to think that John Hemming is a dangerous man?

[Spero]

For all the Hemming apologists - please read this.

www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2011/04/27/hemming-an-abuse-of-privilege/

I have never warned anyone not to believe anyone and I've certainly never said that SS always get it right, I know of enough things that didn't hit the press not to think that. I don't trust JH because of real life experience, this thread and many others like it I know what he's like. The people who have spoken about their personal experiences with JH have been open, they've not tried to pass the book and it's been in line with what is known he does.

edam you cant legally unadopt. Once the adoption is legal you can place your child in care as can birth parents.

There are many reasons for breakdown. One is the amount of time the child has spent in care and the many placements they have experienced in that time.
A child with RAD is not a child that I would feel confident in being able to parent.

Adoptive parents dont dump their children on a whim.

I think that being a social worker must be the most awful job in the world. It's terrible if you are wrong and remove a child unnecessarily, and terrible if you are right and have to take a child away from its blood family. The only time it can ever be a happy job to do is if your interventions help a family stay together, and even then, you have the uncertainty of wondering constantly whether you are getting it right. Social workers are one of the most undervalued professions in the developed world, I think because do not want to acknowledge that they do a crucial job in desperate situations and instead attempt to transfer the blame for the poor parenting or whatever onto the social workers. If everyone parented beautifully SW would hardly be needed.

What people like John Hemming do is undermine the thing fingers of trust that SW manage to create with at risk families and with the population at large. It's easier to target them than to address the societal problem that leads to them being needed.

John Hemming, for example, is a twat.

if any body took my children off me and then had them adopted out id kill them, simple as really. I cant believe there are parents on this site who would just smile and nod and say well obviously the sw knows best.

they fuck up, alot and once you are in the system you have almost no power over bringing them to justice, everything you do to fight your corner is put against you as proof of your guilt.

KnittedBreast - Are you just stringing random words together or do you have any idea of how the system works? Child safeguarding services exist to protect children, not to split up families.

I have known children to be adopted at birth. Without going into details, these were all cases where the mother had either abused, or failed to protect, previous children from abuse.

Do you have a problem with children being protected from harm?

I note that trippy has now withdrawn the allegations against me.

I know a few social workers and I can sort of see where knittedbreast is coming from- it is much easier to "process" a family with massive problems and and articulacy gap than it is to tackle more vocal people. If you are disempowered already you are unlikely to have the skills or knowledge to fight your corner.

Unfortunately I also know a family or two who are in the system, and am amazed that the mothers do not feel they need the intervention even though objectively from an outsider's pov their children very much do need the intervention (eg mothers repeatedly going back to abusive violent partners despite demonstrable harm to their children).

Where has Trippy retracted what she said? Am I missing something on such a long thread?

who is there to protect the children and the parents from harm when they are wrongly take away? it would rip your heart out.

Knittedbreast - if you really believe that children are removed, on a whim, from parents who have done nothing to raise concerns then you are absolutely, massively mistaken. IMO the cases where mistakes are made (and I'm talking generally here, I have specific examples but obviously can't discuss them in detail) are where the thresholds are different from area to area, or SW to SW, and when a parent may have been able to manage with the right support and doesn't get it

Now people are talking about lack of P&B placements - I have known families go to P&B placements 100s of miles away because that's where the space was, not that they refused to pay for one. But it's a reality that budgets are far too small - that's not SWs' faults, or SS depts - that's central govt and it's getting worse.

I have never ever known a family get to CP proceedings without real, huge concerns. There have been cases where the assessments have been over zealous, true - but it always gets stopped before CP proceedings. I have only ever been involved in one case where I felt the child should have been left with mother and wasn't - but it was incredibly borderline and my views were based mainly on the age of the child. Had it been a new baby at the time - maybe not. That child was returned after a period of time and £££££££££ invested in mother anyway.

Often the concerns are because the parent/s are very young, have experienced abuse themselves, and have no idea how to parent properly. They may love their DCs to the ends of the earth, but that doesn't mean they can parent them safely. That's a huge, sad and unavoidable fact. I'm often involved in supporting young parents through CP proceedings, and although I work for SS and have a duty of care to protect the children my emphasis is on supporting the parents and I have huge sympathy and empathy for them, but I can't pretend that all are good enough.

'But, this is all about money. Unless people start actively agitating their local councillors and MPs to increase support for vulnerable parents, to increase residential programs for parents with alcohol/ drug issues or LDs; this situation will continue to be be people who have no experience in child protection making stupid statements. If the people hysterically screeching about transparency and bad SS would spend their time fighting to increase support, then the problems would decrease.'

Same goes for all the people on here who claim they'd be happy to let SS take their child away and be adopted out if SS decided it was for the best.

Again, 340 posts on a thread to defame the character of someone, which, if it were me personally, I'd have already put my solicitors in contact with MNHQ, but only 69 on one started by a disabled woman terrified of PIP replacing DLA.

Oh, the irony.

I agree entirely, expat, that we should ALL do more to stand up for disability support.

I suspect the reason these threads get more attention is just that we all have kids, so it's easier to empathise. Not right, but maybe understandable.

To be fair I don't think anyone has said they'd be happy for SS to take their children away, just that they're willing to accept SS intervene when there are actual concerns, rather than being evil baby-snatchers.

Read some of the threads on the SN boards if you want to be convinced that not all SWs are angels who have their clients' best interests at heart.

Should be obvious really - no human being is infallible. SWs will make mistakes. And the systems they work within are designed and operated by human beings, so will never be perfect. That's why, in the legal system, you have the right to appeal - because it is accepted that miscarriages of justice occur. I can't see any way that it is at all likely that the family courts are perfect and never make the wrong call. Sad thing is, if you are the victim of a miscarriage of justice in the family courts, there is no redress. Not if your children have been adopted.

Too true, edam - both about mistakes being inevitable and adoptions irreversible. No idea what the answer is.

And I'm sure there are some absolute idiots/arseholes who are SWs and shouldn't be, I just believe that most of them are trying to do their job and do have the child's and family's best interests at heart.

Oh yes, I'm sure that is true. Just as most doctors and nurses go into the job because they want to relieve suffering and help the sick. You still get horrible tragedies in the NHS caused by poor care, though.

Absolutely - I very nearly refused to go to our local hospital when I was pregnant with DS1 as it did quite a good job of nearly neglecting my grandfather to death the year before.

Have since had nothing but respect and deep gratitude for the surgical, physiotherapy, maternity and child health departments.

The problem with the (rare) bad apples in this sort of area and child protection is that mistakes are literally a matter of life and death.

yes - SWs in child protection and mental health have an enormous amount of power. Just as doctors and nurses and midwives etc. etc. etc. do. So ideally you'd want all of them to be wise, compassionate and capable of making informed and correct judgments every time. I'd imagine very few of us mere humans measure up to that ideal, however. Even with all the training.

Expat I dont understand the comparison tbh.

These are two different issues.

I am fucking terrified that OH will lose his DLA and I know for a fact that DS2 is going to because they are getting rid of the lower rate at some point.

It doesnt mean I dont care about anything else though.

I care about this subject because I want parents to be given proper support. Good support that will help them not make everything worse. I endorse www.frg.org.uk because they really know what they are on about.
They offer help and advocacy to families in the system. They dont spout half truths and emotionally charged crap that only serves to panic.

Of course FRG are in danger of having their funding cut/withdrawn by the current gov. The one JH is a part of.

I wouldnt want SS knocking on my door.

I would be devastated. I have been expecting it to happen at some point because I know that its the sort of thing a couple of people would do. Both have been involved with SS themselves.

I know that even if I named them and told SS the background I will still have to be investigated and of course I wouldnt just sit back and be fine with it. I would hate it.

Even though I know I have nothing to hide and the kids are fine, I would still be terrified I would get the wrong SW. One that doesnt like dogs or is suspicious of black men or simply thinks that having lost a child makes you unstable.

I fear these things because I have seen how situations can snowball. The courts have to have massive amounts of evidence to get a care order though and a judge will send a SW away on the smallest technicality. Months of work will be thrown out if a form has not been filled in properly.

The system is not fit for purpose. It harms either way. Children get left in harmful situations and sometimes children are removed wrongly. I am pretty sure what happens most although both are equally dreadful.

I wouldnt be a sw in CP for any money. I cant see how they can work with what they have.

I just want to ask John Hemming directly (if indeed you are the real John Hemming) how he feels his virulently high-profile media campaigns are perceived by young, struggling, sick, isolated or scared mothers and fathers who fear they are not coping, and might call SS were it not for the fact they are now terrified that instead of helping they will forcibly remove their children? How does fighting these very few cases in this high lurid fashion assist the fate of the countless children whose parents will not now seek help?

I put to you that you are doing to further your own profile and vilify social work as a profession rather than in the actual interests of the few families you represent. You are an articulate man with a good education and many connections and I would imagine that if you truly cared about these people, you would be working to provide them with a decent advocacy service rather than splashing their and your nae all over the papers.

'These are two different issues.'

No, they're not. As funding is cut for all vulnerable people, there's less and less support for people who might be struggling with parenting. Cheaper to get SS to remove the kids and adopt them out, probably.