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?

The question isn't just about care orders, OP asked about mistakes in general. With a chain of people, many of whom are not closely tied the family, there are opportunities for mistakes.

Focusing on the removal aspect makes presents it like any concern is really some idiotic conspiracy by jaded parents against SW.

I suppose it also depends on the case specifics. Not all of these professionals are involved in every case, and they may not have a whole lot to say. So a lot of weight is put on social worker's view, record, and presentation of the facts.

well I wasn't intending to focus only on removal.
The point I was making was that there was a surprising number of porfessionals in the room, it isn't just down to one SW

You're using a hypothetical example of something that didn't happen and in fact was no issue at all as a reason to argue such mistakes do happen?

well I wasn't intending to focus only on removal.
The point I was making was that there was a surprising number of porfessionals in the room, it isn't just down to one SW

Yes, but agreeing to a CP plan is one thing. Plenty of times the parent admits there are issues and agrees to be on a plan

That doesn't mean all the documents and reports written by the social worker are accurate. It definitely doesn't mean that seeking a care order is appropriate for every CPP.

It's all quite complex. Too many social workers lack basic professionalism and logical/analytical skills.

In my family's case, the social work team's behaviour was outrageous and completely disproportionate and inappropriate, to the extent that is would have seriously harmed the children without the reasonable decision making of the judge. The reports, including from one appointed expert, were poor-quality, biased and completely unbalanced - they never responded to follow up questions and decided to retire early. The word mistakes is putting it lightly, and I doubt my case is a complete outlier. Only with the assistance of two judges and our legal team, did the SW team change their approach and work cooperatively and fairly.

I know that this thread has focused more on SWs than on the family courts, and on children being removed into local authority care rather than that of family members. But to touch on the latter- I have witnessed what I believe to be an appalling miscarriage of justice from the POV of somebody close to me.

In brief- she had escaped the abusive ex with her DC, but DC made disclosures of serious abuse perpetrated by the ex. She reported this to SS, and this was then used against her in family court as evidence of attempts at parental alienation. Abusive ex now has custody.

I believe her because there are also allegations of adult rape and sexual assault against this man, and I have been sexually assaulted by him. I have long had him down as a sociopath.

I gather that there are growing concerns about the way that family courts operate, and about the validity of the parental alienation defence.

But, If she was using while she was pregnant that creates a much higher issue.

That will trigger an automatic response for SS if reported.

Thanks. I think I may do that. I’m doing ok atm. Grey rock and he has a new gf so things are ok.

Yes, the family courts are used to further abuse of women. Many women are leaving them absolutely traumatised by miscarriages of justice.

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

No, they don’t.

Of course mistakes will happen. In any system there will be a certain amount of human error. But there are quite high thresholds in this country for removing children from their parents. Sadly, we see so many cases where parents have harmed/killed a child, often there has been social services involvement. Social Services are massively understaffed and there will be cases that fall through the cracks 😢

@MyMotherThouArt no they don't what?

You think the chair and team leader have time to sit with every family and verify everything the social worker reports? That's news, must be better resourced than we all thought.

🙄🤦‍♀️

We've had several reports submitted to court with the wrong child's name mentioned. Several. And this was a well respected local authority, over-zealous even, from what the judge said in the hearing.

I've read on this site, over women say the same happened to them!

But thank you, Mother, for your thoughtful and insightful response.

Well resourced* not well respected.

I worry about professionals v. women who are not able to advocate for themselves well.

I can think one one instance where I supported a women with the school (she also had SS involvement)
She had concerns about her child. School was dismissing the concerns. Health Visitor present in the meeting was saying it was all trauma/emotional abuse due to previous DV.

I quietly said - could we possibly have a case of diagnostic overshadowing here? While these behaviours may be attributable to emotional trauma, they could also be early signs of autism. These ones in particular are red flags for autism (listed them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ) Could we consider that possibility?

The whole atmosphere in the room changed and suddenly they started to take her concerns seriously. Instead of nursery going - yeah he is fine at nursery, I was asking about things like echolalia, and age appropriate speech, and playing alone or playing with other kids and repetative play and imaginative play as my red flags. And the nursery staff then started to agree that he did show all those things. But initialy they just said he was 'fine'
I made me so angry that I had to throw long words into the mix for them to listen. Mum had been saying the same thing for last 6 months. There is autism in the family. The child showed lots of red flags.

Women so often don't have a voice, because they don't know how to speak to professionals.

Quite the saviour, then.

I think they get it wrong in the case of they can give too many chances.
My "Aunt" kept her pregnancy hidden until mum made her do a pregnancy test then took her up the early pregnancy unit to see how far along she was.

The woman was full term and was induced that same day. She had kept it a secret and had planned to just dump the baby and carry on living life. She had not stopped drinking or taking Coke throughout the whole pregnancy.

She had the baby, it had withdrawals and she left him up the hospital alone. Social took him. Then the dad wanted to know, so she decided to keep him.
Social gave her a chance. She ruined it and they took him again.
Then she got him back again! And got housed.
Then finally he was taken at 5 years old because he was found walking down the road completely naked at 4am crying for food. She was in the flat awake and hadn't noticed he had got out. She was to busy partying.
He's got numerous issues bless him but now living an amazing life with his adoptive parents.

Yes, they do get it wrong. Some let personal prejudices, xenophobia and cultural ignorance drive their actions.

My experience is that social workers do everything they can to identify any strengths in a family's circumstances. They will point out any element of safety in family's circumstances and try to build on this to evidence that we can close. Sometimes this can lead them to take an overly optimistic view of a family's circumstances- I've been told that there's sufficient safety because the parents answer the phone to the social worker. This is, clearly, not sufficient.

Threshold for intervention is high. Threshold for Child Protection is high. Threshold for removal is sky high. In the UK, the level of need and complexity is increasing, and the levels of universal and targeted support have been decimated.

As someone working in a very affluent area where the norm is parents taking their children to museums (while also possibly being quite emotionally neglectful at times) no family has been discriminated against or looked down on for not doing this - even by our most middle class workers. It is bonkers to suggest this is normal practice for social workers. They are more likely to explicitly discuss social GRAAACCES than blindly veer towards middle class bias.

So basically, social workers are fallible humans. Some are more skilled than others at their jobs. Sometimes, the recommendations they make don't quite meet the mark and in borderline cases this could lead to either a child not being protected well enough or unnecessarily removed from home. However, the social workers don't make those decisions. They make recommendations to Court who need to decide if on balance the sw's recommendations are in the child's best interests.

yawn.
no.
The point is that I have seen this mutiple times.
It is why I would always recommend that parents get someone to help them who knows the system.

Why should the fact that social workers don't make the decisions themselves exonerate them from poor practice, where it occurs? Whatever they submit informs the judge, who has never met the parents before and will never even hear them speak.

It's very important that it's accurate, fair and centres the best interests of the child (whether that be for removal of staying with the parent/guardian).

The number of cases where children are inappropriately removed is (I hope) small. But my god, there's some bad practice. And I'm sorry, but it is shocking that I'm not the first person on this site who's seen some other child's name littered throughout the court bundle. Some oversight, I must say.

It's a postcode lottery. If you're in a poorly resourced area, good luck getting anyone to do anything, they'll look for excuses - no viable bruises, no action. Meanwhile, in better funded/less overburdened LAs, a more preventive approach to harm may be taken, perhaps to 'learn lessons' - but it isn't appropriate either.

Sick of hearing about children being so badly let down, and poor practice going the other way. It's not good enough.

"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 am not blaming these women at all."

@steppemum actually you are. "The whole cycle of dv starts again" it never, ever stopped. Dv isn't present without fear, so if there has been dv then she will be scared of him, she just might not be able to recognise it. I worked with a woman who's partner convinced her that the sick feeling she got every time she saw him was excitement. It has EVERYTHING to do with him being controlling. Why do you think she's in a place in herself where she feels the need to take him back? Why do you think she's felt so lonely? Because he has systematically isolated her from her support networks, he's convinced her noone else would have her. He's still been emotionally abusing her and convincing her to take him back is further gaslighting and more abuse. By saying it's not because he was controlling, she was just lonely, and saying she wasn't scared of him is inaccurate and it is victim blaming. Women need a replacement support network and a robust way to buffer their self esteem when leaving an abusive relationship plus guarantee of safety. If they don't have that then the risk of him manipulating his way back in become much higher.

I don't think poor practice should be overlooked. I don't think incompetent social workers should remain in their roles. I think all the Is should be dotted and ts crossed. However, I also don't think that it is fair to say that social workers are incompetent when they make an error. Getting rid of any social worker who makes a mistake is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Address the concern with the practice, admit the mistake and make efforts to amend.

There is a need for us as a society to address the inequality you mentioned but social workers/ children's services are not the root cause of the issue.

The Cleaveland cases were mentioned earlier as examples of where SWs gpt it wrong.
Beatrix Campbell published a book last year compiling her research, and cutting it short many of those children were actually being abused and were returned to their abusers. She spike about it at Filia

Yes, there are cases where they get it wrong. The CSE cases such as what happened in Rochdale are obvious examples. But in cases where they want to remove and make a separation permanent there are many layers of scrutiny built in to try to safeguard against it. And the judge makes the final decision, often taking the Guardian's word as gospel, not the social worker's. I have definitely learnt of some outcomes from court that have really worried me.
I think more mistakes are made in cases where there should have been more intervention than there was and social workers were too optimistic.

Why should the fact that social workers don't make the decisions themselves exonerate them from poor practice, where it occurs?

I don’t think it does exonerate poor practice, poor practice needs to be addressed, reports should be accurate and certainly should never have another child’s name - at very least it calls into question the accuracy of the rest of the report. I’d expect it to be kicked back from court due to inaccuracy.