Social Services are not the Childcatcher (FFS)

[LoopyLoopsPussInBoots]

(Thread about so many threads)

AIBU to think that if you have concerns for the welfare of a child, you don't assess the situation yourself, you let the professionals know so they can evaluate the situation?

I know contact from SS can be daunting and worrying for a parent, but the fear of upsetting an adult, or the fear of repercussions on yourself can NEVER trump the fear of welfare for a child.

Social Services will not just wade in and take children away without very compelling reasons to do so. Please don't be scared of calling them if you think a child is at risk of abuse, whatever form this may take. Don't 'wait and see', don't try to sort it out yourself, don't ask a million people for advice and do nothing, ask the trained and experienced professionals to do their job and assess the situation properly.

FFS!

"sacrifice one innocent (your sister) to rescue many, many others"

It's not just one innocent - a child wrongfully removed from their family also suffers.

It's not just removing children that causes harm either.

There are longstanding MNers who have had appalling SS interference into their family life that has caused harm to all of them. Stressed out, paranoid, fearful parents being hectored and harassed by two-bit state officials is not good for children.

Sometimes it is right to call SS. Sometimes it is not.

I do not want to live in a society where we are supposed to outsource our judgement and humanity to bureaucrats.

My sister was practicly forced to hand her kids over, telling her how bad she was, twisting words, and putting words in her mouth. The tactic used was for her to doubt her self. She hit rock bottom do the this one SS worker.

My mum then said she wanted the kids and they refused her. (my mum has no criminal records, works full time, good money ect).

Turned out the SS Worker was taken off the case (we dont know what happened to him)

Sister got a letter of appology from SS.

sO NOIR - Yes there are guidlines but its not always followed.

but the success stories aren't publisised, therefore you will always hear mroe abd than good??

or am i missing the point?

MrsStephenFry yet the complainers aren't willing to do such a hard and thankless job.

How on earth could you know that?

How do I know someone that says "SS are all shit, SS are the devil" etc aren't working for SS?

Did you really ask such a stupid question?

And who shall pay for all this extra intervention, given SS are already overworked and budgets are under pressure?

I think it would help if there was more accountability when they were wrong. If social services remove a child from their family on flimsy grounds or they are wrong and it turns out they ignored evidence that said the child was not being abused, then the child should be compensated and the ss prosecuted. It is wrong that social workers can give evidence in closed courts (yet if a stranger abused a child the courts are open), and we need to know that if they behave badly they will face the consequences of the law. You cannot have trust where there is no transparency and accountability. The case described above where a social worker lied to the mother, encouraged a violent person to look after the children and tried to manipulate children's welfare for his own ends should not just have resulted in an apology, he should have been barred from working in child protection. there are plenty of other avenues for social workers, not all work in child protection. We also need to know that councils receive no financial incentive to remove children i.e incentive to adopt children out (this led to an increase in cute fluffy babies which are easily adoptable being removed).

Soon after my DD was diagnosed with her medical condition there was a news article about a family who had lost three precious boys irrevocably due entirely to the the same thing but un-diagnosed in their case.

The family fought to get a medical dx after help had been given from the public but the DC had already been in foster care for ages and by the time it was all explained the adoption process had been completed.

It's a common (one in one hundred) but not well-known condition, too. And family courts can pick and choose if expert witnesses are allowed (THAT IS VERY ALARMING) so if anything happened with DD the dx, the ten years of treatment, exemplary behaviour wrt getting her correct help might count for nothing compared to her physical appearance.

There but for the grace... it could happen to anyone's next child and is one of the reasons I am terrified to have a much-wanted third DC.

So as well as treasuring each moment that my DD is alive I also have to worry that she and her brother, who also has specific needs (autistic) may be separated from each other and from their loving parents while other poor children are starved and beaten and neglected and are given chance after chance after chance.

MrsStephenFry i think you will find my job was just as hard, i was out fighting in Iraq for our country.

MrsStephenFry I asked how on earth you could know that the complainers would be unwilling to do such a hard and thankless job.....really? How could you know that?

And I refer you back to my previous statement. Someone who thinks that social works are only a rung below chairman mao hasn't got their application in to work as one, have they?

Seriously, are you allowed to operate a keyboard alone?

"sacrifice one innocent (your sister) to rescue many, many others"

A child has the right to a family life under the human rights act, being falsly deprived of this is a human rights abuse, and judges have actually upheld cases against councils by children falsly removed on the basis that they suffered a human rights violation. A heart surgeon is not allowed to practice on the basis that he only makes a few fatal mistakes, and we have to think of the patients she does not kill or injury why should social workers get treated differently.

Are you a SW mrsSF? Because I can think of plenty of hard and thankless jobs out there (I do one) and yet I complain about SS because of my experience with them

oh dear. THE hard and thankless job, not A hard and thankless job. Not any random difficult job.
Please don't tell me you do a job involving talking to people? Actual, real people.

Noir that might very well be the case, but, some social workers do not always make this clear to parents. I was told more than once if I did not do exactly as the SW said when she said it I would lose my children. There was no mention of courts or evidence or temporary measures. Just that I would lose them. She did make it sound that she could just decide my children would be better off elsewhere and walk in and take them. I was too stressed, scared and tired to question her.

Had she mentioned the fact that she would need to go to court and it could take weeks then I'd have told her to go and stick her new carpet up her arse, knowing very well that I was leaving my poorly maintained rented accomodation (as she also knew when she demanded I replace floor boards and carpetting from my own pocket if the LL would not agree to do it) for a newly refurbished house that we owned in just a few weeks and all her 'concerns' would be solved.

She left SW just after she closed the case on my family, but made it clear to me that she was only closing the case because she was leaving and if I had any SS involvement again I would lose my children . I lived in fear of someone making a malicious complaint against me for around a year before I realised this wasn't true.

Now I am more than aware that not all SWs are like this. Some are great and they do a very difficult job that is made harder by the bad or inept SWs. But the system does need changing and parents need to be more aware of their rights and the complaints procedure, ime.

And it really pisses me off, the pedantic, "only the police have the power to remove children"

On who's say-so, then? Unless in an emergency, for example, children found in a car driven by a drunk parent, Social Services make reports to the courts. To say that SS have no part to play in the process is disingenuous and smacks of a complete lack of accountability which is seriously unprofessional.

Over the last 7 years I have fostered over 70 children. There has not been one that shouldn't have been in care. Some of them were in care with the permission of their parents who were brave enough to admit they couldn't cope. Most had been removed.
As in any walk of life there are some SWs who should probably not be doing the job. On the whole though they do an amazing job. The pay is not great, their case loads are huge and they are faced with verbal and often physical abuse daily. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They are instantly blamed for any mistakes when often there will be a whole host of other professionals involved. I wouldn't do their job for any money.

SWs need a court order to remove children. They don't just turn up on the doorstep and drag children away kicking and screaming as some seem to believe. They need to present huge amounts of evidence to a judge to get an order and the final decision is made by the judge not the SW.

Loopy YANBU. It's great that your experiences haven't prevented you from seeing the bigger picture.

maryz,
You do not have secret courts for child abuse cases where a stranger abuses a child. there is no reason why a social worker cannot give evidence in an open court referring to the child as child x, and no reason why if they make mistakes or mislead they cannot be prosecuted.

And why is it wrong to mention adoption targets, do you think people should be barred from mentioning facts that show the ss up.

MrsStephenFry Grow up. You make assumptions that everybody who complains (often with good reason) would not be willing to do a 'hard and thankless job'

All I asked was how on earth can you possibly know that? You make sweeping generalisations that everybody who has had SS involvement and good reason to 'bitch and moan' (your words) would not be willing to do a hard and thankless job.

doin,
That is exactly right, as soon as ss get involved they need to explain the legal rights of both the parents and the child and make it clear to them they can go to court and fight any application to remove the children and that the ss have no legal power to remove the children without a court order which they can oppose.

Dooin

When it happened to our family the medical evidence was thankfully accepted and no SW even came to my home so it was a clear case of mistaken reporting but the man on the end of the phone didn't apologise and instead told me to, "be good and hope that you never hear from us again"

There is something hugely wrong with this system.

LoopyLoops I get your points about not trying to 'sort it out yourself', not sitting back and doing nothing, and not being scared by repurcussions on self.
But I think often posters ask for reassurance and opinions on here because if they are going to report then they need to do so as competently and confidently as they can, rather than with vague garblings which could have been better presented.
I think these posters are anxious that if they do report and for some reason which they could have prevented their report doesn't lead to a child who might have desperately needed help and protection getting those things then they've potentially worsened the situation by writing off their own power to help.
As you say, Social Services are overworked and (famously) mistakes get made, so it's no wonder that people are cautious about when and perhaps more importantly how they report their concerns.

If you're sure something bad is happening and you're agonising over what to do then okay go see SS about it. Don't be anonymous as you can help more by having a proper talk with them. They can better assess what you have to say if they know what your relationship is.

The whole 'just report them anyway to be on the safe side' is a bad idea. If you can't use your own judgement at all then how do you decide in the first place if you have concerns for the welfare of a child? You're adults and parents and you know that kids cry sometimes and have tantrums sometimes and that one sob doesn't mean abuse.

The 'Just report them anyway' attitude could swamp the SS if followed and sabotage their efforts to help those in genuine need.

It also encourages those who would report someone they know for their own satisfaction. We know they exist because they post on MN sometimes.

For that matter we're had some pretty scary posters who claimed to be SS. If there is any chance they really are then you don't want to report your worst enemy to them without good reason.

"then the child should be compensated and the ss prosecuted"

This happens in a fashion, Im not sure of the details exactly but children in the family courts have a Guardian Ad Litem and the Guardian can bring civil action against the LA on the child's behalf if the LA is thought to have failed in their duty to protect. Children can also sue retrospectively as adults for failings made in their childhood.

There is also a level of individual accountability for the individual social worker through the national body who registers them (though tories are doing away with this body, it seems the functions will be transferred to a health body so the accountability remains). Through this process an individual social worker can receive an admonishment against their record for up to two years, be suspended or obviously, struck off altogether.

Accountability in social work is getting better, and rightly so. If we are to be regarded as a valued, competent profession it is important that standards are as high as can possibly be and that those falling short (either individually or as a Local Authority) are held to account.