Family missing with newborn....

[ChocChocYum]

www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/23233264.bolton-m61-appeal-help-finding-missing-family-newborn-baby/

Where are they? How can they go missing? Hope they are ok

Yes, it’s possible that was the case in the case I mentioned, @Simonjt . I’m not claiming to know everything, but just as I’m not assuming that all birth parents are poor innocent victims, I’m also not naive enough to think that SS never make grave errors of judgement - given that the case resulted in a murder, it’s fairly obvious that they do.

I think one of the problems is that reactions do often tend towards a view that if SS have been involved then something very serious indeed must have warranted it and so there’s some hefty judgement even before any facts are known.

But I do think given that we seem to be one of the only countries in Europe pursuing the forced adoption route - that in itself should perhaps be pause for thought.

Her father is Napier Marten. A rather colourful character.

@Itsneveralways not sure I understand this, as another long standing social work manager - if we had serious concerns re substance misuse the first port of call is nearly always hairstrand testing and this gives very accurate results for the past 6 months and certainly in our area can be returned within 4 weeks.

As to this, I agree that baby was either subject to child protection and pre-proceedings with plan of removal at birth. Hopefully baby is returned safely and parents can be supported through the court process. Sadly running is not doing them any favours though of course you can completely understand what motivates someone to do that.

I’ve been shocked at the correlation between parents asking for support/ EHCP/ ASD help or diagnosis suddenly finding that school has made a referral for FII

I’ve worked with women with SS involvement and some of the standards these women were expected to meet, I can guarantee 99% of “normal” parents wouldn’t be able to meet all of the required points these women were meant to. It went way beyond what is necessary imo.

The damage that is done to the mother by removing the child is immense. Yes, I understand that sometimes it is the only option to keep the child safe and of course that must come first. But women who have children removed are then forgotten, the child is safe the mother just has to deal with it on her own. We can judge and say well it’s her own fault. But then she gets pregnant again and it’s back to the same situation.

The issue in a lot of these cases I think is that SS don’t work “with” the parents but against them. SS should be there to support and guide, not just gather evidence of bad parenting. But that would require a lot of investment. SS is at breaking point, as are many other services in the public sector.

Yes - parenting assessments are brutal and like you say these families are expected to meet such high, often unattainable levels that nobody would expect of those not under ss

We had 2 families under the same sw at one point. Both had to have assessments and budgeting was a small part of it . I was horrified when parent 1 had budgeted accordingly but had spent a small amount on herself - this was seen as inappropriate yet the other parent hadn’t as it was said that her lack of self care meant she wasn’t teaching her dc about the need to look after yourself etc ? Totally contradictory

We had another child where they had failure to thrive . Mother was accused of wanting the tube for attention/FII and not accurately recording feed volumes or withholding some. This child was removed. Feeding tube removed . Huge weight loss in foster care and foster carer expressed same concerns as the mother had and the tube was eventually put back. The child wasn’t returned though.

I completely appreciate how in many cases children need to be removed and safe but until you’ve actually worked in this area you won’t understand what happens and mistakes are made regularly the threshold for removal is not as high as the general public believe

The child wasn’t returned though

That is horrendous.

There’s a very short turnaround time for court for care proceedings etc so there just wasn’t time for the mother to fight. SS also didn’t want to cause further trauma as the child was settled in the placement

Children are only removed as a last resort. Mistakes are made with children removed unnecessarily but they are rare, rarer than the number of children left with parents too long.

My friend is the head of childrens social work for my county, she has 2 women who have had 17 children removed between them, both drug addicted, alcoholics, and earn money from the oldest profession. Alas, they have tried everything to persuade both women (who know each other) to stop getting pregnant, residential rehab, then access to the non adopted children, even a promise of a new council flat each on condition of long term contraception - all failed, one is pregnant currently.

So sad all around, it's a vicious cycle for the women and their damaged children didn't ask to be born.

Well, that is the generally held view @gogohmm , I’m just not sure. I’m not saying you are definitely wrong but I have heard enough by now to have grave misgivings about it.

I mean, we accept mistakes are made the other way - that children are not removed when in fact they should be - so why is it so difficult to accept errors happen in the other direction, too?

In the cases I’ve worked on it’s been seen as a ‘preventative measure’ not a ‘last resort’

For FII investigations are done without parental involvement as ‘it may put the child at risk if the parent is aware’ so they take the children early then complete investigations but in nearly all cases it goes against the parents despite evidence.

Good Lord. She’s from from very wealthy stock indeed. What on earth attracted this man to her, I wonder? Terribly sad case. Seems like she has been off the radar of family and friends for quite some time. Suggests some rather nefarious influences in her life.

It’s the same with ‘risk of future emotional harm’ - they don’t need to prove any past harm and they don’t need to specify what form they believe any future harm will take.

I think this is most likely. Social services plan to take the baby.

Prior to the role supporting parents that I’ve mentioned in regards to FII/risk of future emotional harm I worked with DV victims. I’m a lot of those cases children were left too long in dangerous home environments. One case we had to constantly intervene and support as contact visits were allowed between the child and father and it was ridiculous.

I thought that there must have been evidence that she had perhaps given birth in the car.

Poor girl, poor baby. I hope they're found safe and well.

For clarity Social Services do not ‘take’ anyone’s children. The police and the courts are the only ones with that power, and it has to be evidenced that the children are at risk.

If services were concerned that the child was at risk to the point they were issuing care proceedings then running is not going to help their case, nor is not getting medical attention for your baby.

Social services often pressure parents to sign a section 20 or they use police protection powers to remove children immediately

@Itsneveralways you are speaking quite a few falsehoods on this thread.

social workers cannot “use police protection”, they don’t have the powers only police do.

the threshold for police protection is very stringent in that there must be evidence of immediate and significant harm at the point in which the police view the child. They cannot use these powers on a whim.

I read that the broken down car was on fire and the motorway was closed for a while.

I presume the police knew she'd given birth because of motorway cctv (am presuming that's a thing) as they refer to the "baby being swaddled" so there must be some visual evidence of the baby.

They seem to have abandoned the car and not waited for help which probably triggered alarm bells and an investigation of who they are. It's very concerning I agree. SS involvement seems the most probable reason.

I know @Dhama but it isn’t as if SS play no part - they are the ones who provide the evidence to the courts. And I’m sure in a lot of cases it is justified, but is no one else wondering how cases of CP are dealt with in Europe?

Well how do you think the police know where to go - social services get in touch with them so yes indirectly they do use this

her father is Napier Marten. It’s all very bizarre.