My sons social worker.

[271726a]

So due to DS who is 16 violence and aggressive/controlling behaviour. I had to kick him out of my house. My younger 3 children have been badly effected by him and so have I. Social services do agree its domestic violence. At the moment we are at the start of Social services where they are doing assessments. Ds is at his sisters house at present.

The social worker who's doing the assessment is very unapproachable, she does not listen. Or really understand the situation. She talks over you and does not let people finsh what they are saying , there for shes not actually gettimg the full situation. My son, my adult daughter, both Said the same. Because of this we asked for her mangers information. We know we have a right to this without being over questioned about it. Anyway she asked me why and I just said I think there has been some mis communication and our situation is not being fully understood. She became very defensive and started making threats to speak to her manager before I do as I'm clearly making things difficult. So I still did not gey the mangers information. By the point I myself had asked 5 times, via email , message and verbally . Both my son and daughter had done the same. In the end my daughter said we will get it another way then.

Anyway I did manage to speak to her manager in the end . I told her that all 3 of us don't feel listend to or understood. I told her how the social worker made me feel intimidated in my own home . To the point I told her if she carries on she will have to leave my house. Which I have never had to do and I don't like the fact I felt that way. I said she's only half listening to things which means she's only getting half the story.

I told the manger If I ask a question. Or an idea, request etc she just starts ranting , it does not work that way bla bla, without no actual explaining or exploring, I can't understand unless she explains it. Instead she's just ranting.

I also told her as much as I don't mind her touching base with my younger children. Ie contact the schools, and talk to them. Buy she's not going to take over our lives and start giving me lists of what we most do etc.

So went through everything with the manger she apologised, and we ended up on the same page . And she's going to speak to the social worker.

But also the manger said this social worker is just doing the assessment. She said its likely my son will go on child in need plan. Then we will be given a new longer term social worker. Which will take a couple of weeks or so. So I'm thinking we should just keep her at arms length and then the new social worker will probably get to know us and the situation better.

Oh just a thought. Could the social worker not being getting half of what we say /nkt fully understand because she's typing as we talk?

Hes never seen his father.

You have to do what's right for you and your younger children. If he is better with his sister then he should stay where he is until he is 18.

He can't stay there . Daughter social worker has said that . Short term only

Ok I get thry don't give a shit about me. But what about my younger kids that are witnessing it.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? They are your DS SW, not your other DC SW. Once they establish you're not a neglectful/abusive parent, that's their responsibility towards your other DC ended (at least in their minds).

Also the social worker kept saying he will have to live with other family members. She was very firm

She was also lying.

Neither you nor DD has to house him. Not in these circumstances.

We just need to wait for the next social worker don't we. And keep our fingers crossed that we get a good one

You HAVE to think of your younger children. And of course ss will tell you he is difficult to place and that you have parental responsibility. You aren't negating either of those things but nothing has changed for either of you has it? He hasn't done the DV course yet and I imagine is still a big brooding pot of resentment. Have you had a chat with him about what happened yet?

I have the utmost respect for SS but at the end of the day they will want to chip away at you until you have him home. And then how long before he does it again?

You must stay strong!

Why are your son and daughter emailing the social worker?

Who is the actual parent who should be taking control of the situation and stepping up and being an actual parent.

My son is 16, my daughter is mid 20s . My son is staying with my daughter short term . The social worker gave them her details. It is totally fine that they contact her . My son has a right to contact her.

Op this thread will be very unhelpful for you. I haven’t read it all but already you have been given information which isn’t correct and is in some cases more damaging than having no information at all.
My advice to you is to seek independent advocacy to understand the system you are working in and understand what is being asked of you. Contact the manager again and ask for a referral for this for both you and all your dc.

As an aside @bellac11 typing on a laptop during a visit or assessment session is rubbish practice and is absolutely not acceptable in these circumstances. It is not family led or inclusive. This shouldn’t even be happening in more formal meetings such as an icpc and I’d be challenging this if I saw it.

Typed contemporaneous notes are often requested in court/other processes and its not sufficient to have scrappy handwritten, unreadable, jargony/coded notes that only the worker can understand, much better to have them typed while in the actual setting.

@bellac11 funnily enough I’ve managed to do CP work for 25 years without needing to type up notes while speaking to families. Surely you engage in conversation with the family member, take brief notes and then fully transcribe them when you leave. Being a touch typist isn’t the point (I am too), it’s about building a relationship which you can’t do while tapping away on a laptop. Assessment is something you do with the family, not to them and contemporaneous notes don’t mean they need to be typed up while they sit there.

Imagine someone asking you about the most challenging, traumatic experiences in your life while the other sat typing up every word you said. I doubt very much you’d be inclined to share fully, I also doubt very much you’d feel you had their full attention, that they were communicating care, empathy or respect - all of which are central to good social work practice.

I have a lot of professional involvement due to my DCs additional support needs, if one of them turned up to do an assessment with a laptop they’d be given the choice of putting it away or sending someone who could make their assessment without being attached to a computer screen. I wouldn’t be engaging with someone so poorly trained or lacking in experience that they couldn’t remember the salient points of a discussion to type up their notes away from our meeting.

Surely if the sw was typing she can't be 100% listening to what I'm saying . One of the things that showed me this was I had said . I would like my son home as he's my son and he should be at home, but he can't because of how he is. She firmly told me I never said this to her. Apprently I only said the 1st part. Which I 100% know I did not. Otherwise I would not have been fighting for the section 20. That would make no sense what so ever.

Shes also getting mixed up with who's said what.

Imagine someone asking you about the most challenging, traumatic experiences in your life while the other sat typing up every word you said. I doubt very much you’d be inclined to share fully, I also doubt very much you’d feel you had their full attention, that they were communicating care, empathy or respect - all of which are central to good social work practice

On a side note, imagine doing this but no one ever takes notes. I have had 4 years of CINs with no notes taken. Do when something goes wrong, there's nothing to back either side up.

Anyway, I agree with you.

It's possible your right. I don't take anything as fact anyway. Sometimes it's helpful when others understand where I'm coming from. I definitely would not take any risk with advice though.

I don't know whether your social worker has heard of or mentioned non violent resistance but it could be worth investigating. https://nonviolentresistance.org.uk/

This is not right for us. At least I don't think . My understanding is its basically about picking your battles . My son will actually become aggressive because he thinks someone looked at him. That is a real example . Or if I say no to take away. So there are not actually so called reasons for him to do what he does . I know the social worker want him to do a domestic violence course aimed at young people.

Is that likely seeing as the 16 yr old is currently living with his older sister?

Op the point I was trying to make was that people on here do not understand the system and do not understand your circumstances. They do not have your best interests in mind because they do not know you. It is unhelpful to you because you may get mixed messages and advice and people picking apart your life or parenting which may be hard to read when you are already experiencing difficulties.
I understand the need to reach out and have done so myself at times and I have always regretted it.

I wish you well op and I send positivity into the universe for you and your family.

It’s important that both parties agree - in the moment - about what has been discussed. So once the discussion has taken place, time should be spent recording the notes which both parties contribute to.
Do you honestly expect someone who may have to do 3 or 4 complex visits in a morning to accurately remember the details of each visit, travel back to base and record it all perfectly?

Just read the original thread

You said: "He's always ringing social services out of hours . He did it last week because I told him that since he gets 15.00 a week . Plus I pay 18 a month for his phone. And all the other bits he gets in between that he should be helping me out a bit . He threw a massive tantrum. And called social services."

Why are you asking your child to pay your bills out of the £60 he gets a month (what is he getting this for?)? Why has your son not been in school for two years?

Is he jealous of his younger siblings, perhaps if they have a father in their lives whilst he does not? Has he had a fairly unstable home life so far? It seems that way.

This is also quite shocking from the original thread: "Adult dd can be a bit iffy. She's been a victim of DV herself. And she will cover for him at times. Especially if it's linked to my 12 year old. As she seems to hate her. But has no reason for it. My adult son has noticed this to. So although she's helpful there's cons to it as well."

There's a lot of dysfunction going on here.

What are you on about he gets 15.00 a Weem. Plus i pay 18.00 a month for his phone /data plan. Plus he gets stuff on between. For example if he was going to the cinema, or a day out. A meal out etc ... he does not pay my bills whete did you get that from?

I think possibly he could find it hard that his father is not around. That's no excuse to be violent though.

Right how are your commitments helpful.

@Soontobe60 yes I absolutely do expect a highly skilled social worker to do that. It’s part of the job. Making brief notes of pertinent points on paper is fine. Leaving the visit and spending a few minutes in the car making notes is fine. Typing on a laptop during a conversation is not. Any social worker worth their salt is able to conduct a visits make some notes, assess as they go and record this later on. I have done the job for many many years and have trained and observed many social workers and I have not seen a single one use a laptop to record a conversation word for word during a visit. This is across multiple LA.

Yes, you are a victim of domestic abuse by your son, but he is still a child and clearly has many mental health issues that it seems he's been left to rot with.

The family dynamics seem very odd. Is his older sister encouraging his abuse of your younger daughter? Are the social workers aware of her dislike of an actual child?

Your clearly either not reading properly or not understanding. Or choosing to twist what's being said . I'm not sure which.