I don't understand all the anxiety about SWs

[Loveweekends10]

I see so many threads on here where people are anxious about social workers. I really don't get it. I can honestly say that before I came on mumsnet I never gave them a second thought.
Is this anxiety whipped up by the media? Is it low confidence in some parents that they don't think they are dong a good enough job with their kids?
I'm also shocked about the amount of people that say they fell out with someone and that person then rang social services to get at them.

Dd had a healthy birthweight, had two non smoking parents, kept on her bak, slept in a room with us for the firs 6 months of her life, was exclusively breastfed and at least one other thing that I can't remember but made cot death very unlikely.

In the first few months of her life I still would regularly wake up in the middle of the night in a panic and check she was still breathing.

I knew it was not a rational fear but I still feared cot death because of the impact if it happened.

Fear of SS taking your child is similar I think.

I wonder if we all do a sort of calculation in our heads - probability of event * impact of event.

As both cot death and having your child taken have close to infinite impact it means that even with a teeny likelihood the product is still very large and so it is something to fear.

Slept on her back - good old IPad correction.

MummytoKatie - I think your reasoning there makes perfect sense and fits with the way I feel about SS.

I've got no rational reason to think SS would have any concerns about DS at all, but he's the most precious thing in my life and the thought of losing him, or anything bad happening to him, scares me silly.

It's very sad that so many women feel paranoid about social workers. I can understand it when women live in communities where social workers are in and out of houses all the time, where they will know mothers who have lost their children. But when it comes from women who have never met a sw I do feel slightly baffled. The odds of having a social worker just swoop in and take your kid for no reason at all must be vanishingly rare: so are these women just feeling vulnerable and finding a bogeyman figure to peg their fears onto?

I'm not saying social workers can't be crap; I believe that some abuse their power. This is human nature, plus it is a troubled profession which struggles to recruit quality, talented people, and that has got to have an effect. I had variable experience of ss when adopting - my dd's sw was terrifyingly incompetent. On the other hand, I met some really, really good and thoughtful social workers, too.

Oh, and just to say that it always makes me laugh when I read posts suggesting that social workers think adoptive parents are all angels, like we're some kind of teacher's pet. Believe me: when you're going through the system it sure doesn't feel that way.

Not paranoid but I have actually had dd's former school report us to SS not once but repeatedly as a way of punishing us for dd's frequent medical absences. Fortunately, the SWs who came to see us were sensible, level-headed people whom I could talk to- but each time I couldn't know that until the individual actually turned up on my doorstep (the EWOs were a bit more variable ).

And even so, being investigated did do some harm to my dd, despite all the sensitivity and genuine professionalism of the SWs involved. I think it would be nice if all professionals recognised that just because the child has not been taken away, she has not necessarily escaped unscathed from investigation and that she may need counselling or extra support afterwards.

Dd for many years knew that telling an adult outside her family that she was unable to perform due to pain was likely to bring down another investigation and another string of suggestions that there was something wrong with her family.

Those who would shrug their shoulders and say "no harm was done" are not the ones who have to deal on a daily basis, many years later, with a child who would rather cut herself so she cannot go to school than go to school and have to explain that she is in pain again. Let's put it this way- the local CAHMS are not suggesting that no harm was done

Of course SW have to investigate- just like surgeons have to operate. But like an operating surgeon it might be wise to recognise that you leave a scar behind, and you need to take care so that scar doesn't get infected. This is not slagging off SS any more than I'm slagging of my doctor by pointing out that my caesarian left a scar. Both were skilled professionals doing the right thing. But both left scars.

I hear you, cory.

people are anxious about them because they can and do get it wrong occasionally, as can people in all professions. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. I've had to deal with a fair few when going through Court with ex and one of them blatantly lied in her initial assessment though soon changed her tune when she had to visit again and I insisted on the visit being recorded or witnessed (which is was, by HV). I hated her and hope she's been sacked as she shouldn't be anywhere near children let alone making massive decisions about their futures. Most of them, however, have been perfectly fine, I had numerous malicious referrals made about me by xp's mother and they saw it for what it was.

alot of proffesionals lie in their reports in family courts even the social worker

nokidshere,when you take your children to hospital,you would have to put that you are a social worker on their forms.
This would surely at least cause the medical profession to think twice about possibly reporting you.

Since this thread has been bumped and I didn't see this comment first time round I would just like to say I am not, and never have been, a Social Worker.