to think that SS do not remove children without very very good reason?

[kickmewhenimdown]

Had a friend round and she mentioned that she had met someone (a distant relative of mine, i dont really speak to them) who had recently moved back locally and that person had more or less said that SS had unjustly removed her children, including a baby right after birth. Without giving too much information, it was not for sexual abuse but for neglect and according to dr because she is morbidly obese. Friend was then sympathetic with distant relative and how SS were overstepping mark. AIBU not agree with this, and not be particularly sympathetic for dr?

Sadly some SWs do get it wrong. And some people are attracted to the caring professions because they are bullies who enjoy wielding power over vulnerable people - not just SW, obviously. Equally there are good SWs and excellent SWs doing their very best.

When I had brief training at ds's school for being a parent volunteer, the SW told us about some horrible cases (impressing on us the duty to report concerns) but also of a case where they got it badly wrong. Took them a year - while the poor father was forced out of the home and had no access to his dd - for them to work out when she said 'Daddy hurt my noo-noo' she was talking about her soft toy, which Daddy had put in the washing machine. How on earth it took them a year to ask the very basic question 'what does she mean by a noo-noo' I do not know.

The problem is, when they get it wrong, they really mess up your family.
I asked for help because things were bad, and they still are, and now I have their fallout to deal with too, and of course no further place to ask for help.

because they are in a position of power and they are dealing with our children, it hits at our core when they are wrong, and they hate being wrong and find it almost impossible to admit to it.

I find generally ss have been good with the people I know who have been in contact with them. They don't get right 100% of the time. Of course they don't. But I doubt they removed these children only due to the mother being over weight. OP if I were you I wouldn't comment if this person tells you anything further.

It is a lot to expect a parent to admit to failing their children when they have been removed.
Some do but it takes an awful lot to do it.

SS cannot, by law, just remove children. There are very strict protocols to be followed and the courts, not ss hold the power to make decisions.

SS do make mistakes and I think the biggest problem is that once a decision has been made it is very difficult to get SS to change it.

Its like backing down.

I have been on both sides. My DS's birth mum would have you in tears of sympathy and raging against the unfair system that stole her child.
I could have you in tears describing what happened to my DS at the hands of his birth mum.

Despite what she did and what she has done since I have sympathy for her. I can see how it all got to the point it did. Doesnt mean I think SS could have done anything differently.

Infact the whole process should have been a lot quicker but that is with the benefit of hindsight.

There are posters on MNs who have had terrible experiences with SS and I have no reason to doubt them. Stuff happens.

Also social service are held by the data protection and confidential information, so when people go to the media or from word of mouth then they cannot give the reason why the family have had children removed.

If social service could give reason to the public then the true story would come out ( not that I want this as confidence should come first)

I think more kids should be removed from shit homes earlier actually.

I fully support Ss in that I genuinely think they try to do what is best for the children but there is so much red tape difficult circumstances at
Play

I deal with social workers all the time. Some are intelligent skilled and caring, some are ignorant iiliterate and power crazed. Many are incapable of any form of communication. One sent me a letter once, which, purly on the grounds of literacy level, I would have rejected from a year 7 pupil, and I'm not talking about spelling, vocabulary, punctuation and grammar, but totally irrelevant rambling. It was hard to believe it came from a proffesinal. One rang me up once and asked me what my (word prossessed!) letter had said, because she couldn't read it. It actually said I needed a wheel chair ramp, so the child in placement didn't have to get out of her whell chair outside and crawl intothe house. nothing complicated,I've dealt with American teenagers on their round the world trip in their gap year, who have taken up a bit of casual social work on a temporary basis to top up their funds. I had a foster child returned to a mother who was so angry with hime for wetting the bed she forced him to sleep locked into the bathroom in the bath every night, but the social workers response was "so what? he isn't going to come to any harm there, I've tgot more important things to worry about", yet I've known one take a child away because her mother had an agrument with her head teacher, and the head teacher requested it as revenge. This is the reason I ws given when the child was sent to me. However, as I said, I have also known social workers who are caring and skilled. I would say in my experience about a quarter are excellent, half are neither one thing nor another, and the rest are stark staring maniacs.(maybe they wern't when they atarted the job!)

When you talk about American teenagers on their gap year are you talking about social work assistants? These started off as posts doing pretty routine easy work. But over the years more has been passed down to them to save money. Bit like TA's and teachers.

Ive had dealings with SS in the past and I agree with you OP.

Of course they get it wrong at times, but if anyone tells me about someone having their child removed for whatever reason I do take it with a pinch of salt. I 'know' someone who was recently admitted to a mental health hospital and subsequently had her child taken off her. I believe there is more than what she is saying there and thats how I take most things.

A piece of advice I have for anybody right now if SS come to you, do not look at the internet for stories of other people going through the same thing. I read all sorts of horrible stories and they made me feel worse, of course no-one tells you about a happy story (I could, but I would be too identifyable). Wish I had discovered MN back then. :(

I don't know, maybe that is what he was, it could be. He came to do an assessment of the needs of a child with cerebral palsy, and I had to explain to him what cp was, he had never heard of it. He then asked me to say if her mother was caring for her properly (I had never met the mother, I have no idea) but he had no idea either, either how she should be cared for, or how she was being cared for, and just wanted me to fill in the whole assessment for him. He didn't understand half of what the form meant, and said mostly he was just handing it out to foster carers so they caould assess themselves. He certainly had no experience or qualificiations. Maybe he was a social worker assistant. Next time a teenager came knocking on the door I spotted him from an upstairs window and pretended not to be in, although I heard from another carer that he was the same as the first one.

I do feel confident in knowing that things could have turned out so different for me and my family if I was assigned a different SW. If we lived in a different area of town maybe could have resulted in DDs 1 and 2 never being born :( So I would like to say that yes OP YANBU, but there are some SW's out there who (I imagine) are just crap at their job as is the case with any profession.

I have also been told of an aquaintance who has told people that the police were called to her house and took her children away because the house was, and I quote, a bit untidy!!! WTF?!

I can't believe how many people have believed her and sympathised! Police do not just arrive and swoop children up like that in my experience and I have never heard of them using the term child neglect because you haven't tidied up!

I know SS and police have their faults but there are some ridiculous stories out there that people swallow

Tranquilidade, I've known Mums like that, the trouble is if your house is an absolute tip, you get so used to it it seems normal, then you can't understand what all the fuss is about, even when there is dogsmuck, broken glass, rotting food, etc.

Well I have one report from one county, where the SW is pratically illiterate, wouldnt give me hope if there was long term involvement, and another from an other county where the social worker has out and out lied, plain and simple.

Thankfully, there were one off reports and I do not have to have any further dealings with either agency.

These are my only dealings with SS and I pity any family who has long term invovlement with either of these SW.

My ds's sw was a very young american woman. He was her first case. She was totally overwhelmed, knew very little about UK family or public law and was terrified of black people.

She wouldnt communicate with my OH although DS came from his side of the family (black family), she used to get upset because DS's birth mother didnt like her and on one bizarre occassion told me 'I dont know any black people but my sister does. There are a lot in the town where she lives and they get an awful lot of trouble from them'

Ok then.

She left after a year and went to work for a pro-life adoption agency back in the midwest.

I doubt there was anyone less suited to working in child protection in inner London than she.

DS's birth mum may be a difficult, unpleasant person but she deserved better than that.

Asiati - I have mostly come across social work assistants working in disability teams. I don't know if they are more numerous there, but IME they seem to be. They are not particularly trained and unless they have lots of relevant pre experience, they won't automatically know much.

My persoanl experience of them years ago was that they used to do jobs like giving lifts to disabled families and kids to get to appointments or very basi paperwork. It didn't require a great deal of skill. But they do seem to be given more skilled stuff nowdays, very unfairly imo.

mrsdevere - I worked about 20 years ago in a very poor part of London. I know then and I can't imagine it is in any different now, the vacancy rate for SW was horrendous. They did used to take anyone they could get. From talking to more experiened SWs they said that the local Dept had a terrible reputation and that most SW who had a choice would not work there.

I guess it is like sink schools, there may sadly still be SW Depts like that.

The thing is they are often dammed if they do and dammed if they don't....

but I recently went on a multi disciplinary training course and a trained social worker said that he would be concerned if a ill child turned up the doctor with a dirty top on as he felt it was a sign of neglect and if he was the doctor he would contact social services to investigate.

This really shocked me as it was a complete over reaction. Bloody hell I took ds to the docs in his pj's the other day because he was so poorly.

mrsdevere I didn't realise you adopted a reletive of your DH. Your DS' birthmum is so lucky to have such understanding and loving family members. Is your DS able to have contact with her still?

griphook see, it's things like that that make people hysterical when it comes to SS. What a silly thing for that man to say! And it makes you inclined to believe the 'stories', like I was chatting with a friend about how I had chopped the legs off a pair of DS' too small dungarees, sewed a new hem and put a cute patch on to turn them into little dungarees shorts. I said I was going to send DS into nursery with them on, and my friend said 'I heard having home-made clothes is a flag for nursery to contact SS!'

I know that sounds stupid, but I did think it through later on and have to convince myself she was being silly!

lesley absolutely. This borough had a terrible rentention rate and I am not suprised. She only stayed a year. This caused more issues when birthmum went on to have another child two years later, all the original team had moved on. No one knew birthmum or what had happened. They only had the notes to go buy and I know for a fact that a lot had been missed out (not by SW but we had some appalling contact workers).
2nd child still with birthmum. Birth mum hasnt changed, just got a bit older and moved house. I think about that child often.

slatternly we really, really tried. It didnt work out. Bmum is very angry with us. She blames us, well me really. We stuck it out for as long as we could but we cant risk it anymore. It wouldnt be in DS's best interests. It is a terrible shame and I hope one day she can change but I dont think it will happen. Its not how I wanted it to be. DS knows about her and the option is always there. The ball is in her court but I dont know if she will ever be ready to put him first. But she is still young so you never know.

slatternly - I do wonder sometimes if things like that come from real life examples e.g. kid sent to nursery in winter wearing only a long sleeve adult t-shirt with sleeves rolled up and a nappy. This would raise concerns I am sure in the nursery staff. But its not because its home made, but because it is inappropriate clothing. But I could see how it could be distorted to create these rumours.

said that he would be concerned if a ill child turned up the doctor with a dirty top on as he felt it was a sign of neglect

But there is dirty - with a bit of breakfast or mud on it and dirty with 4 weeks of ingrained food and dirt stains with unkempt unwashed hair and a pasty sad looking child.

Some people/children just pong of stale food etc and you know they haven't washed for ages (have dealt with the general public on a regular basis).

I"m sure substance abuse is a reason for many removals and that can be drugs, alcohol or illegally obtained prescription drugs. Any of these could mean that the parents behaviour is erratic and unreliable, not good for a stable home life.