Disappointed with PAR

[drsholmes]

Our social worker has got us wrong on a couple of items. We have told her three times why my husband saw a professional (for mindfulness) and also an experience in my past has apparently led to me being wary of new people. WTF. I never said that.

We feel that she hasn't been listening to us at all. Where on earth do we go from here? This woman is supposed to have our backs isn't she? She's supposed to know us? She's spent about 24-27 hours with us.
Just feel so let down.

Tell her what changes you want and where she may have misunderstood. Ours was returned full of corrections to be made with dates, names and version of events.

Agree - you don't need to be angry. Just make corrections and provide an explanation if necessary. I sent loads back some small but some bigger. It's a huge note taking exercise - it never crossed my mind that our social worker didn't care about us because a few things needing correcting.
But I did have to grit my teeth and didn't correct grammar and spelling as i thought that would just look pedantic.

We had just a couple of minor corrections (dates/timings) to ours. Frankly I was impressed how well she had got to know us; but fortunately she just lied on the PAR and said I'm lovely.

As the others say:
-Not worth being too irritated by the admin issues (you will see much worse completed paperwork before this is over).
-Certainly don't get shirty with the SW about it (just get used to that 'let down' feeling, see this as gentle practice :-).

However I think that communicating a wrong impression of you in the PAR is worth being bothered by. This is the marketing tool that they will use to sell you to FFs and children's SWs. It should present you as honestly and positively as possible. You need to get anything you want rewritten (not just errors, but misconceptions too) changed: gently and politely, but firmly.

"didn't correct grammar and spelling as i thought that would just look pedantic."
The first impression from the short PAR, in particular, is critical. I'd correct for that, but not worry about minor SPG errors on the long one.

Agree with PPs. Don't take it to heart. They have so much to do, they're just drowning in information.

Our SW totally got us and we loved him but still there were some mistakes in our PAR that had made me think he had copied and pasted some bits from someone else's and forgot to change some of it! Eg 'Rain has always enjoyed a straightforward and secure relationship with her parents'. Um, no.

So we just sent back a really straightforward set of changes (in tracked changes in the document to make it easy for him to just click accept on our drafting!).

Don't sweat it.

(And I hardly ever say that about anything)

Agree, just mark up with loads of changes. You should be at a place now where you can openly discuss the contents of your PAR with SW if you don't agree or want to make changes. We sent back a load of stuff on our first one that we didn't quite agree with.

On the first copy our SW sent us, my name was spelt incorrectly. Unfortunately the spelling mistake also meant I had changed sex as well. I still rib our SW about it to this day.

I also agree that you shouldn't feel bad returning with corrections, so much is at stake.

If it makes you feel better, I know a couple whose PAR got both names completely wrong!