To wonder how bad a childs home life has to be before they are taken into care?

[SerenYWythnos]

I obviously can't say too much, but really how bad does it have to be before social services step up the plate and actually fucking do something?!

I'm talking about a specific case here which is why I can't say too much, but SS, teachers and other professionals seem to be pandering to the parents who quite frankly couldn't look after a gold fish properly let alone raise a child. Think exposure to violence and severe neglect. It's the worst I've ever seen in all my years working with kids.

I'm absolutely aghast that these children are still with their mother, I really am. Just how bad does it have to be before they are removed?!

Lurked, as a social worker with years of experience I can honestly say that neither me or any of the colleagues I have worked with have ever made judgements about whether a child should be removed or not based on financial implications, nor have I ever had that suggested to me by managers or the powers that be.
I don't know where you are getting these misinformed ideas from but you might want to check your sources.
It is not a process based on the whim of one worker anyway. Social workers may raise concern, which is discussed with managers. A decision may then be made to discuss the case with the legal dept to see if the case meets the very stringent legal threshold for a legal order to be made. If so, and removal looks to be in the best interests of the child, reports are provided to court, a hearing is held, at which the family can legally defend themselves, and a judgement is then made by the Judge.
If it is a life or death emergency, Police can be involved and a child removed that day if need be, but it still needs to go before the legal team, court and the Judge.

Saying it's a judge who decides isn't actually the point, social workers get to make a lot of the recommendations. And in some cases some social workers are quite happy to sign families off or recommend the kids remain when any fool could see the kids aren't having what most of us class as adequate care, when other social workers are recommending adoption or permanent foster care for lesser mistakes.
As for engaging/ trying to improve. Take pnd for instance, just because I expect we all have a laymans knowledge and it strikes across every social divide. Imagine back to when you were a nervous new first time mum and imagine you have pnd. Which we all agree isn't a pleasant experience. And you have no support network and live on the breadline. And while your suffering from pnd with no partner or family to try and help you someone turns up and confirms that yes, your parenting does has gaps (because let's face it pnd doesn't help anybody cope with the daily demands of a newborn, housework, personal care etc)!and it needs to improve. And continues to visit regularly to judge assess your parenting. How do you really think that's going to help your pnd? And then no matter what support is actually offered, you have the added stress of knowing someone will be making regular visits to dissect every parenting decision. It doesn't take much insight to see how mother with pnd can quickly escalate to mother who can no longer provide adequate care

We don't all continue the cycle, though!

I have to admit that parenting is difficult for me as even though I know my role model was wrong, somewhere inside me it feels right.
I have to tell myself off frequently. Reading widely helps.

Trust me Lurked it isn't that simple!

I lost my DD temporarily after SS took her from me when she was about two. She went to stay with her paternal grandparents.

I had severe PND made worse by my ex abandoning us. SS excused me of neglect and made me feel like the worlds biggest cunt.

I thought hard to get her back. It's left a few scars on both and DD.

I did say some Barley
Sometimes what can make the difference is good early care- so even if the latter part was shite if the first 6-12 months was good then actually things can turn out very well whether they are placed out of the home or not

I know you did :)

I know I'm unusual and lucky, I only jest.

I'm not going into any details but I can assure you my sources are what I have witnessed with my own eyes. Hence I said the 'cynic in me' because my suspicion adoption has its roots in money is that, not something I have heard or seen discussed. Whereas some things I actually know as fact. I don't think the majority of social workers are walking round rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of destroying families and I'm sorry if thats the impression I gave. But the sad facts remain that sometimes social workers do get it wrong, and are rarely held accountable when they do. The stress of going to court to see if you get to keep your kids isn't something to be taken lightly even if the judge finds in the parents favour

But social workers getting it wrong lurker has nothing to do with them removing a baby because it's cute.

I'm sure they do make mistakes because of the pressure they are under, because they're not good at their job, whatever but to say they do it for some kind of financial gain is wrong and innacurate.

Whenever a story is reported social services are not allowed to comment, so we get a distorted view of the situation. We don't hear of the success stories because they're not allowed to be published and adopted families are reluctant (for the wellbeing of their child) to share the story of how their child was removed.

lurked

Really!?

I don't discount in any way how difficult being a social worker is, nor do I subscribe to conspiracy theories about forced adoptions and the like. But I do wonder about the cases I have seen where the child protection system has been used to try to deter parents from enforcing their child's rights to proper provision for care and for learning difficulties. I have seen too many cases where parents pushing for a decent statement of special educational needs are accused of having Munchhausen's by proxy because they get independent assessments because the local authority ones are so bad, or because they seek further opinions as to their child's diagnosis.

I dealt with one case where the LA claimed the mother had had 30 assessments done - but when repeatedly challenged on this they never managed to give even the most basic of details. In another case where the child was in care, social services claimed he couldn't possibly cope with assessments by the mother's experts but he could cope with assessments by theirs. In another case where the family adopted two very damaged children, when they pushed for adequate care and education social services threatened that they'd take them back into care. In another the special school whose own records demonstrated that the child had made no progress in five years tried to fend off attempts to move her by making a child protection referral and were fully supported by social services who spent a ludicrous amount of time visiting the parents, organising meetings and pushing them to sign so-called parenting agreements to do things they were doing anyway. They were clearly miffed when they could find no evidence, and the tribunal ordered placement in another state school which reported that it had no concerns whatsoever.

What mystifies me about these cases is the sheer amount of time overpressed social services departments were prepared to spend on them when they couldn't produce any evidence justifying their alleged concerns. If they spent less time defending their own and their colleagues' bad decisions it could only help them in dealing with the cases where they are really needed.

Tangerine my paying for therapy comment came from the fact that I have had to spend a lot of my own money on healing from things that were never my fault.

You're being rather condescending. They aren't my studies. And the quality of adoption parenting and fostering has improved, but you don't need to be so rude. I am a survivor of child abuse who has to live with the knowledge that they would have been even worse off in care, did you not get that? Hiding thread now.

This is sometimes the danger of parents who have adopted or professionals in the field.

'We know what it is like; you can't tell us anything new.'

No, you don't.

You know what it's like for your child - maybe.

This gives me the rage. There is such a huge emphasis on keeping kids with their birth families, whereas if decisions were taken earlier on, those kids would be easier to place with adoptive parents.

And yes, I would sterilise parents who have shown themselves to be inadequate and I don't give a fuck about bodily autonomy in those circumstances. For rights you have responsibilities and if you continually ignore the responsibility not to abuse or neglect your kids, or bring addicted babies into the world, you should lose the right to make that decision.

I see a lot of neglected teenagers in my line of work and it absolutely breaks my heart. They are left to bring themselves up and are often looking after a severely disabled parent. They won't engage with services, because they are too wary and so they don't get even the meagre help offered. A lot (not all) don't achieve anything like their potential and find parenting really hard, as they were never parented well themselves. Conscious miserable cycle, but they often wouldn't fare any better in our care system. There is no easy answer and each person is different and yes, just how bad does it have to be?

Vicious, not conscious

Lurked - if social worker are driven by the money and how it will be easier to place younger children for adoption then why proportionately are so few babies removed?

Barley I have rarely heard adoptive parents say "you can;t tell us anything" - we are generally pretty open to the idea that mistakes happen that many children are better off with sub-standard birth parents than being removed into the care system. Perhaps I'm missing it because I have skimmed the thread but mostly professional and adopters are talking to the uninformed about the vast majority of cases. None of us deny that mistakes happen but I believe they are mistakes rather than concerted attempts to steal babies or split up families.

There was a very recent judgement in the family court that stressed that there needed to be significant harm to the children for them to be removed, that just not being a good enough parent was not enough even being a pretty shitty parent is good enough that the state should only intervene when there is significant harm to the child.

May hits it on the head. I spent my teens in care, and during my time there the amount of kids coming back into homes or assessment centres, breaking from one foster home to another, they still had anything but stability. As for me, I got out of a emotionally and mentally abusive home that damaged me greatly, but while my care homes were fun and caring, equal damage was still done by that feeling of not having a family, abandonment, and being set apart from 'normal'.

And yes, I would sterilise parents who have shown themselves to be inadequate and I don't give a fuck about bodily autonomy in those circumstances. For rights you have responsibilities and if you continually ignore the responsibility not to abuse or neglect your kids, or bring addicted babies into the world, you should lose the right to make that decision.

Well said. We ban people for life from driving, owning a dog, being a company director, but having kids, no just you carry on even though you are clearly not fit for purpose.

That Shannon Matthews' mum, who had 9 kids by 8 men or whatever, most in care. She's out of clink now, and I bet she'll pop out a few more kids before she's finished.

Absolutely appalling.

I wouldn't have been born then

A baby will be taken sooner than a six year old because that baby has no protective factors whatsoever.

That baby needs food, nourishment, nappy changes, health checks - all entirely dependant upon its carer.

Without these things a death can occur pretty swiftly. A DEATH yes.

An older child has more resilience to these things.

Also a baby needs its emotional needs met very early on otherwise the effects of not being met can be far reaching. I'm sure some adopters here can shed light on that.

Not driven by money at all! Truly not.

However, the younger a child is removed the more chance it has at a successful life.

This would cost the state less in the future as it is hoped that the child would go on to lead a successful life, education, health and career wise.

^I don't think social services think about it like that lurked from my experience but children aged 10+ are often left in poor situations because there is nowhere to place them and, sadly' for some their emotions and behaviour have been so badly affected by that stage that they are hard to place. At 10+ the victim-blaming starts and they are seen as "difficult" rather than needy kids.
Hand on heart how many of us would foster an adolescent with challenging behaviour or severe emotional difficulties whist bringing up our own kids.^
DrudgeTrudy

My DM was a long term foster carer for teens. Did it for 25yrs+. The way it was then (late '70s) DM fostered for an area of Manchester and took the hard to handle kids. I think back then it was called 'special services'. So girls (only girls as I was 5 when DM started till the point I was about to leave for uni) from mid teen till 18, usually extended care order to 19.

Most of these kids had been in and out of care all their lives. I would say all had suffered severe neglect, physical and sexual abuse.

Of the ones we're still in touch with, none have settled adult lives. All (the girls) went on to have kids very quickly. Some have lost their own DC to SS.

Towards the end of DM's fostering the kids were getting younger and the placements shorter. DM gave up because she felt she couldn't offer help to the kids in such short placements. You can't form a bond, the kids are understandably reluctant to share over and over with new people and schooling is fragmented. And I think DM was just burnt out.

I agree whole heartedly about 'difficult' rather than 'needy' being the attitude from some SWs about their cases.

I don't get the throw out personal insults to adopters make sweeping statements and then get huffy if someone calls you up on what you have said.
Maybe just maybe shit as your life was Button- maybe you just didn't cross the threshold that SWs have to remove children which is the point of the thread.
We don't have all the answers, but there is no MAYBE as to whether I know what it was like for my children, I didn't just read a piece of paper- I spoke to lots of people involved, worked with lots of people listened to my children and I live with the damage of the birth family every single day.
And Button don't hide a thread and then go off and cause offence on another thread where I went for support in another section.

I am sorry Button and Barley had shit childhoods, but I do take issue with the idea my kids child hoods are just as bad because they have been adopted and that I am some clueless liberal out to do a good deed- or that I poached some cute kids from a decent home life.