TW* Any social workers on here? Can I track down records about me in the 80s/90s?

[Redlegs]

My childhood had a few traumatic events in it and my dad never talks about any of it.
My mum has died and I’m left with lots of memories of my disclosing things about my home life to teachers at school and I’d be very surprised if there weren’t records of various points in time of my childhood.

It sounds extreme but one of our family friends ended up being sentenced to life in Broadmoor for killing a man in cold blood where he committed suicide and another kidnapped my sister and I while drinking behind the wheel. Our stepmother was in the local newspaper for dealing heroin at Glastonbury and my dad pushed the steering wheel whilst my stepmother was driving on the motorway because he wanted her to go back and get his cannabis with me and my siblings in the car so our car went towards (luckily not into) the central reservation. My dad would hit us, push his hand over my mouth when I was crying, his partner once attacked me so badly that she dug her nails into my head picked me up by my hair and repeatedly punched me in the back. She also stopped talking to me or doing my laundry for me when I was 13.

I’d like to see the situation of our family (the events leading up to my mum leaving when I was one for example) through a professional notes lens to help me make sense of it.

The silence and jollying on around it all puts me in a perpetual gaslit state and now that my dad is old and has done his best over many years to move his and therefore our lives into a healthier space,I would feel guilty for making him go back there. It’s like he is a completely different person now.

Can I do a kind of subject access request or something similar?

TIA

Yes, you can. You need to speak to your local council and ask for all social services records from birth up to 18. I did this a few years ago, it only took about a week or so and they sent it over via email with an attachment to download it all.

Were you open to services during these times (sounds like its obvious but not always). If you were, then yes you can do a SAR or you can write to the team that deal with them and ask for a chronology or list of information.

The problem with receiving the records is that they will have to redact and remove a lot of 3rd party information, other names and documents or information from other agencies, which means that you get left with quite a disjointed view of what happened. That could be quite distressing and confusing.

Bloody hell @Redlegs I am so sorry, no child should have to go through what you have.

I would suggest that if you do manage to access information that you seek help while reading it.

I hope that life got easier for you.

The first question I would ask is, have you had any therapy, or trauma-specific support? Something like EMDR may be really beneficial if you haven’t done it.

The other thing I’d caution is that the professionals view may not be as helpful for you as you hope it would be. Having been a social worker myself, the notes are written to justify the decisions of the organisation, and that doesn’t mean they are an accurate or sympathetic interpretation. I read my birth notes from my first child, for example, and I didn’t feel like the described what really happened. They were written to explain the decisions the midwives made, which I personally, as the one they were about, didn’t think were good ones. That isn’t to say that can’t be useful, but approach them from the lens of them being for a particular purpose at a particular time in history that is very different from today.

I support people making SAR for their social services files. As others have said, be prepared for lots of black redactions and elements which you struggle to make sense of. Not all local authorities deliver files promptly and within timescales either, so be prepared to follow them up and keep on at them. They’ll send them to you via secure email but you could make a special request for a social worker to unpick them with you. Make clear you want your full file, so give them an approx date range of say birth to 18. Good luck OP. For some it’s therapeutic, but for others I’ve seen disappointments and frustration.

Thank you so much all.
I have just filled the form in but may have to read it through my fingers as I know my mum tried to take her life while in charge of my new born younger sibling and me aged 18 months were in the house.

I am now 40, married for 10 years with a lovely daughter and most importantly, a safe, drama free life.

It took longer for me to get my life on rails than most but I am now a primary school teacher which I love. Obviously, I take safeguarding extremely seriously and it caused me to wonder whether there were concerned teachers looking out for me as a youngster because it must have been so glaringly obvious that I had difficulties at home.
Thanks again.