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?

There is. There is a lot of education around DV and there is a lot of support. We have one to one workers, IDVAs, group programmes, refuges, women have the right to apply as homeless to any local authority, legal aid support for court applications..there are a lot of supports in place to help women safely leave.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. Very sadly it's still happening, a friend of my DC ran away from their home at 16 and SW was involved. The SW didn't believe the 16 year old and sided with the mother. The mother worked (and still works) in a school as TA and has other children. The SW had the wool well and truly pulled over her eyes. Welfare staff at the child's school has made previous referrals but still SS didn't believe anyone other than the mother. It was heartbreaking.

Hm. Having almost no personal experience with social services, and no professional experience, I'd probably have happily accepted that the professionals know what they're doing, and that things have to go a long way, through a lot of layers, to get to that point. That there are so many checks and balances, and different people involved, and so much evidence required, that errors must be very rare and require extraordinary circumstances.

But having read my psychiatric notes, I can't feel that easy acceptance about it. I've seen, over hundreds of pages of notes covering decades of treatment, written by various doctors, nurses, and others, the many misunderstandings, errors, incorrect extrapolations, assumptions, "facts" based on prejudice or bigotry, cover-ups to avoid admitting serious error, exaggerations, false accusations, and outright lies that those notes contain. I've seen how things transmute over many repetitions, from conjecture or suggestion into solid fact-based professional opinion into truth written in stone, how they layer on top of one another, and how early errors can skew later perceptions.

Having lived with the consequences of these notes in the way I was treated for many years by mental health services, I am unable to blithely assume that public services will get things right purely because there are lots of professionals involved over a long period of time.

And maybe this personal experience doesn't, in reality, carry over to how social services works. But there are a LOT of people like me who have had a similarly disillusioning experience with some service or another — like healthcare, education, some part of social services — where they've felt prejudged or misunderstood or where mistakes have mushroomed, perhaps without them even knowing that's what's happened. These experiences will foster a sense among large numbers of the public that these services can't really be trusted, even while we acknowledge that the services are necessary and that people who talk about bad experiences with them may be unreliable.

Services, including social services, need much better funding, and higher standards of training, oversight and documentation, and they need it for many years to come, because that's how long it'll take to regain the trust of people who've either had bad experiences with them personally, or heard credible bad experiences from others.

I don't know why you're creating a false narrative where I said adoption is the only problem or the only trauma. It's an additional trauma.

No you didn't say adoption was the only trauma, you said this

*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*

The report you linked to doesn't make the conclusion that adoption trauma is "a big part" the cause of increased suicidality, correlation does not equal causation. The report says whether adoption does contribute to increased suicidality is undetermined in the midst of many other factors so for you to claim it is a "big part" is your opinion, which is open to disagreement and challenge.

I don't know when you were last involved in adoption processes (as in practicing with families, not reading a student social worker's reflective account), but the needs of infertile people are pretty much last on the list in terms of consideration. Yes, the whole process could be more child centred, but you could say that about any beurocratic - particularly one where there are so many competing rights to consider.

In terms of the GCP2 practice tool, yes it is based on a white westernised understanding of child care, it's one of the known criticisms of the tool. While it includes celebrations and outings, it is intended to be both and assessment and practice tool which takes an holistic look at the care provided to the child helping us recognise neglect goes beyond whether the house is clean and the child is fed. It gives an assessment of the level of care and a baseline for workers to support parents in improving their standard of care. I don't know anyone who would cite lack of a birthday party or museum visit as evidence of neglect that reached a child protection threshold, but celebrations and outings are part of parenting and can add to a wider picture of how centred the child is in family life. The tool also recognises contributing factors to parenting capacity such as poverty, poor health and trauma. It's far from perfect but does give a framework for thinking about neglect and supporting improved parenting. It however forms part of a much wider assessment, with multiple sources of information and evidence from multi-agency partners.

I haven’t been involved with social workers but have met two odd health visitors, who I don’t think should have had carte blanche over peoples lives.
The first one, picked up on my surname, and that my sisters children were at the public school that her kids were, and talked about that a lot, my children are not at any private school
Then she received a call form a colleague, and explained that she had to go, as it was a very exciting case that she had been called to urgently, but that she couldn’t give me details.

I felt sorry for the poor family she was rushing to.

And another health visitor, for my child, was insisting that people abuse and shake their child, demonstrating how people shake them, while I voiced slight disbelief, and quoted some recent court case their had been discrediting the idea.
I just felt that she was strange, and was pleased we only saw her once or possibly twice.

Oh and our local social services put children’s names on the board that they consider funny.
A social worker I know who works in child services confirmed it, and thought it was hilarious.

I was pretty disgusted.
Imagine this happening in any other works setting

I don’t think that some of them are fit for the role, and lack good management

I can see how they sometimes might get it wrong.

Mu son was administered antibiotics in hospital as a newborn as he had a temperature.

He had a canula in his hand and as a result developed a massive bruise on the hand.

I had a midwife visiting me at home after birth and when he saw the bruise, he asked with a suspicious tone: "Oh, what happened here?"

I explained it to him and he was okay with the explanation, but what would have happened if he didn't?

Our son would have been put into temporary foster care, there would have been a child protection conference and we would have to jump through many hoops to prove our innocence.

People do shake their babies. What an odd thing to disbelieve.

No, the fact your ds had had a cannula would have been easily verified. SW don’t rush out of the door with infants because they have a single bruise- you can be very sure midwives don’t!

You make a very good point. Yes, absolutely this happens. I've seen it.

Anyone on here arguing about the system being infallible and how they never make mistakes is unconsciously responsible for things like this. It is incredibly narrow sighted to believe in infallibility in any profession. But the consequences of making that error in this profession can lead to horrific chains of events.

If anyone finds that offensive or desperately wants to prove me wrong, they need to put their ego on ice. This is not the profession for untamed egos.

Again, I don't want to dredge old things up, but I know of what I speak.

You're catastrophising. If he hadn't believed you then his health records would have confirmed what you said. There us absolutely no reason to believe your child would have been removed from your care if the health visitor hadn't accepted your explanation.

Agree with on both @TheCoffeeNebula and @SayFuckTheLemonsAndBail

And I completely disagree with whoever said social workers don't make mistakes because the team leader and the head sign off on things.

I always find it a bit concerning that social workers leap to the defence of the sector, and respond entirely uncritically. Mistakes have impacts for children's safety and on the flip side, for families.

The fact is that in most cases, the court will intervene because there is such a rigorous threshold for removal. But that doesn't mean mistakes and poor practice don't happen. And it doesn't mean that a very small number of cases aren't intercepted, leading to the wrong/undesirable outcome

Who claimed the system is infallible and nobody ever makes mistakes?

And I completely disagree with whoever said social workers don't make mistakes because the team leader and the head sign off on things.

Of course social workers make mistakes, they’re people working with people, often in crisis, with very complex issues. It’s unrealistic to think mistakes never happen in any job role. I think the reference to the team leader and HoS was more that there are checks and balances in place to try and catch mistakes, in the same way multi-agency working reduces the risk of one rogue social worker driving things. In the same way the court process acts as a check.

The system isn’t infallible, because people aren’t infallible.

Read the post you wrote before this one, for example.

There's no possible way that a bruise couldn't have led to a series of catastrophic outcomes, because it had a rational explanation? I don't believe that for a second.

Catastrophic errors happen. Overinflated egos happen.

@Jellycatspyjamas @Wagonwheelforme

Really grates on me how social workers refer to mothers as 'mum'.

I used to work in DV and would have nightmares with social services and the family court. There is some well evidenced terrible practice from social services around domestic abuse. I think the bullet points from this briefing sum it up well:

• Domestic abuse is rooted in gender inequality.
• Women are most often seen as primarily responsible for child safety, despite the perpetrators responsibility for harm and abuse.
• The social attitudes that fuel domestic abuse and attribute blame to women for men’s violence can also be present in social work practice.
• The context of abuse, and of coercive control, is often not understood by practitioners, resulting in inappropriate demands being placed on women by social workers.
• Women do not feel listened to and do not have their needs met appropriately by social workers.
• The threat of having children removed by social workers is acutely felt by women. Often this threat denies the efforts women have made to protect their child from abuse, and does not take into account the challenges and the increased risk of violence faced by women when leaving their abuser partner.
• A failure by social workers to recognise the context of women’s lives and respond appropriately can re-traumatise women who have already experienced abuse and trauma.

https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/insights/domestic-abuse-and-child-protection-womens-experience-social-work-intervention

Like I said I also struggle with the double standards when social workers recommend access for abusive exes in family courts. In my personal opinion, this often comes from a place of increased judgment and lack of empathy towards mothers, obviously present in the whole of society.

I’d agree with that @isthisfakefreehold

And to be clear that’s a criticism of the embedded attitudes and values within social work and indeed other settings, not social workers personally.

I was very disturbed the lady who had her baby removed because effectively she might have got into an abusive relationship in the future. And I don’t think that was a one off. I know I will have a lot of There Must Be More To Its in response but given her story was backed by a reputable charity - I believe her.

And my point was these checks and balances involve a skim through the documents which are then signed off.

And as others have said, it's not all about 'human error', there are other ways to make 'mistakes'.

Thanks for this- it’s really interesting.

I agree that the system seems contradictory- women get their kids taken off them if they don’t leave, but women are also forced into a situation where they have to hand their kids over to an abuser.

I can’t see why a court thinks that someone who is abusive towards their intimate partner is likely to be a model parent.

I had an abusive ex. He was never physical, but it was bad enough for me to be referred to Domestic abuse service by my GP. He was stalking me, and years later, does everything to sabotage my parenting. Even now handovers can be hell, every parenting decision is high conflict- even if we agree.

I agree kids should be at the centre of any court judgement, but it effectively creates a situation where the continued abuse of women if written into legal system.

@Wagonwheelforme

Sorry to hear that. You might want to see if your local DV service has a counselling service. Stalking is high risk behaviour. It's very difficult. There are many campaigns around family court practice at the moment around transparency and treatment of DA survivors.

What I do see a lot is people who have had really shitty upbringings who have normalised things that no person should have to deal with, so when they themselves have children they have a really skewed view of how to parent.

this 100%
One of the women I work with, (volunteering as a family support with a charity) we chat a lot about life stuff, and I am amazed at what she says and what she considers normal. For her it is more obvious in relationships than her parenting, but wow, sometimes I have to pause and take a breath and work out how to answer.
eg, partner forces sex on you because he wanted it and you are supposed to agree if you are in a partnership. I had to gently tell her that that was rape.

And as others have said, it's not all about 'human error', there are other ways to make 'mistakes'.

Of course there are many ways to make mistakes - prejudice, assumption, bias, lack of experience, confirmation bias, covering your arse, neglect etc all fundamentally come down to being human. We all have all of these qualities and to some degree they show themselves in our work at times.

That isn’t remotely unique to social work, that’s why decision making in protection cases is a collective, multi-agency process. I’m not saying the process always works, social work failings are well publicised and debated, and there are certainly people in the profession who have no business being there.

I am not SW but my experience shows that before you get to removing a child you have to go to Child Protection. I have sat supporting a parent in CP meetings. The professionals present are:

SS - case worker
SS - CP case worker who will take over the case once CP has been granted
SS - minute taker
SS - chair
(It is important to note that this isn't just one person from SS)
police (because there was DV)
school nurse
school safeguarding lead
health visitor
DV support worker
parent(s)
parent advocate (me)

The process was that every one of those professionals had to give a report. Then the meeting had to decide if the children were at risk of significant abuse and what type. Every professional had to say - yes - emotional abuse (or whatever)
Then and only then was the decision made to move the family to CP plan.

In one of these meetings I really disliked the SW and felt that she was putting a bad spin on minor events. But in the end there was enough evidence to say yes to the CP plan, even without the SW report. (and had I been asked I would have said that yes this family needs more support)
The other SWs I have met in these processes were all fair and sensible.

It really is not as arbitrary or as easy as some of the PP would belive and this is several steps below removing the children.

The IRISS briefing you refer to is a good one, it’s also 7 years old and predates significant work on improving understanding in social work around domestic abuse and the introduction, in Scotland at least, of evidence based collaborative models such as Safe and Together, along with the roll out of perpetrator programmes supported by the Scottish Government. I have no doubt things aren’t perfect in this regard but there are significant efforts being made to improve social work response to domestic abuse.

Someone asked about kids and DV.

Sadly, one of the things that has shocked me the most is how the women will keep taking the man back, even at risk of losing her kids. (and lie to SS about it)

In the 2 cases I have seen, this is nothing to do with him being controlling (he was, I just mean that that wasn't the reason she took him back) or the woman being scared, it is to do with her feeling alone and lonely and wanting someone (anyone) there and he is available and willing. Then the whole cycle of DV starts again.
I love you, I love our kids, I won't do it again I promise..... and they believe it because it is harder to be alone than to close your eyes and believe it.

I am not blaming these women at all. I can see that they are victims, but it is so hard to get the kids out of a dangerous situation.

We have to remember that kids watching abuse are being abused. They are considered to be emotionally abused by seeing and watching abuse, so it isn't about whether or not he hurts the kids, they ARE being hurt by watching it.
Both the women I am refering too really did not believe that at a fundamental level.
I remember saying to one lady - if he hit dd every time he came round, what would you do. - I'd kill him !!!! Well, emotionally he is hitting her. And what is she learning about relationships and what will she expect from men when she grows up if that is what she is seeing. But she didn't really believe it.
Guess what? She grew up in an abusive household with a father who was an alcoholic and she thinks it is normal.
Good news is she is now free from him, and rebuilding her life and has all her kids with her, and a lot of support.

If the midwife had Been at all.concerned he vould have checked with the hospital.who would have confirmed your explanation
Your explanation made sense
It's when the bruising is suspicious and the explanations don't add that there are more concerns