to be fuming at the "protecting our children" programme on BBC2 tonight?

[runtybunty]

I do not understand how a young child can be filmed like this. They stated at the start of the programme that they could not identify the 3 year old boy for his own protection. So how can they show his house, his parents and every other view of "toby" other than face-on? You would have to be a complete dimwit not to recognise the child if you knew him in real life.

Didn't see this programme, but I shall try to catch it on i-player.

I've fostered a child on the CP register, so have some first-hand experience of this, though I'm sure things have changed since.

IME removing a child isn't easy and is a long, drawn out process. I recognise what Birds is saying about some parents refusing assistance no matter how much help is offered. It costs a lot of money to remove a child and it's never done lightly.

However, where I think the system goes wrong (and SWs can only operate in the framework they are given) is the concentration on what's best for the child in direct opposition to what's best for the parents. Sometimes, in cases of abuse for example, that is the only way to look at it. However, often, a far better outcome for all would be to look at the entire family as a whole.

Signposting services or offering them is not good enough. Sometimes you have to hold the hand of the parent and help them through the process. In my experience, that doesn't happen. The parent is recommended they do this, that and the other and then failure to do so results in the conclusion that they won't help themselves and therefore cannot look after the child. There is no recognition that the parent (even one without SN) may lack the skills or mental fortitude at that point to action all this, whereas if it was set up for them they would engage quite happily. It may cost more money and more time (and believe me I think SWs are overworked already and need more resources to make the system work) but the results would be worth it, especially when you consider the appalling outcomes of children who are brought up in care.

This is on BBC i-player if you missed it.

Springydaffs, you talk about " a project run by CP sw's in a deprived area. The project was, apparently, to teach the women 'how to make friends' (in a middle class way it would seem)."

Isolation and lack of friends goes alongside depression and feelings of desperation. Why would friendship not be important? I've worked in projects similar to that - they can be a lifeline.

"one vigilant SW noticed though I suspect that was why they set up the project, to spy on the mothers that one of the kids had bad bruising on his legs. The CP machine swung into action, the mothers terrified, caught in the headlights, realising too late they'd been set up. The 'bad bruising' turned out to be ink from the kid's named wellies, which had rubbed off on his legs."

It's not nice to be investigated for non-accidental injuries, but it has to be done - why would you risk a child's safety?

My DS was dx at 2.9 and DH and I were remarking on Tobys many artistic traits just ten minutes into the programme. But that was from the point of view that a child with ASD needs a routine and a calm and ordered home more than most. So again. It is difficult.

Sunshine- the plans now contain details for both the parents and children, so the family is considered as a whole, birth family will always be considered as the best option. It is the team of family support workers (fsw)who do take the parents by the hand and will take them. I turned up at a 'client' regulary to take her to appointments, she just wouldn't come. The FSW used to get the bus with her to the Childrens Centre to attend groups, but often she decided not to go. Most services wil se the parent at home, they don't let them in. It is after removal they then confess to drug use/drinking on top if their problems.

We get bus passes, travel support (buddy systems etc) the parents who don't get their children. back don't engage. I am glad that it showed the bed being got. I have dropped cots off to 'fully functioning' parents and then had to go back three days later and put i up (the FSW) has not been given entry to do this. You have to see it to belive it.

Um, autistic. Including sensory issues.

sunshine, you're dead right that some parents need very clear, practical, hands-on help to access services. They may need someone to take them to appointments, to support groups, to parenting courses. The projects I was involved in did this, and for some parents, it was absolutely essential. For others, they still refused - their right to refuse, of course.

For all we know, the parents in the programme last night might have had this sort of help - they were brought a bed and a safety gate, and these were delivered to them. Maybe someone should have also taken them to buy bedding and helped them make up the bed, too.....maybe that had been offered, who knows?

i don't know if more could have been done to help tiffany, but i do know that there couldn't be any doubt that toby was flourishing in foster care.

i was sooo sad to see that he hadn't found permanent adoption by the end of the programme but he was undoubtably doing better than he was with his parents, foster care isn't ideal but foster parents can do a fantastic job.

hopefully his sister won't suffer any of the damange that toby did.

this was not a great result for tiffany, but it was for the baby girl, and i think on balance for toby too.

soo sad though

Having another child in Tiffany's poor physical condition with all that going on showed a terrible lack of judgement but it was quite interesting showing how quickly things escalated.

I may be wrong but aren't risk factors lower for newborns? I remember reading that it's when babies are mobile that dangers increase.

Now this annoys me, why the hell should the state be deep cleaning people's shit filled houses, dropping and assembling cots and beds. If they haven't the inclination or ability to do the basics then they shouldn't have the children and more action being taken against these parents might stop them putting the children into such a position, as might cutting their benefits.

sorry, i got distracted and missed the OP's point.

personally i would never ever recognise the baby girl if i came across her (it was probably filmed, what at least six months ago).. toby is still in foster care and anybody who knows his foster carers will know that they are fostering him. i personally don't think i'd recognise him, and certainly not in a years' time. he still has written contact fromt tiffany twice a year so he'll know who she is and presumably she'll say she loved him but couldn't care for him, which is obvious from the programme. i don't think they've done him any real disservice in this programme.

Namechanged for this (to one I have used before to ask a question relating to SWs)

I did not see the program and have no intention to as I had DS taken off us when he was younger and I dont think I could cope with watching that. I must say before I say anything else that we fought for him back and he is with us along with younger siblings and we have no involvement with SS now at all. They have closed the case and cut all contact with us. Obviously there will still be notes flying around between schools, doctors etc, but they have left us alone.

I just wanted to come in from a been there perspective.

We found that it seemed too easy to take DS off us and was pretty much done overnight. When the courts agreed to let us have him back that was a long drawn out process. We had SWs coming into our house and being really nasty with us, shouting and putting us down. We think that they were just trying to push our buttons and make us snap which never actually happened. We were accused of hurting DS which I truely believe DH didnt and I know I didnt and we are 99% certain which professional it was, but of course they denied it and it was most likely us according to SS - there were no arrests or charges brought against us though as there was not enough proof. We just sat there quiet and let them get it all out. I do think we were very lucky to have the SW we did. If I see her now (and I have bumped into her from time to time) we have a chat like we were too old friends. Apparently she really had to persuade her bosses to let us have DS back even though everyone including the guardian and psychologists were in agreement for DS to come back to us.

Ive not read all the thread, but one thing I do have to say is that Im surprised that some parents are very relaxed about trying to get their DCs back home in regards to asking for bus fairs when they live walking distance. I also know someone who has had her DC taken off her to live with her parents (the DCs grandparents) a good 30 miles away yet she refuses to find a place nearby the child (she rents) the SWs involved are from the area where the DC is currently residing. Though maybe its not that easy for her to do that. I would have jumped through fire and eaten hot coals if it meant I could have my child back.

It is one of the worst thing in the world to have your child taken off you and there is no support for the parents. Plenty for the child, but none for the parents. Was a very dark time and Im glad Im out the other side. It seems to me that no-one cares about the parents. Obviously the child is the main concern, but parents are people too and surely in some cases the child can stay with the parents if there is more support for them. The problem SWs have is that they may take the child off perfectly good parents who just need a bit of help (assuming that these parents will actually allow themselves to be helped) or they may leave children where they really shouldnt be left (baby P). Would be helpful if the parents could have help for them seperate from the help for the children.

It's kind of ironic- but I did have one grandparent say to me 'All you people think about is the children'. Well yes- it IS called Children's Services after all....

And as for not having a toothbrush not being neglectful- I had to deal with a 12 year old girl who had to have false teeth after all her adult teeth were found to be decayed. Can you imagine how excruciating that would be for a teenager?
Or when the other kids at school won't play with a child because he stinks of urine? Or comes to school with encrusted faeces on his leg.

Obviously an emotive issue but some of the opinions on here are unbelievable. I just wonder if the same people would be marching with their pitchforks if that child had been found dead through neglect and it had been a major media explosion and ss witch hunt. Think baby P.

What those 'parents' were providing or engaging with support with to provide was no way good enough. I wouldn't want them to care for my child and thats what we should gauge it on, society has to take some responsibility in judging parenting skills otherwise a lot more children would end up dead.

I did feel that the mother would have been more willing to engage so did feel sad at the outcome tho.

Wow, I'm shocked that people didn't think this was neglect! He didn't have a toothbrush, he didn't have a bed and there was dog wee and poo all over the floor. The flat was filthy and the couple were given lots of chances to change. How is this not neglect?!!

It's not that I don't feel sorry for the parents, I really did. But Toby and that baby deserved so much better.

IMO the system really needs to change in the UK and work towards supporting parents who really need help.

Addressing a point that youngermother made about it is better for a child to be taken out of a bad environment and placed with a loving adoptive family. I agree that in an ideal world this is the best scenario but the reality is that there aren't the families out there for these children. The number of families looking to adopt is very low compared to the number of children that need adopting. Historically there were far more people looking to adopt children. IVF and the ability to adopt children from other countries have naturally decreased this number. Couple this with the massive rise of children being taken into care since the baby P scenario, the reality for the majority of these children is that they will spend their whole life in the care system and will NEVER find this loving adoptive family.

At any one time there are 65,000 children in care in the UK and it costs £2,500 a week per child. Doing the math this is £1.6 million per week. Surely to god there is a better way than splitting a family up, separating siblings etc? I personally don't see neglect in the same way as abuse and feel that money would be far better spent in supporting these parents and keeping the families together.

I recently watched another programme about children in "the system", can't remember what it was called. There was a mum who had her child taken away as a young mother because she was in an abusive relationship. She subsequently left that relationship and met another partner. They had a home and another child together. She was fighting to get her son back and her argument was that she was a good mum to her other baby so why couldn't she have her other son back? The first son had spent all his life with a foster mum and thought of them as his family, they wanted to adopt him but the bio mum was fighting it. In that case, I thought it was better for the child to stay with the foster mum and be adopted because that was all he knew and he loved his family and the foster mum. Why to god though had it got to that stage in the first place? The bio mum had left the abusive relationship and had another child she was looking after. She obviously had LD and had made some bad choices but surely she deserved a 2nd chance?

There was another family where the mum had had the children taken away and the children were adopted, only for them to be given back after 3 YEARS because the adopters couldn't cope!

It seems to me that criminals leave prison with a clean slate and a 2nd chance but that a parent who for whatever reason is having difficulties or cannot cope is not supported in the same way. Once the decision has been made to take the child away there is no process to work towards getting the family back together.

If a child needs to be taken away temporarily because the social worker has concerns then there should be a step by step approach towards working toward this. Parenting classes, money management, addresssing housing issues, courses to help them get the skills to get a job etc. If it costs £2500 per week to put the child in care then there has to be a better way of spending this money?

Drug users get this - it's called rehabilitation. Why the hell don't these children and their parents deserve this? The statistics for a child in the care system make very dismal reading and the prognosis for that child's future is very dim indeed.

Heswall, we spend money helping people like this couple because we are a compassionate society. Once upon a time, people like this couple were forcibly sterilized and thrown into institutions.

I was appalled - but not remotely surprised - at what a wind-up the Social Worker's were to the father especially. They kept firing accusations at him, while the child was in the room, then criticized him for raising his voice and getting angry in front of the child. The scene where the boy was about to be taken into foster care because the mum was in hospital was dreadful and probably caused more long lasting trauma to the child than not having a bed ever did.

More practical help, in the home, step by step. Long term

runty but the family would not engage! That stuff WAS all offered. Mike was hostile. Simply would not engage. Tiffany tried, but , for whatever reason, simply could not.

Personally, I feel she should have had more help. She was a dv victim. They split up and she moved out. I hope she was with women's aid. I felt she was under his spell from the beginning and wanted to work with the system, but mike simply would not have it. From being in a dv situation myself, I recognised her fears

I watched this in disgust.mhow some posters can come on here and even suggest the children could have been left in that situation is totally laughable. I have my daughter beside me who was born 3 weeks ago at 33 weeks gestation and I can tell you now she would be dead if I brought her home from the hospital into that total filth. It was slum living and I thought that was a thing of the previous century. I shudder to think of a prem baby being brought home to that hole, never mind any child for that matter. I have seen worse myself, a friend of mine who couldn't have children wanted to adopt, ss turned her down flat due to the unliveable state of her property, the only correct decision. Her place was a health hazard.

How many services, programmes, facilities and staff have to be put in place before a realisation is reached that some people are just unfit to be parents. It is not an infinite resource. The fact that the little boy was already showing signs of improvement says it all. That father was totally cold and detached, I could hardly bear to watch him with that small boy. The mother seemed to love the children but was hopelessly demotivated and I agree, she was paying lip service to the sw promising week after week to get cleaned up and never doing it. I have just recovered from preeclampsia, and yes, I have other children and am exhausted, but I could never have allowed my toddler to eat anywhere near that dog shit ridden carpet. Just appalling and a total lack of motherly instinct.

Typo sorry - £162 million not £1.6 million!!!!

I can imagine the mother, attempting to clean up and do as the sw said, and mike stopping her saying' leave it, why should we do as they say, I don't like them, we have rights' and I have a feeling she was too cowed by him ( scared? He hit her) to fight on

That is conjecture though ilovetiffany. We don't know for sure what was going on, but that mum was way more intelligent than the dad. She could have stepped it up if she had really wanted to keep her son. Surely if she really wanted to prove she could do it, that would burn brighter inside her than letting her partner talk her into giving the authorities the finger by flouting their care plan? I refuse to believe anyone is that easily led. She was the one who kept telling the dad to shut up when he was getting argumentative to the sw, so she knew how to move the situation forward, she was the one making all the promises to the sw and consistently not following through on it. She was also the one who came up with the explanation for the bruising. She seemed to enable the fathers behaviour.

you've got to love how viewers of a heavily edited TV programme think they diagnose every problem and know better than the professionals who have been dealing with them for months and even years. The arrogance is quite something.

I agree with you wretched but I think that more needs to be done with these mothers, once the children are taken away to encourage them to be a fit parent with the long term goal of getting the families back together.

The long term outcome for that little boy is not necessarily any better if he spends his whole life in the system.

Agreed runty.