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?

Op you need to be a broken record. He will not be coming back into your home. He will kill your younger daughter one day. You will’ not allow that to happen.

he will not be coming back to your home.

over and over.

That's what i don't understand why don't they give a fuck about protecting my other children.

Id respectfully suggest it’s not that they don’t care about your younger children, they may literally have nowhere to put him. Places for older teenagers are very hard to find, places for teenagers with complex needs, behavioural issues even more so. Residential homes can say no, foster carers can say no on the basis that they can’t meet his needs. They can also accept him and then find they can’t meet his needs and give notice of the placement ending. Foster carers tend towards younger children, because residential homes aren’t great for primary aged kids, but that means fewer foster placements for older kids.

I’ve seen teenagers placed 2/300 miles away from home because it’s the only place available, which makes any kind of contact or restoration work very tricky and means the young person is in a strange place with little support. That’s why so many still young teenagers end up in hostel accommodation - there’s nowhere else to put them.

I know you’re between a rock and a hard place, and yes social workers can gate keep resources, but there’s a dearth of places - they can’t magic up a safe place for him. It would be worth asking what they usually do for accommodations for 16 year old who need it. I’ll bet they avoid answering because they simply don’t know.

@Ds16dv with all due respect I told you about section 20's only being used for short term on your other thread and you Disagreed with me.

You need proper legal advice and support not google. I mean this kindly but it's all your futures that are at risk.

@Jellycatspyjamas (I know you from the other board), so, genuinely, where can pre-16s go if they cannot stay at home?

I don't (have ) to agree with you . There's no reason I can't look into or explore things . I have done more than Google. I just showed the pictures via Google just as a quick thing.

It’s very difficult. Sometimes a placement will become available in a residential home (and sometimes the assessment process is timed for places we know will likely be available in x weeks time). Sometimes it’ll be supported accommodation with a third sector agency (very expensive), sometimes it’ll be scrabbling to see if kinship care is possible. But the assessment will look at every other option before agreeing to place them, because there’s often nowhere for them to go.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/housing_options/young_people_and_care_leavers_housing_rights/social_services_duty_to_accommodate_children_in_need

Starting to see how the disagreements are happening...

@Ds16dv so sorry to hijack your thread but it sounds like we are pretty much in a similar place. @Jellycatspyjamas my DD1 has been on a CIN plan in 2022 (ended against my wishes by the LA but it was rubbish anyway as it only amounted to one hour of intervention per week), she is nearly 16 and she is violent and aggressive / among all the other addictive and antisocial behaviours. Honestly, I would prefer to parent her at arm’s length, please, what are my legal options?

I feel like they need to properly explore things with us. And explain clearly without over talking us and just repeating no no no without explaining anything. If they just scream no no no, I can't learn from it or explore.

If he's going to be in the family home there's going to have to be lots of changes.

The manger was saying about calling the police on him. Which i would do even if they take 6hrs . So that there at least a record of it. Anyway she was saying about how he could end up with a record it could effect his future so he really needs to think about things etc. To be blunt my son could not give a toss about a criminalrecord/report . He's just not in that mindset. He's barely thinking about tomorrow.

I don't know the answer to this, but as a teacher I've dealt with a situation of a 16yo being "thrown out"- obviously I can't go into detail but there was no violence involved. I've also been involved in a different situation with a 17yo where the parent they lived with became homeless.

In both cases, we were looking at the children involved effectively sofa surfing, and having no secure housing, and we were told by SS they basically couldn't help. They suggested things like young people involved staying with friends or family members- possibly establishing a private fostering type arrangement.

The other option was for the children to go into adult style temporary accommodation, which in one case really would not have been appropriate.

It felt very much like it was being left to us as a school to try and find a solution, which wasn't great, but I do believe them that locally they have nothing to really offer teens who can't live at home anymore (or who don't have a home full stop!).

@Ds16dv I understand the duties and powers, but if the local authority don’t have any placements available, and can’t source one from another local authority or the third sector they can’t place him somewhere. They’ll end up putting him in a supported hostel, which is really not suitable for vulnerable teenagers.

Placements for teens can be very expensive because of the needed staffing levels, and the skills and experience needed in that staff team along with various supports and therapies. To give an idea, one local authority I know of calculated that if they had given the most complex families they worked with a cash sum of £150k on the birth of each child, it would still have been considerably cheaper than the cost of intervention and accommodating the children concerned. Councils simply don’t have the money to fund those specialist places unless there is literally no other way, and even if they can find the funds, places are like hens teeth and often a far distance from the young person’s home and support system.

Folk think social work have resources that they protect with their lives - but the resources simply aren’t there. Yet again, we get the public services we vote for and the government simply won’t fund social work to a safe level, never mind a competent one.

I feel like they need to properly explore things with us. And explain clearly without over talking us and just repeating no no no without explaining anything. If they just scream no no no, I can't learn from it or explore.

I completely agree, you need to be able to openly discuss the options that might be available and for your sw to be honest about their limitations in that. Otherwise you can’t possibly make reasoned decisions for your whole family.

I think you mentioned he is in the process of being diagnosed with ADHD? IME, the "not thinking about tomorrow" is very typical of this. If he got a diagnosis, do you think he would be willing to try medication? It can be lifechanging for some young people.

I have no idea if it's possible, but can SS expedite the diagnosis process?

I would prefer to parent her at arm’s length, please, what are my legal options?

@EmmatheStageRat I think you’re in a different legislative framework than me so I’m not wholly sure, and I can’t remember if your child has previously been looked after - which makes a huge difference. If you want you can pop me a PM and I’ll get back to you.

Exactly. There's a meeting around the family soon . To be honest I don't see the point in it. Because she's not going to listen anyway. She's made that quite clear on visits to me and to ds/dd. It feels impossible to explore things with someone who does not listen. To me it makes sense to do it when we get the new sw . I can't actually say that as they will then say im not working with them.

Hes currently having screening via CAMHS for ,ADHD whats IME? I really hope he would take meds of they would help him.

Sorry, IME is "In My Experience"- as a teacher I've seen a lot of teens where medication was life changing, including when they were prone to aggression.

Yes I have heard that as well. I hope to think if he needs medication he would take it.

One thing that does throw me of a bit. Is he's only violent and aggressive to me. With My 12 year old he gas lights her abd plays mind games. That must mean he has control of what he's doing?

Out of curiosity, how old were you older two children when they left home?

The 25 yesterday old left at 20 /21 my oldest son recently left at 20.

Sorry ignore the above, daughter was 20/21 son left recently and he's 20

Little update. There was a TAC meeting today. They have said they have no worries/concern about the family /younger Children. It was all concentrating on Ds. They want to try for family therapy. Ds is refusing so don't know what will become of that . Also they want to allocate a general practitioner to work with us .

I do want to request for some type of counselling for my 12 year old because she has been badly effected. And I think she needs it so we can all move forward.

I honestly do not feel positive about it. I don't fully understand how it's going to work. But I will give it my all. I hope ds will to .