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!

Those who are saying that SS have upset their lives, that is awful, but most people seem to be missing my point somewhat.

Upsetting the lives of families is not good, but keeping a child in an abusive situation is many, many times worse.

Before SS were involved in my life, or when we had moved and SS hadn't 'caught up' with us, there were times when my life was unbearable. So many different adults would have had concerns, in fact many have said since how they wished they had done something. My siblings and I spoke to teachers on many occasions, and even they^ did nothing, presumably for fear of upsetting a family. Despite the cock-ups they have made in my life (and honestly, there have been some really serious ones), I would still rather deal with all that than be a child in an abusive, neglectful and often dangerous situation.

Yes, they get it wrong. A lot. But if that is the price to pay for getting the children that need it into safety, it's a bargain worth making in my opinion.

YANBU if a child is at serious risk but there are a few morons who will do it out of spite / because they're idiots.

BTW for all the social worker bashers - FFS catch a grip! There are idiots in every profession including the well-paid ones (yes that's for you shecutofftheirtails) but the social workers I know joined the profession full of idealism only to find themselves snarled up in red tape. Frankly some parents are scum bags and we don't take children away from them often enough. It is astonishingly difficult to remove a child from their parents permanently and I personally knew one child who died because of this (child was removed from home, pathetic cretinous mother claimed all was right with the world, had child returned to her by senile judge, then allowed her latest bastard boyfriend to destroy child over a period of months).

Yes, it does make me angry.

Well perhaps all the idiot social workers simple migrate to the children's disabled teams then to be used as puppets for the LA when parents complain about appalling educational provision.

We have had very recent experience with social services and the experience has been very positive. We were dealing with agencies in two different counties so I don't think you could put it down to getting lucky in one area.

Perhaps the reason our experience has been so positive is because we self referred. We requested a full welfare report as part of a case we are unfortunately in the middle of with the family courts at the moment.

Both agencies were able to give us useful advice and have both gone over and above what was asked for to help my dsd.

I do think that there seems to be a default mode of defense or suspicion from quite a lot of people when social services are involved.
We so often here about gps giving shit advice or behaving in a way that causes stress to a client on here but I have yet to see a post stating that all gps are shit.

Of course there are bad social workers, but there are so. Any more who are just doing their job and for the most part doing it well.

so many

Noir:
I think in order for it to change social work needs to become respected profession .... but in order for that to happen, this needs to happen: more accountability, more transparency, for less mistakes to be made. Social workers have to acknowledge their faults and be proactive in addressing them, in my opinion they (we) need to keep up to date with the latest research and models of best practice, they need to read Serious Case Reviews, take on board complaints/ criticism, say sorry when they get it wrong, constantly reflect on their practice and want to improve through continual learning and development. A surgeon doesn't just qualify and go 'ok im set for life' they need to constantly update their skills as the stakes are too high to get it wrong.

Surely, all those things Noir, were realised long ago. I'm sure I read a similar comment on a thread many many years ago. Are SS actually ANY further forward in reaching those goals?

Children are taken that shouldn't be and children are left in awful situations who should be removed

I agree with the second part - but the first?

I work with Care Leavers - that is 16-21 year olds who have been, and are in care. I have done this job for nearly 8 years so I have worked with people who are now mid-late twenties, down to my current youngest who are 16. I have worked directly with 60+ careleavers, and know many more. Not a single one who was on a care order should not have been removed from their parents. Out of those who were section 20 I can think of maybe three who shouldn't have ended up in care, but all of those were the young person's choice (refusing to go home) rather than them being removed as a child.

Trust me, there are far more children left at home who should be in care. I can hardly think of one teenager I know who would say they should have been left at home - even the ones who love and are loyal to their parents will almost always acknowledge that they shouldn't have been left at home.

If the system was removing hundreds of children who were completely safe at home, I'd be meeting them as young adults and it would be obvious. It's just not the case.

I do agree that there are a small minority of social workers who are over-zealous, risk averse or prejudiced against young/poor/care experienced parents/parents with MH issues and who can be punitive and unhelpful in their interventions. However all social workers work within a line management system and all work should be adequately supervised, and decisions made with agreement from managers. What is more, children are removed by courts, not social workers. No one SW can remove a child on their own.

Shhh Eric, stating that removing a child involves more then just SS is just SWs avoiding responsibilty, apparently.

People would rather complain about what they perceive SS's to be then engage with the realities of child protection.

Meanwhile this govt gets to dismantle child safeguarding services and no one cares, because SS and others involved in CP are supposedly useless any way.

I work with social workers.

They're marginally less useless than doctors, but quite often get things wrong and some of them are totally unprofessional such as the woman who lives in the flat above MIL.

On MN, atleast, it never ceases to amaze me how many SW'ers, have been abused themselves or come from damaged homes. or people who work in the abuse/neglect industry, have themselves been abused/neglected. I don't believe that really is the best place to come from, to have a 'balanced' view.

I am a Social Worker...I love my job, I HATE the system(s) that prevent me carrying out my role to the level I hope to achieve when working with all families/individuals that are allocated to me.

I am particularly pissed off today due to the fannying about of a senior manager who weeks ago chose to ignore my accurate assessment of a child protection incident and who pushed me to work on a day off on something that they thought was a priority...I was right, they were wrong as it inevitable turned out - I'm the one left to apologise, pick up the pieces, look like I can't do my job. And yes, a child in residential care was let down, disappointed, upset...I'm so fucking angry and upset at the emotional pain caused to the child and the sheer unnecessariness of it all.

It's a job that can suck the soul out of you, and frequently does. Some SW's are arseholes, some are great...just like so many other human beings. It is true, the only stories that hit the media are the like plane crashes - you don't see wall to wall t.v and newspaper coverage when thousands of planes land safely every day do you?

Like I said, I love my job...not for the money (Don't make me laugh, it's not THAT well paid!), or the 'power' . I've enjoyed reading all the posts above and take the good and the bad on board.

Oblomov I agree, a lot of the teenagers I've worked with, mainly the girls, have said that they would like to go into Social Work because they understand what it's really like to be on the other end...and they're right, it can be a huge asset and help them really become good SW's.

Oblomov - that's not an accurate reflection of real life. I don't know any SW who came to it because of their own childhood experiences. None of the SWs I know well (and I know quite a lot as good friends) have experienced abuse or neglect in childhood. Most have had some difficult experiences, as have we all, such as an abusive relationship, or loss of a child, or child with disabilities etc. It's not the case that SS are full of people who grew up in care or whatnot. You need to have good emotional resilience to be a social worker, a person who was abused as a child can certainly have that, but equally they may find dealing with abused and traumatised children to be too difficult or triggering. Those people would be steered away from SW at the earliest opportunity.

Eric, I said on MN. My Step father has just retired. He was a very very senior Sw'er. He did not come from a dysfunctional family.
I was just saying that on MN, many people who are involved in SW have said on threads how they have been abused/neglected.

EricNorthmansMistress yes, this ... 'equally they may find dealing with abused and traumatised children to be too difficult or triggering. Those people would be steered away from SW at the earliest opportunity'...should have been added as a caveat at the end of my last post - too tired to type all thoughts in my head after a long day spent doing typing, not out seeing people like I should.

P.s I wasn't abused/neglected...had an interesting life tho'!

I think if you have genuine and sensible concerns then absolutely SS should be contacted.

My main concern is that there are some people (by this I mean members of the public) who have incredibly strange ideas of what makes a dangerous/neglectful or abusive parent. IYSWIM. I have give this example on MN before but I think it illustrates it perfectly: My Mum was on a bus and there was a Mum with a toddler. The toddler was pointing excitedly at the cows in the field and the Mum was saying things like 'yes that's some cows'. When she was getting off the bus she had to struggle with all her shopping, the toddler and the pushchair. While she was standing at the bus stop trying to put the pushchair back up the toddler tried to run off. This meant the Mum had to make a grab for her to stop her and keep her safe. On this 'evidence' an older man on the bus decided she must have been high on drugs and was an unfit mother. If he had seen where she lived he could have easily reported her if that is what he had been encouraged to do. If everyone like him made reports a service already under pressure would reach breaking point and those genuinely in need would be in danger of slipping through the net in a 'can't see the wood for the trees scenario.

I know a report is initially looked at by the duty social worker but just think if he/she is inundated with spurious and malicious complaints it could delay them looking at a genuine case IYSWIM. When a child is genuinely at risk then the faster they get help the better.

I am with mrskeithlemon on this.

If a child is in a dangerous/abusive situation, then yes, the child's welfare absolutely must come first, no question about that.

OTOH, I have seen too many parents harrassed reported to SS by vindictive malicious people, whose only agenda is to cause as much suffering and upset to the family as possible, knowing that they can report and make allegations as often as they like, which are all followed up with investigations into the family, and it can never be seen as harrassment of any kind.
It is fast becoming a fool proof way to harrass someone with no comeback imvho, and until that sort of harrassment is dealt with, I have to say that not all people who report do have genuine concerns for the child...some just want to cause disruption to the family..and it does disrupt the family.

Oblomov do you think that might be because they are attracted to the threads, because they have a lot to say on these issues perhaps?

I'm a bit confused about your earlier post:

"On MN, atleast, it never ceases to amaze me how many SW'ers, have been abused themselves or come from damaged homes. or people who work in the abuse/neglect industry, have themselves been abused/neglected. I don't believe that really is the best place to come from, to have a 'balanced' view."

Well, a 'balanced' view will presumably be formed by seeing both good and bad things? So, could someone who had never experienced abuse or neglect ever truly have a 'balanced' view?

It strikes me as obvious that someone who has experience in one area would like to use their skills and experience to make things better for others. For example, bereaved parents often support charities connected to the deaths of their children.

Loopy, that wasn't what I was saying. I don't think you can get a 'balanced' view, as you see it. You can't be bought up in a totally loving family environment, whilst at the same time being abused and neglected. Can you ?
So, how can you get the 'balance', that you talk of ?
That wasn't what I meant by balanced.

I have PERSONAL experience, from both sides of the spectrum (as a child in care, and also as a parent) that is horrific. I can explain the basics on here, but not too much detail - or I can be held for breach of court order from the family courts.

I was removed from my mothers care as a 4 year old after her boyfriend raped me. I was not told this. When my father commited suicide when I was 10, I was moved BACK in with my mother. I was then physically abused for a further 4 years with SS denying it and believing my mother. Eventually I was removed from my mothers home by a TEACHER who refused to let me back there - so I was placed in FC.

As I was on the at-risk register when my DD was born (I was only 16yo, you don't get removed from the at-risk register until you are 18yo) my DD automatically went on the at-risk register. I had meetings while I was still pregnant where social workers were saying I should have my baby removed from the hospital - thus never being allowed to look after my own dc. This was despite me having found MYSELF accommodation in a mother and baby unit that was staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I had to go through court to be allowed a 12 week 'trial' of being allowed to look after my OWN CHILD.

When my DD was 15 months old, my case was put 'on file' as SS had no concerns about my child-rearing abilities. Now, my DD has autism, which was obviously undiagnosed at such a young age. When my HV contacted SS when she was 16mo and complained that my DD was regressing, and she thought I was neglecting her because of the regression - SS INSTANTLY REMOVED MY DD FROM MY CARE. I had to go through family court, have my every movement scrutinised, walk 18 miles a day to get to have a 1 hour Supervised visit with my DD as they had placed her in FC in another town. It took me over a month to get my DD returned to my care, and another 2 and a hlaf years to get a diagnosis of Autism for my DD, which fully explained her regression - not neglect as the HV so casually reported, but AUTISM.

Anyone who tells me that SS do not make 'snap judgements' on situations, and work to their own agenda, is wildly hoodwinked IMO.

FYI - I have a report now from SS after wild accusations from my Ex-P that states that I manage excellently given my 'challenging' situation (lone parent with a disability, caring for 4 dc, two of whom have asd), and that they have NO worries about my parenting abilities.

Doesn't mean that I still don't have a deep mistrust of SS, and their abilities to do the right thing in the right situation. And I disagree with the secrecy of the family courts too - it should be out in the open, and not shut away as it is right now.

I personally would ONLY contact SS if I KNEW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the child was at serious risk of harm. If I was concerned about a crying baby etc, I would go and offer a parent that is obviously struggling for whatever reason at that moment some PRACTICAL HELP. Because, sad as it is - SS don't often HAVE the MONEY to offer practical help, so their hands are ted, and their only real options are to either ignore a family facing a crisis and needing support, or to take the children into care. The budget is there for FC, (sort of!) but it just ISN'T there to offer practical support.

Look at how little Respite care families with disabled dc get.