apparently. Possibly because they’ve both been pre-vetted and had to jump through numerous SW hoops already to prove their commitment to parenting rather than inheriting dc as a byproduct of being in a sexual relationship with their parent.

As I say I’m not a woman hating right wing Tory and have introduced a step-father into my kids lives but I can also acknowledge that it’s one of the most dangerous things I can do for them. On balance it was the right thing to do but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t come with risk just because I’m loved up.

Fleeting relationships? Why did I think of Boris Johnson?

I don't pretend to have any easy answers, but acknowledge that there seems more danger than from long-term stable relationships.

The gist of it is this:

The other reason for denial is the so-called 'non-judgmental' modern outlook that has refused to recognise the extent to which marital break-ups and the proliferation of transient sexual relationships have been, in aggregate, a devastating danger to the welfare of so many children.

Parental separation is easier than ever: but the consequences of broken homes are no less difficult to mend.

Though it is necessary, in this bleak context, to note that children are much more at risk in homes with transitory so-called step-parents than in those with a mother living alone with her own children.

In the recent tragic cases, the news reports referred to 'step-mother' when they were not married, and were fairly new partners of the biological parent. Legally, a partner of a biological parent isn't the child's step-parent

Another PoS sentenced today for killing a 3 year old: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-59730120

As I posted on the other thread, you can ask for his sentence to be reviewed: www.gov.uk/ask-crown-court-sentence-review

It isn't about lone parents. Its about childrenn at risk from step-parents.