to wonder if the school will know about social service history?

[Confusedmartie999]

A worry as much I guess.
We went through a really horrible time when our son was a baby as he had a head injury at 7 months and suffered a haemorrage.
The hospital alerted social services as they do to follow procedure in head injuries of non mobile children and although deemed accidental pretty quickly after a few tests we had an open and shut assessment done.
No further contact apart from the usual development checks.
My son starts school this year and on another forum I've seen this question raised ( hers is different as her child is on some sort of protection plan ) to whether this follows the child onto school.
The answers have differed from no, unless you are currently involved with them as there are ongoing concerns, to they ask you about social service involvement at the home visit, to all health visitors do a " handover " to the school nurse which then alerts the school nurse of any past of present concerns.
It was such a horrible time it's taken a long time to get past it in fact I'll never be passed it, will the school really know that I was doubted for those few days?
Will they treat me differently as a mum? Him differently as a pupil?
I really hoped this was in the past :-(

I'd be surprised if something that was briefly opened and closed 5 years ago would be passed on. If it was, the school would fairly swiftly realise that it isn't relevant.

I don't work in a school and am a GP and social services can't seem to reliably communicate with us about ongoing serious cases, let alone old closed ones!

Thanks for the reply
I guess the health visitor do pass on something to the school nurse so that's what I'm thinking it would appear on

I have never heard of handovers being done between health visitors and a school nurse. Who conducts the home visit you have mentioned?

The reception teacher I believe!

HV may pass on to the school nurse, but the school nurse isn't actually based in a school so wouldn't be likely to tell the head/teachers about it unless it was currently relevant.

Reception teacher won't ask you if you've ever had SS involvement at the home visit.

I'm a child protection coordinator in a primary school. I would definitely not know about something was was quickly opened and shut quickly at a young age. We would only know about it if you were reopened to social work, then we would get a history.

To many 'quickly's. Blame the wine.

The only time I think you will get asked this is if you ever go to A&E, certainly ours asked if "there had EVER been any SS involvement" - before asking we were told it was a routine questions asked of every child. Dd had been hit by a car so not an obvious thing to be brought up.

I am the child protection officer in the school, I am the person who will know if anything is passed on.

The short answer is no, I wouldn't be notified. The handover to school nurse means access to files is passed over, but they would nt be in reality read if historic (and in reality often even if medical need). Only a child currently on a CIN plan or other active involvement would require me being directly notified on school start.

A file may be accessed in the event of a new referral, and if it was deemed relevant for the school to be aware in order for a child to be safeguarded then I would be informed. This would be for current risk, eg a partner back on the scene would had previously been accused of abuse which requires the school to be vigilant for harm.

I would however usually receive notes from previous schools child protection officer, but nhs/other agency records are not routinely handed over. Rules around information sharing are pretty strict, either I'd need consent or it would be deemed as necessary to safeguard that child. Even then the person whose information it is should be informed it has been shared, unless doing so increases the risk of harm. As a SENCO I can't even access relevant nhs sen reports without parental consent (unless I am the referrer).

I hope that helps.

No, i don't think the school would know. Information between agencies is shared very much on a need to know basis and if the case has been closed for that long i can't see them passing it on.

"Passing on" records simply means that the electronic database of your child's records will be accessed by a different person if required, not that they are read or there's a handover meeting.

Even if they did become aware of it, I doubt very much that they would treat you differently because of it so try not to worry
It's in the past, and there are likely to be higher priority children.

I volunteer in a school part time & some of the children are LAC, some have parents lacking in any basic parenting skills, some children in severe poverty (no breakfast, lack of bathing, constant untreated nits, long term ill fitting clothes with holes).. My point is that teachers will be occupied enough with children living with present day issues..

Hope this helps calm your nerves.. All the best with the school start!

Brilliant post from getta

This must be different area to area. I'm a CP Social Worker that covers 8 schools. I'm notified of any SW involvement that a child has had since birth when they enrol to start school. I'm in Scotland though where each child has a named person under GIRFEC (Getting It Right For Every Child).

You shouldn't be treated any different to any other parent OP.

Get a wound
Thanks very much for your reply
This is what I thought, that someone can't actually sit there reading every single file full of non relevant information but a school nurse replied to a thread I have on another parenting site who said they are given the file direct from the health visitor as soon as you accept the school place and that the reception teacher who does the home visit will also ask about any current / previous involvement with social services which obviously I wouldn't lie about although don't really want to talk about something that I try hard to forget

Most the reception teachers I've met would rather boil their own head than ask sensitive questions to potentially wind up abusive families whilst sitting in said abusive family's home!

Try not to worry about this & to enjoy this exciting (but emotional) milestone, glad that your DS is fine now...my DS had a head injury at 2 weeks old so I have some idea of how you feel, it's not something you ever forget

Try not to worry about this & to enjoy this exciting (but emotional) milestone, glad that your DS is fine now...my DS had a head injury at 2 weeks old so I have some idea of how you feel, it's not something you ever forget

Gettawound sounds v knowledgable

Thankyou.
I'll never forget, the pain remains as strong now as it was 4 years ago.
But we are blessed to have a happy healthy child an I'll never forget that.

I’m very very worried.

My husband and I got into an argument because he didn’t watch my daughter enough in a children’s birthday party and another kid bumped into her causing her a black eye. I noticed the black eye when they got back home from the birthday party and an argument between my husband and I started because of this.

The argument escalated and then my husband pushed me by the neck, and I got very frightened and I panicked and called the police out of anger, because he has never laid his hands on me in almost 9 years of marriage. The police came, took him for the night and released him the next morning with no further charges. But the police went ahead and referred the case to a children services and informed them that my husband strangled me and that while he had his hands on me, my daughter sustained a black eye bruise. Please note that this bruise on my daughter was actually what led to the argument in the first place because I was soo upset that he didn’t watch her enough in the birthday party for another bigger kid to have bumped into her.

Now the whole narrative the police told the social workers is totally different. Probably because they didn’t understand our English well (as it is not our first language) , or maybe because they just didn’t believe that my daughter truly got the black eye from the birthday party. We thought about contacting the police to review the body camera recorder they had on them that day in our apartment , to verify that they probably didn’t understand our English well and they got us wrong. But the social worker said it would not matter so much to her, because they already passed on that report to her and she has to work according to that.

Now social worker has visited our home 6 different times in the last 3 months. Also the social worker visited my daughter’s former school to discuss about her wellbeing from the school, which the school really commended everything concerning our daughter as excellent.

The social service worker just informed me that her manager might be closing the case soon , since they can confirm that my mind is not in any harm’s way.

But while she said this, she also asked us for our immigration status which I tried avoiding the question. We are legal and we have our legitimate temporary documents here to stay, but do I need to give her those details ? I don’t trust people easily because something tells me this could cause a barrier for us when we want to switch to our permanent documents or citizenship. Please should give her our immigration details or not?

Also, my daughter resumed in a new school last month . Like I said, the social worker contacted her previous school, now the social worker says she wants to contact her new school to ask of her wellbeing since she started with them last month. I indirectly tried persuading her not to contact her news school, but she said it was not a big deal, because since the case was still open, her old school would have contacted her new school anyways. Is this true ? Do information like this get passed on? And will the headteacher of her new school inform my daughter new teachers too? Will my daughter’s direct teachers possibly treat my daughter differently now or start observing her closely compared to other kids, now that they want to contact her new school. Will every staff that comes in contact with my daughter in school be alerted of the case and to what extent ?

This would be very shameful for us because my daughter is already a role model child in her nursery class, and she’s doing excellently and the teachers are very pleasant to me and my husband. I’m very sad because now I wish I didn’t call the police that night, because this social worker involvements is causing me more harm than help by the constant reminder and also by planning to contact her new school and visiting our home severally.

We have found our way back to Christ, done anger management courses ( no one told us to, we went for it ourselves), we’ve involved our extended families also since it happened, so we can get marital guidance from them too. We have just been doing everything right to make this never repeats itself.

But when I hear that knock on our door or get that call from the social worker, it breaks everything in me at that moment, and it’s keeps re-opening our wound, thereby causing new frictions in my family due to tension.

This is a very trying time for my family, and I really need your advises .