Daughter fell and Social services now involved

[any009]

please help I’m so worried. My daughter fell off sofa last night while I turned my back for two seconds. She was perfectly fine after 2 minutes but I panicked about her going to sleep so I called 111 just to get some advice. They said everything sounds okay and she is aloud to go sleep but someone would ring me within two hours.

someone called within 30 mins to ask me to bring her in at 3:30am for a face to face appointment. I explained it’s not really necessary for me to wake her up in middle of the night and let her wait for ages in hospital when she’s fine. I asked if it’s ok for me to just take her to go they said it’s up to me.

so I woke up in the morning to call gp and while I was on the phone social services called me. I answered and she asked why I hadn’t taken her to hospital when it was advised but I said she was perfectly fine I just panicked and rang 111 for some advice. She said she is deeply concerned and I have to take her to doctors asap to make sure she’s okay I said I’m in the middle of that so that’s fine.

20 mins later social services are knocking at my door asking to assess my daughter. They checked her body for bruises marks or anything but she had nothing and was perfectly fine like I told them. I then went to the gp and the doctor ALSO said she is perfectly fine and he will put this in the notes.

social services called back to asked what doctor said I told them he said she is well and fine and they said okay will do another visit soon.

I’m so scared and worried my daughter is going to get taken off me I’ve been crying all day it’s all I can think about. Has anyone got any advice? Will they take this further?

I imagine that the op’s baby is pre mobile- injuries in pre mobile babies are more ‘suspicious’ for want of a better word, because they can’t generally injure themselves, so its pretty much always an adult’s responsibility (although obviously usually a complete accident that the adult is distraught about).

Then the op not following medical advice will have compounded that.

If medical advice was to take the baby to be checked over, wondering why you didn’t ? you were worried enough to phone in first place, this would have been the red flag. You staying up watching her is not the same as medical team checking her over, especially in head injury and infants , glad SW followed up.

It feels like overkill sending social services - my daughter had a bump on the head at 4 months old (older child had accidentally dropped something on her) and I phoned 111- we had a quick call with the health visitor who knew us and knew everything was fine. I think it's good there are safeguarding things in place though for when something is wrong.
I don't think you did anything wrong though- you were anxious and called for a bit of advice but it was a small fall on a soft surface- I wouldn't have been keen on heading to A&E either.

i think that is excellent, proves the system is working

Not sure whether it's the same everywhere but SS are more keen to follow up these incidents because of the rise of missed child neglect. A little girl near me died when SS failed to respond to allegations.
SS are there to help and because you failed to get her checked out initially it's a red flag to them that you could be hiding something. All kids fall and hurt themselves it's if it sounds suspicious they will act.
Given your child was uninjured I wouldn't think they'd take further action

Why did social services examine your child’s body? They’re not allowed to do that, they need a medical professional to do so. None of this makes a lot of sense.

DS had a Colles fracture from riding his friend's bike - aged 5 I was sure that social services would be called as the fracture looked so dramatic to my untutored eye- but they weren't called.

But a friend of mum's whose baby rolled off a bed- they had social services turn up.

I get that this was not nice for you OP but please don't worry. They are just doing their job and we are all quick to point the finger at them when an abused child gets missed.
For every phone call she made this week one or two kids will be being abused and not all of them will be living in squalor with drug addict parents. Those who are outraged because "I'm a nurse/teacher/lawyer" well that means nothing, so was Lucy Letby 😢.The young girl shot dead by her father, along with her headteacher mother last year? Who would have thought she would be at risk?
Safeguarding is for everyone, privileged or not.
i applaud social workers for trying to do that job because I couldn't.

Totally different scenarios, kids fall off bikes! A baby falling off a bed just shouldn't have happened. Supervision was not adequate.

It all sounds unusual. I appreciate different areas have different thresholds and resources but it does sound unusual.

A complete over reaction by social services to turn up at your house. They like easy targets so your best bet is to placate them and tell them what they want to hear in order to get them off your back.

Don't appear anxious or fretful as they'll pick up on that and think they can target you further.

i imagine social services can check and decide which bruises can be explained by normal life

If you had an emergency response within minutes then you shouldn't have been calling 111 either, should have been 999.

Err @Mum2jenny that's when you call 999 not 111...

OP I used to work for 111 and we were trained in safeguarding. Anything that sounded off, or we heard something in the background, or depending on the type of injury or illness, we would refer to the safeguarding team and they would decide what to do.

Sorry if this sounds horrible but I think there is more to this, do you know how stretched SS are? Loads of kids bang heads, injure themselves, fall over and I can tell you now hardly any of those are referred to SS. Had you been drinking? Is there something else going on? Previous SS involvement or a violent partner?

Another one contacted by Social Services (actually whilst on call myself).
My 14 month old found a piece of nut under the sofa whilst being looked after by family. They took her to hospital 1, who promptly transferred her to hospital 2. She was readmitted 3 days after a bronchoscopy so on paper had x3 A&E presentations in a week. Once I explained the whole situation, promised faithfully not to feed my baby nuts and told them we had now moved all the furniture and vacuumed the room x6 then I was left alone.

It's standard protocol. Many many SS teams are under immense pressure to follow up ALL incidents where child is injured in the home and then not taken for health care. It's a key sign. Parent phones 111/ GP, health care professional asks to take them in and then parent doesn't show or gives excuses to delay the health care professional seeing them. There have been some shocking and very upsetting cases in the news over the years where parents haven't presented for health care and SS teams and health care teams are investigated as to why no-one flagged it for investigation so now there is a blanket policy.

We got a call from SS after our 6 months old got Covid in 2021. She had a temperature and the Dr sent us to the hospital for monitoring. She was monitored for 8 hours and then they said the temperature had stabilised and was under control so we were discharged. Next day, angry Ss worker rang asking why we were not in hospital still. I explained we had been discharged and she was adamant on a name of who discharged us. Never heard any more but she was frothing at the pediatrician who had discharged us.

It’s mad that you show concern for your child after a common accident and SS get involved.

1. both my children have fallen off the bed/sofa as babies
2. our GP was extremely supportive and understanding and said it happens to everyone
3. our HV explained why they’re informed if you contact A&E / 111 because they need a single point of oversight. It was common for neglectful parents to visit different places to avoid detection.
4. a colleague (someone I considered a friend) reported DH to SS because he was struggling to adjust to fatherhood and I shared my worries with her, we almost split that first year. I got a phone call and nothing came of it.
5. my mobile 14mo ish niece fell down the stairs at a grandparents house (they didn’t have stair gates because they visit once in a blue moon) and threw up in the night so was taken to A&E … my brother was told he didn’t need to go for one bout of vomiting but also reprimanded for not going to A&E sooner, the contradiction was mad.
6. DS feel down the stairs at 9 months, didn’t take him to A&E or tell any professional (in part due to brothers experience), he’s fine. I hadn’t realised DS was as mobile as he was.

You are not the first and won’t be the last. It’s okay, look after yourself.

Social service did not immediately remove a child with a broken bone whose drug taking parents did not take them to a&e for days. They were removed eventually but an unharmed child with no evidence of other failings - they'll be out of your hair after the next visit.

I'm more concerned that you won't say how old the child is because it is extremely important to the advice you will get and why social services may now be involved. Are we talking about a 5 year old child falling off the sofa or a six week old baby? There's a huge difference.

I think social services phoning can be a bit random. I got a call after dd injured herself at nursery and they called an ambulance. Just to ask about it. Another time dd split her lip on my watch and they didn't call. Different borough though that it happened in.

OP

Do not worry as you have not done anything wrong. Accept their investigation with open arms as they are only looking out for your child. You know as well as I do, children are on rare occasions not treated properly and soc serv etc are only doing their job.

When it happens it can be worrying if you are not aware re system

One of our kids, a daughter when younger suffered from many, many ashtma attacks. This happened for over a year whentehy were aged 9 to ten. We were asked if the child liked school and they did and the other two did not that was a fact we had nothing to hide we declared it. Then when at school, every couple of months ashtma attack and 999 to hospital and us straight from work to the hospital; One summers day, we went to the hospital about three me and my OH arrived almost together and glad to see our child sitting up I bed and looking alright as they have the nebulizer. 3 people walked into the cubicle and asked us for a chat in a small room next to it. They asked how we felt when we had our child. I knew what they were getting at straight away, ie they were doubting us as the child was a girl and not a boy and around that time there had been stories about people from certain backgrounds not wanting girls - Straight away mu OH stated, "I apologise by please allow me a little lol, I know why you are asking these question and we are more than happy to help." the meeting lasted less than 4 mins as we explained they were free to interview our child with us not present and welcome to our home and even speak to relatives etc as we had nothing whatsoever to hide

We eventually met a good doc that upped the meds, kept a closer eye on our child and ensure asthma fully cleared after every attack and told us what to do to extra aid our child and this info was given to the school and there on no more serious ashtma attacks at school and home

What I'm saying is, soc services are doing what they are paid to do and children do become ill, fall etc and if anyone has nothing to hide, try not to worry and be open and honest and all will be soon over

Good luck

It's in the thread - 5 months!

So many posters on this thread either hard of thinking or deliberately obtuse. Social Services did not contact OP because she sought advice over an accident, or because there was an accident - but because she was asked to take the baby for an urgent medical appointment then failed to do so.

OP how old is your child? Why won’t you answer this?

Are they? No one contacted us when my kid fell off a chair in her bedroom and broke her arm!

Why won't you say how old your child is @any009? If you were this evasive with the people you spoke to on the phone then it's probably triggered some safeguarding issues?

SS turning up on your doorstep the very next day is just unbelievable though.