Do social workers and the courts get it wrong sometimes? TW child abuse.

[Monthlymusing]

Obviously we know they get it wrong in that they tragically miss cases of abuse. This is about the other way round. Inspired by Marten and Gordon trial (please don’t discuss this specific case as it’s on going) I have fallen down an internet rabbit hole about the parents who truly believe that social services are out to snatch children from loving homes. There are thousands of them. Networks of people who help and advise people how to escape SS. There are open FB groups where parents share horror stories. I came across a ‘documentary’ on YouTube that was quite well presented, although I realise as a sane person, a good bit of anti ss propaganda. They interviewed many ‘middle class’ sorts of parents who all claimed their dc had been taken on imagined or fabricated allegations. One couples child had then tragically died in foster care, which made them feel vindicated as they had raised concerns the child wasn’t being properly cared for. The allegations against them were very extreme, almost unbelievable and involved family SA. This was quite some time ago but they have been very public about their case. They are actually in my LA, which was graded as inadequate for SS.

My thoughts are that if SS have concerns they are most likely correct and there are many parents getting away with abuse and hardly any wrongly accused to the point of losing their children. But like the police, presumably in a very small number of cases, it stands to reason that they sometimes do get it catastrophically wrong. Or are there enough ‘layers’ and enough professionals on each case that this is basically impossible?

Yes this is so incredibly hard. However if a woman is with a violent partner I suppose by default she can’t protect her children. It’s awful as obviously she is a victim too and to then lose your dc, what a terrible thing to go through. And once she’s lost the children I imagine it’s possibly even harder to break away from a coercive relationship. However I understand the children’s safety and well being must come above all else.

I did notice that so many of the posts on this FB group did involve violent partners. It must be a very common reason for removal.

Of course they can get it wrong but I’m sure they don’t anywhere near as often as those groups would have you believe.
I have a safeguarding role in healthcare. I can sincerely say I have never seen a child removed where the evidence didn’t suggest that was the best thing to do. There are multiple cases where I think children should have been removed sooner and there are tens where I think ss should be taking an interest and they aren’t because the threshold is so high.

In terms of looking back at adopted children and how they feel later in life we have to remember that to get to the point of adoption or long term fostering there is by definition significant trauma to that child. It will always affect them one way or another. Even the best decisions can’t reverse that.

As for the process being too quick that’s another really difficult one. Adopting is a hugely stressful and emotionally difficult thing to do. I can’t imagine welcoming a child to my home and my family, loving them with all my heart, learning to help them manage their trauma and all that brings with the constantly looming threat that they could go back to their birth parents. There has to be a defined end point and the opportunity for the birth parents to change can’t be open ended.

So interesting and echoes what others with knowledge have said. I didn’t consider that some parents probably just can’t understand why they are inadequate as they were never parented either.

It should always be what is best for the child, coming up with excuses why they should not be the centre of any care is always wrong

Of course there would be cases where wrong things happens

I have been listening to that podcast and I was quite surprised that the older children have been adopted. In Australia children and pretty much never adopted unless the birth parents agree. The closest would be a care order until 18. In my state that is rare. I knew a family with 3 siblings they fostered as toddlers and babies. The mum cleaned herself up when they were tweens and got them back for about a year. Then relapsed again and back in foster. The person took them back but struggled with them as they had been subjected to all sorts while with mum. Then mum cleaned up act again and got them back again, and then when they were back in foster for 3rd time the person refused them, they couldn’t keep going through it. Not sure what happened to them, generally teens in Australia end up in group foster homes as there aren’t carers willing to take in teens. I think we place far too much emphasis on the parents rights here and not enough on the kids rights.

They often get it wrong. It's not just removal either, but there are huge numbers of cases where SS don't need to be involved and things like early help, CAMHS, or IDVA can support much more effectively.

It's very complicated, but often whilst the threshold for removal is supposedly high, it is dependent of a SWs interpretation of a situation. There are huge issues that a large number of social workers are middle/upper working class background. Their understanding of what's safe and healthy doesn't necessarily match someone else's. For example things like not having constant employment, lack of access to experiences like museums, lack of new clothes can lead to (be additional evidence) for removal, but none of those things should really factor in. It's just such an opinion and evidenced based thing and the chips are stacked against the parents often by virtue of not knowing the system, processes and not necessarily being able to understand it either.

Of course there are also lots of missed situations or cases where removal should happen much sooner but doesn't.

lack of access to experiences like museums

You're seriously telling us that experienced social workers, who deal with families in crisis all day every day, have genuine concerns about children having a lack of access to museums?

Come the fuck on.

For example things like not having constant employment, lack of access to experiences like museums, lack of new clothes can lead to (be additional evidence) for removal

What is your evidence for this claim, 'SWStudent'? Because from where I'm sitting as a social worker of many years, that's bollocks.

I have previously worked in a position where I worked with families involved with SS and I completely agree with the PP. The amount of multi agency meetings, and child protection plans that have to be done is high. Removing the child is often seen as last resort. Obviously there is the odd case and I have met some very strict social workers but I would be shocked if completely perfect parents had their child removed for no reason.

I'm a social worker. Of course sometimes the decisions with hindsight are wrong, in both directions. We can only make recommendations at the time with the information available, but sometimes parents go on to do much better or worse than had been anticipated. The threshold for removal of children is rightly very high though.

There was the case of Fran Lyon who posted on here. Social workers wanted to remove her baby at birth for very spurious reasons, based on the opinion of a psychiatrist who had never met her. She fled to Sweden when she was still pregnant so she could keep her baby.

And then there's all the parents of disabled children who are accused of FII when they complain about lack of support from social care or education...

So yeah I believe they do get it wrong sometimes, and don't always behave ethically.

I work in an allied profession and I can hand on heart say that in all of my years experience, I’ve never seen a child taken into local authority care where it hasn’t been warranted.

I’ve only ever seen it from the other side, as a professional involved in a child protection core group where I cannot fathom how the child is still in the care of their parent/s. Several times over the years I’ve joined with other professionals to challenge social workers and try to escalate cases where I and other professionals felt that far too much weight was being given to the parents’ feelings and wishes, and that the child ultimately wasnt safe in their parents’ care.

I was involved in one CP plan where the child was effectively being starved. Mum had mental health issues and didn’t shop, cook or provide food in the house. She didn’t top up parent pay or send her child in with lunch. He was regularly stealing food from other children and if it hadn’t been for the school feeding him for free, he wouldn’t have eaten. The child was underweight and looked so poorly and neglected. This went on for the best part of an academic year and there wasn’t even a sniff of care proceedings. Every core group was about ‘how Mum was getting on’. It was fucking painful to be a part of.

my husband loathes SS with a passion.. cannot say a nice word for them... his then wife handed his kids over to SS one day when he was at work and they took them! It took him 2 years and lots formal complaints and court battles to get his kids back... the story of why they were taken is long and complicated.. but the reason the children were originally not going to be given back to him: the social worker at the time wanted to adopt twins, and yes you guessed it, the kids his wife gave up were twins! now this is going back 30 years and there is clearly a lot more to the story which i wont go into, but the social worker was on record admitting this.. he did get his children back, he obviously also ended his marriage!

i dont think i ever took my kids to a museum growing up.. i was a single mum i had to work and certaibly couldn't afford museums... gosh i hadn't realised i was a risk of losing my kids! what a ridiculous statement

There are alternatives to adoption though, including kinship care and guardianship.

A properly overhauled and funded care system could meet the longevity needs for many children without the need for the trauma of adoption.

I think that's something many people miss, being in the care system and being adopted can be as traumatic or even worse than staying with biological family. Adult adoptees have higher suicide rates than any other group of adults (4x the norm I believe) and a big part of the issue the trauma that comes from being adopted.

Adoption should not be heralded as a gold standard or a solution. Especially when at the moment adoption seems to serve people's need to solve infertility and rarely is child centred and meeting the needs of abused/neglected/trauma experienced children .

There was the case of Fran Lyon who posted on here. Social workers wanted to remove her baby at birth for very spurious reasons, based on the opinion of a psychiatrist who had never met her

Or so she claimed. However, as anyone who has worked in the field would tell you, parents lie, distort, or are simply completely unable to grasp the real reasons why their children may be removed from their care.

I do not believe for a single second that a woman with no child protection history would have her first child removed at birth purely on the basis of a psychiatrist who hadn't even treated her. That is not a thing that has ever happened, ever.

I've seen it happen first hand unfortunately. Not that it's the reason for removal as I've stated, but that the training for social workers is so poor that people struggle to put aside their own bias and assumptions and things like lack of cultural engagement have been written up by practicing social workers as a contributing factor and it's had to be explained to them that it's not appropriate or acceptable.

I think it feeds into training isn't what it used to be, people are qualifying and going straight into child protection and have no idea what they're doing and can't evidence decision making. Can't appropriately assess situations and 2 years down the line leave social work.

Sadly it's something I see very frequently.

SW don’t make the decision to remove children. They gather and present evidence, but the court makes the decision.

Well social care eventually U turned and she was allowed to keep the baby, so even they admitted mistakes had been made 🙄

More info on Fran Lyon case here

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/1932212.pregnant-mum-fled-europe-can-keep-child/

To those saying 'it's a tiny proportion':

There are different cases where the courts can get it wrong.

Firstly, cases of complete innocence, like the rare illness/brittle bone example. These may well be 'a tiny minority'.

There are also cases where the social workers are correct in identifying a risk or future risk of harm. However, the action is disproportionate and simply heavy-handed. In these cases, the child may eventually be returned to their parents, but a care order was granted which still causes lasting damage. I don't think this is that uncommon.

And I'm amazed how much trust people put in social services and the family courts to always make the best decision- and that goes both ways when it comes to care orders. It's an underfunded area of public service, hardly any information is ever released to the public unless a child tragically dies. And yes, there can be unpleasant workplace cultures and biases against people of certain groups and backgrounds.

Care plans can change when new information comes to light or parents can evidence change. It doesn't necessarily follow that mistakes were made.

Or... an entirely normal process was followed where removal begins as temporary, assessment is continuous and the child returns to the parents' care at some point. Also, again, removal decisions are made by the court, not social workers. That is not the same as social workers "U turning", nor is it any kind of evidence that the original view was wrong, and presenting it as such is frankly just more evidence that the parent either can't or won't grasp what is actually going on.

I think most people know this, but the point is that often the birth parents aren’t really in a position to fight back if you like so it isn’t a very fair system.

It may be that the action is wholly justified but it is a bit uncomfortable nonetheless.

Yes new evidence was brought to light once lawyers got involved i.e. the opinions of Dr's who had actually met her, who discredited the opinion of the one that hadn't that they were basing their decision one.