to wonder how social workers can hold their heads up?

[downtothesea]

to think that our society must have lost its moral compass when the same social services which set the adoption bar so high also determine that children should be made to stay in this situation:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020464/Emily-Harbour-Mother-avoids-jail-leaving-baby-son-squalid-Newbury-house.html

Lady-not overnight and it depends on the circumstances. The neighbour might have heared them getting drunk in the house, so was quite right to contact the police.

It was just lucky that the neighbour wasn't the type to ignore what she thought was neglect. If in doubt phone SS or the police.

Depends who the 15 year old girl is, if you leave your child with someone who is 15 but is say in trouble with the police or is on drugs say or has had a child removed themselves then their will be an issue

Its not enough to make sure the person is of age but that they are fit and proper person to look after a child

I wouldn't consider someone who was fresh out of a hound offenders a fit and proper person

And also the fact the 15 year old parents allowed her to babysit in those squalid conditions with out notifying any one says a lot in itself

Young offenders that's is

Haven't read the link.

But to the OP and all the other social-worker bashers -

If you're so perfect and think you could do a better job in an under-staffed, under-resourced, high-stress, low-pay, under-valued and criticised profession - why don't you have a go yourselves?

Go on. Retrain. Spend a year walking in those shoes. Then come back and tell us how bloody easy it is.

And no - I'm not a social worker. I don't have the guts or the patience. But I thank God other people do.

social worker can not do the job they need to do, unless people report parents for abuse or neglect.

i have seen many threads on here, where people have said should i report someone to social services.

Social service have not got secret cameras in every parents home to monitor children 24/7.

I know especially with younger children often school age children's abuse is uncovered due to to their teachers being able to see changes in the children and a mandatory duty to report, but often younger children see know one so so one knows if their being abused part from people in the housing surrounding, these people often miss appointments with hv, as so abuse go un noticed and even go so far to hide the children so they say oh well Johnny sleeping so you can't see him.

I even know of a family who were paying a lady down the road to use her home when they had official appointments as they were living in a squat with no running water this went on for years until Heath visitor made a unannounced visit on her way home one night and realised this was not were the family lived

"I even know of a family who were paying a lady down the road to use her home when they had official appointments as they were living in a squat with no running water this went on for years "

Why didn't you report them?

Not me personally in my job I heard of this family after the event sorry i should have made that clear.

I often get told of grim tales, And sw always tell me of the lengths people go to to deceive and cover up their abuse /neglect

But like I said some feel ss should have some all seeing eye so they can locate all abuse even when the parent is lying

When Social services start removing children from abusive situations - immediately those situations are apparent - then they might get warrant a bit more respect. Until then....
And the whole world is up against budget restrictions, job cuts... yada yada.
Take the kids off bad folks - it's not hard, after all shouldn't uni have taught you how to judge?
By the time the kids are finally put up for adoption they are well and truly fucked and nobody wants them or can cope with them - so Who exactly does this particular policy help?
From a child centred perspective???
Sounds like appeasing the abusers to me - haven't you got the guts for it?
Take them - walk in the door and take them - or sit and watch for four years while some tosser works his magic on them - and then take them - when nothing can be done to help them.
All you SWs on here - why aren't you doing something to change the bloody system instead of using it to excuse non-action?
Here's an interesting scenario - will it make the DailyMail - probably not.
inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/dawn-will-break-eventually/
So all the SWs here can pretend that the cases reported in the mail are soooooo rare ...yeah!

Yabu, might I suggest the daily fail fora as a place where you might like to meet likeminded folk?

"Walk in the door and take them" Yeah, because it's really that easy isn't it? Downtothesea, you really need to learn something about how social workers are allowed to operate, and then you might not come out with such tosh. If you're such an expert, why don't you just go and train as a social worker, and find out for yourself how "easy" it is to do that job?

And when you simply remove these kids from "bad folk" then what you seem to have missed a little thing called the law more times than not the recommendation of a sw is for the child to be removed BUT

A- the thresh hold for having a child removed is so low parents can almost do what they like for years before a judge will allow a child to be removed

B - their is am little thing called article 8 right to family life (god help us )

C- even if they could removed the bad folks 10 kids were would they put them foster carers are over stretched as its is and usually only have space for 1 or two children and people like you often moan instead of joining up to be part of the solution why don't you become a foster carer and help instead of moaning about daily mail stories

feckwit - the really stupid thing is that when the powers-that-be say 'oh, but we don't have the money for intensive intervention to change families around' what they really mean is 'we'd rather spend the money on the courts/police/prisons/hospitals'. Because family breakdown and child neglect/abuse cost far more than the kind of preventative or therapeutic work you'd like to see. But no-one with the power to do anything about it seems to give a toss about that (and God only knows what will happen now they are cutting social care and youth services and the police and the NHS all at the same time).

The family nurse partnership, for instance, seems to have very good results - it's a proven intervention in the states and early research here is promising. Give vulnerable young parents a named health visitor who builds a relationship with them and supports them to become confident, good parents, and you aren't just helping them and their kids, you are saving the taxpayer shedloads of money down the line.

Stewie - thousands want to adopt - wants wrong with taking kids from crap homes for adoption? - When you've got your head out of your ass...
Well Columbia999 - now then was it Cleveland? What was that Scottish island? I suppose they tightened the rules up after those cock-ups. No shame there!
Still, you have to live with yourself when you leave the kids there - don't you? If I worked in that system, I'd try and change it - didn't see whoops of support from SWs for Martin Narey though - doesn't sound like they want to change it - just moan about it.
Again Maypole, what about adoption - clearly fostering is not a solution.
Stop blaming the law - you're the people running the system - if you can't/won't change it...

Where are all the posters who argue on the social work bashing threads that we are the only country that removes children without proof of actual physical harm and that mothers should be allowed to kill a couple of children before intervention is justified ? ( I paraphrase, but not unfairly)

I would love to hear their well reasoned and informed responses to this kind of situation.

Erm , weren't Cleveland and the Orkneys scandals where children were taken away but shouldn't have been?

I may have missed the thread but in my experience is my beautiful adopted son,s birth mother was a heroine addict who already had 2 children removed due to her addiction pregnant again with 3rd child with new partner. She man

OP what conference was you at, Martin Neary has vast support from SW's, will i see you there in September at the BASW conference?

It's so easy to decide and know what a crap home is, isn't it
Also the DC's have been removed in your link, the GM has them and is entitled to as a blood relative.

The system doesn't need big changes.
You haven't gone through the training or experience, so you don't know anything about services for Children and Families.

I have provided a link because you don't seem to understand that SW DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO REMOVE DC'S UNLESS THE COURT DECIDES UNDER THE CHILDREN ACT THAT 'RISK' IS SUBSTANTIAL.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/31/contents

The majority of adopters want White babies, so what happens to disabled children, teens children who are legally not allowed to be adopted
also no one wants to take on large sibling groups good luck trying to find someone to adopt 7 children between the ages of 2-17 often the children are different races have different fathers so have different legal status.

And often the parent block adoptions for years even though the child will not be returned and by the time it all gone to the court the children are no longer newborn

You are such a fool and have shown you know nothing about adoption not all children are in care because of abuse of neglect.

So your talk of bad folk is

Like every one here saying if its that easy why don't you try your hand at being a sw of a foster carer

I think op is freed from the shackles of reason and logic.

Cleveland and orkneys scandals were classic examples of professionals getting carried away by crazy theories - anal dilation as proof of sexual abuse and widespread satanic abuse - and bullying children to 'disclose' what 'really happened.'

And I would say thing have considerably improved since then. Serious guidelines about how you interview children, use of leading questions etc. People may not always get it right but at least are directing efforts in more helpful directions.

Birds when you ask these anti sw people about what training or experience they don't answer and no doubt they don't have any

Be wary of quoting Cleveland because later investigastion, once the DC's were of 'adult' age proved that there had been abuse.

OP by your reckoning SW should be going in and permantly removing Dc's from what could be a struggling parent and not helping.

Very few people haven't struggled at times but some are lucky to have good support systems around them.

Ask the DC's if they would want to be adopted outside of the family because of what could be a temporary situation.

Lets no give this op any more file she clearly has no experience of looked after children or sw

And thinks its just as simple as consulting mystic meg for abused children then swooping in

Good I wish my views were so simplistic