to be annoyed with Mner's suggesting ringing SS for the tiniest things.

[Fluffanstuff]

I don't know how many posts I have been on today but Its like an epidemic .
Am I being unreasonable to get annoyed about people suggesting or asking if they
should ring SS about ridiculous things.

No wonder some parents are getting so het up about social services turning up on
their door. I work in the sector and just want to say if you spot or hear something
in the play ground take it to the school / head not directly to SS yourself !

They are honestly way too busy to get involved unless there is decent evidence , its not your job to ring them !!

Am I the only one to feel like this ? Schools / groups etc have their own systems ,It bugs me as much as people ringing ambulances for things that can be dealt with at doctors or walk in centres . Its such a waste of resources.

Like I say I probably should have worded it better I understand poltergoose but It was less serious reports that I am referring too . And like MrsDeVere has pointed out my views on what is serious and warrants a call probably has a lot to do with first hand experience.

I do feel where possible the school should be informed first when it happens on school grounds , even if you are still going to ring , just because it might take a day or two for SS to get round to ringing the school , as I have seen on many occasion. And during those 2 days the school will be more aware

Lol thanks mmelindor Perhaps I should have chosen something a little less controversial to start with !!

A classic example of why people know SSs won't listen or act when they tell them about their concerns.

'Im all for if you have a life / death situation at home with neighbours etc or major concerns do it .'

I would hope social workers feel the same as the general public and want to stop any abuse before it gets to a life or death situation.

The same as with the police asking for even small things people have seen, shouldn't social workers want to build up pictures of any vulnerable people in their area? If you're untrained you're not experienced in making the judgement of whether something's significant or not, that's supposedly why we have professionals!

Maybe there's a mismatch between the untrained general publics expectation of not accepting an absolute definition of abuse (i.e. no abuse is acceptable), whereas social workers are working on a relative definition (i.e. how serious it is compared to other cases they're working on, they can only help so many so 'minor' abuse is minimalised/ignored)

My personal feeling is : No abuse is acceptable (I hope the majority of others feel the same as well)

But like you say my work hat says , yes these children shouldn't get missed and someone needs to raise an alarm somewhere , and in some cases SS are the right people. But sometimes with some things schools / services etc other professionals may have powers and resources that exceed those of SS for that child and their situation.Depending on the situation , if it is a matter of abuse it wouldnt be to the school to resolve , but with family support and intervention at early stages they might be able to help where a SW wouldnt have time.

But like you say cases get prioritised , especially in an under funded large LA where I am. Where it is getting the point where more and more cases that arn't 'minor' arn't getting enough attention because of resources.

Its not right but it cant be changed until there's more money.

MrsDeVere Good for you . I am in the opinion that a lot of this can be helped by HV's but we have 3 ... 3 !!!!!! In my whole LA ...its disgusting. And I agree lots of people dont think its the HV'S jobs but it is it really really is in some cases !!

Sorry OP, child protection social worker here and you've given out some very dodgy advice that you are not qualified to give.

However I appreciate that you seem to care about the strain social services are under and believe your post was made in good faith

[hgrin]

I think the whole sector is going through a shift , its had to and roles are changing , but im not sure everyone is on the same page , which is half the trouble

Purplequiche Apologies , it was very badly worded , I would delete the crap bits if I could ... in my head it made sense ! It was less meant to be advice rather than view giving .... just very very badly put.

OP if you actually read my thread, you'll see that I know the child.
And slagging me off on AIBU is just plain rude, if you disagree, say so on the thread.

By the way, it's nothing to do with school, I only mentioned school to give a rough idea of her age.

I've admitted previously on this thread I didnt read your posts the whole way through and back tracked on it , and also been really honest in the fact that both cases I only mentioned it because I was just putting it into context.
Im sorry for putting your back up.

Basically I've worked with a child before who was 4 and in age 12 stuff , I had two parents come to me as a setting to express their concerns. To which I listened and didnt give anything else away. Behind the scenes we'd been working with the dietician , peadatrician and parents aswell as health visitors and it was a medical condition the child had that resulted in him being that way. So no need for SS. The parents were working on the diet plan etc. and with all professionals involved.

I've admitted previously I didnt read your post the whole way through , and some other MNers added a bit more info for my ill judged post.

I posted too soon and should have read more.

The art of thinking before posting isn't something I've quite honed as a skill yet

:) okay.

So just curious, do you have a new opinion on my thread? Cause if there's a better way to help than SS, I'd like to do it. I am 100% sure that she is not ill and her parents are not helping her to get healthy.

Under funding is inevitably going to change what can and can't be dealt with by social workers, and there's also the fine line between legitimate state intervention in peoples private lives and peoples privacy.

But the feeling the general public has about social workers and that they'll be made to feel ridiculous and are over reacting if they report what they think are real concerns, hasn't got anything to do with money.

But lots of people are just looking for advice because they haven't got the experience social workers have to put what's happened into perspective. It doesn't cost a whole lot of money to give an opinion on a situation, I mean, people aren't paid for giving it on here, and the threads you're talking about have discussed whether the OP is right to think their concerns are serious or not.

You should be glad the posters are running it past the court of MN before taking it to the social workers themselves, If you look at it that way, MN is saving the state a fortune in wasted SS/doctors/teachers hours. We're actively stopping the country going to the dogs

Two threads of whic you gave examples of were given the verdict of BU. You know this, so this thread is BU too. But ''working in the sector' makes you unable to see the truth, exaggerate much?

Yabu. I'm a SW. I'd rather someone rang and wasted our time than not bother.
What I get v fucked off about on here is posters suggesting its better to ring the nspcc instead as of this is a more cozy, socially acceptable option or something instead - or it's less if a betrayal or whatever bollocks reason people post that. It's like suggesting you ring at johns ambulance instead of 999.

Preparetobeflame

My opinion is : If you are 100% sure that she is not ill , and have good solid proof / a good reason for knowing or feeling that her parents are not helping her to get healthy / encouraging the bad habits & it definitely doesn't have anything to do with the school SS is a viable option for raising concerns or if you didn't want to ring them straight away you could ring your local health visiting team , who may refer you to SS or even the NSPCC may help. If you felt it wasn't particularly urgent but it needed dealing with you could log your concern online (not sure how many LA's offer this , I know mine have just bought it in )

Agentzigzag Love the spin on it ...everyone just needs to join MN !!

Personally I know I have been advised by child protection officers to ring NSPCC in cases such as preparetobeflammeds'

I'd still take it to SS if they didnt act upon it though

&& thats my LA suggesting that. !! ............See this is the problem everyone getting told different things by different people ...so much for integrated working practices !!

Someone called ss about dd. we got a letter from the 'hub', who had investigated and found no cause for further action. SS don't necessarily just comeout. We didn't know anything about it until we got the letter from the hub telling us the above. They had called our gp and dd's school, and didn't need to do anything else. I rang the hub anyway and had a chat with someone to find out what it was about. TBh, I was just glad someone cared enough about dd to do it.

So there's no need for ss to come straight to someone's doorstep. They can make a few phonecalls.

And I would rather people reported if they were concerned, than nothing was done at all.

There's bound to be a lot of over-reporting atm, because of all the stuff on the news. I know ss are going to be horribly over-worked (always are, but even more so); it won't last, I'm sure (that's meant to be reassuring, but it probably isn't).

Multi agency safeguarding hub
The system dies work sometimes!

That's the one! Couldn't remember the full name.