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?!

Fatmomma, something you posted further down: "FWIW I often sit at case conferences and core groups, and my experience is that SWs wimp out at the "Rottweiler" parents and are harsh and unforgiving to the weaker ones."

Could you elaborate?

When I did safeguarding training, we asked the question 'what if what I reported had the child taken into care?'

The reply was that children are only taken into care if they are at risk of serious physical harm, eg that it would be a life threatening situation.

I see plenty of children with mental health issues who stay with parents and it is hard because you know they are suffering but they stay at home because it is not serious enough to warrant taking them out of the environment. They suffer from attachment issues in the main - they don't trust adults/children and have very low resiliance so cry/lash out at the drop of a hat. Life for them is very tough, always watching their backs. 24/7. I have often wondered why this isn't enough for them to be removed and placed somewhere that make them feel safe and they can learn that adults can be consistent and safe people to be around. I think maybe it comes down to the fact that removing a child and placing them with foster carers can actually make them feel even less safe?

I was taken into care as a teenager from a severely abusive home and placed on the child protection register. My home life was dangerous but being in care was awful too.

I was moved through 8 placements in 18 months even though I had no real behavioural problems, attended school with no police involvement. I felt like an intruder in most of the placements no in others I was told I was an intruder. One placement which was supposed to be long term for two years, I was given 24 hours notice to move out and to this day I don't know the reason why. Another placement was supposed to see me through my a-levels but when the foster carer found out her payments would drop after my 18th birthday, she told me I would need to move out because she could get more money for a lodger. I was also told off for having two slices of toast because they didn't get much money for me from SS - bearing in. One they had seven bedroom, a swimming pool and a sauna.

Being in care is shit, living in an abusive home is shit - there's no clearcut answer.

Really very bad indeed and unfortunately, that's how it should be because, despite the best efforts of some wonderful people working to provide care for children, children still fare best if they can stay with their parents, even when those parents are truly awful.

Got to agree with Shirley. I know some children with SS involvement, who only have their basic needs met by their mum. Their hair is always knotted & tangled, clothes are unwashed, not eating nutritious meals, the list goes on...
I fully believe though they are better off with her than being put in the care system.

I didn't say I had a shit childhood or your kids do turquoise.

How rude.

'The reply was that children are only taken into care if they are at risk of serious physical harm, eg that it would be a life threatening situation'

Sorry, but in my case this was 100% wrong.

Someone said upthread that SW's are harsh and unforgiving to the 'weaker' parents? This was me to an absolute T. I engaged with them completely, never refused anything, complied with their ridiculous demands and they still took me to court to remove my children. Anyone I've ever spoken to cannot believe how and why they were trying to remove my children when there are so many awful parents out there who get to keep theirs.

The 'reasons' they gave for wanting to remove my children were beyond a joke, like they were really really trying hard to come up with some vague excuse because they didn't have any real reasons.

I genuinely believe that they have done more damage to my children by putting us through all of this than I ever did in all my years of looking after them.

I do agree that some SW do try and keep families together and some of them are good and helpful but I have not experienced this at all. My SW's were rude, condescending, judgemental and refused to help me. I kept being told the help was not available. Even to the extent where I was told the people who would be looking after my children after they left me would get XYZ help (the exact same thing I had asked for), but I couldn't be offered it because I was 'just' the parent.

They made countless errors on paperwork and outright lied on many occasions and even after I pointed this out, these errors were never corrected.

So, yes, sometimes SW's do get it wrong. But they are not the ones who suffer when they do.

I think that is largely the issue - it doesn't matter if only one mistake in a thousand is made of that one case is YOUR child.

Tough reading. My niece was taken from my SIL recently as SIL was a single parent with MH issues. She was flagged in the system from her booking in appointment and never had the chance to try with her baby. She went straight from hospital to a mother and baby unit, and the baby was taken into foster care from there and adopted. Without SIL's consent. Court found it was in baby's interests to be removed. Even though she'd maintained her MH throughout it was felt the the long term risk for relapse was too great and baby was removed under the category of potential neglect. Nothing had ever happened to her, and SIL was judged capable (not brilliant but ok) at meeting her baby's needs. We really felt she wasn't given a chance to try and parent. Maybe the baby will be better off with a shiny new family, who knows. But SS made up their mind almost before the baby had come, and used niggly little points to exemplify. We offered ongoing support but it wasn't enough.

I think it was the easy option for an overwhelmingly overstretched system. They would have had to provide ongoing care and support to them both, as would we. We were ready to do it, they weren't. It's left huge scars on us as a family, who knows about the baby.

My nephew was removed from his parents. We were never told why. But knowing my SIL/BIL as little as I do, I doubt they could actually look after a hamster.

Sadly, SS decided just to hand him to my PILS - the very people who failed miserably to bring up SIL properly and should imo be held accountable for that in the first place.

History will repeat itself....

The whole system is a joke.

My SW's were rude, condescending, judgemental and refused to help me.

Oh and THIS! ^ We had to meet with the SW's for our 'input' What an absolute joke. I wouldn't trust them to be in charge of a till, never mind a child's future.

dh works in a residential unit for children in care. By the time they get to him they are generally - with one or two exceptions - beyond help and it is often little more than a holding exercise until they end up in secure or in prison.
He has been attacked, abused, spat on, bitten, kicked, threatened with anything that can be used as a weapon etc etc, all for the princely wage of about £20K. he says his is the only job where you go to work fully expecting to be assaulted.
I understand the policy to keep kids with the family as long as possible, but sometimes it might be better to remove them earlier so care workers have a genuine chance to turn them round before they are completely feral.

Barley - exactly.

On an intellectual level I know that not all SW's are bad but on a personal level I will never fully heal from the damage they have done to me. I just pray that my children will and that they won't grow up to hate me because of their lies.

Blazing - it absolutely baffles me just how much one person's opinion can affect the outcome of these cases. I know a lot of people will say that it isn't just one person but when that one person convinces everyone else involved in the case it becomes a snowball effect and you just can't win. For example, I had one 'professional' who had an opinion that I had done something (which I hadn't). That person's opinion was then used from then on as absolute truth, everyone else who read this statement automatically believed it to be completely true.

As I was 'just the parent' and not a childcare or social work professional, my opinion was worth less than nothing. Never mind that I had raised my children all the years of their lives, carried them, gave birth to them, loved and cherished them every single day since they were born, apparently someone who had met them for a grand total of 2 hours in their whole lives was right and I was wrong.

The guardian I met was absolutely antagonistic to me from the second she met me and deiberately goaded me to breaking point. She also only met my children for an hour. Yet her opinion was worth more than mine apparently.

Sometimes I think that a move away from foster care and towards more short term.respite carers would be preferable for children in the 'middling' situations.

Spending X amount of time a month/year whatever with an approved respite carer. Could start earlier as there wouldn't be the hoops needed jumping through that permanent removal needs. Leading to less damage for children - they aren't being taken from their families, but are given the opportunity to experience a more 'traditional' set-up. With opportunities to build life-long relationships without the stigma of being 'looked after'.

Ideally their parents would be given support in whatever area they needed while the child is away.

More people would, hopefully, volunteer themselves for, and be suitable for, such care.

I don't really know how it could work, I'm just thinking out loud

I would find it easier to accept social workers mistakes if they were consistent. If they always recommended care where there are doubts, and some parents went through the stress of the system and court to keep their kids then at least I could reconcile myself to the fact at least no child suffers. Likewise if recommendations for care were always last resort at least you know innocent parents/ children aren't suffering all that stress. And I'm not forming that opinion on the extreme cases that make it to the press.
The other point that others have raised is that for many of the kids taken into care the outcome isn't any better than if they stayed at home. The money spent on taking eg a 10 year old into care, only for the same to happen over again with their kids would be better spent on supporting that 10yr olds parent at the start. Instead what seems to be happening is that there seems to be a focus on taking that 10yr old at a young age to prevent it. Which is a huge miscarriage of justice when in lots of cases decent support and services would prevent it equally well.
I also think social workers have far too much independent input. Great and cost effective if you are good and fair at your job. But far too much chance of error if you're not. Not that I think even those getting it wrong are telling outright lies but certainly writing reports that don't reflect the actual situation, and in fairness with the odd exception not even realising they're doing it. And yes other agencies, iro's etc get their chance to correct it before it goes to court, but that still ignores the fact it's still very traumatic and for some parents the final straw before they do crack and no longer can provide adequate care.
Just to even things up its not just childrens social workers I believe make mistakes, I'm sure adult social workers and other agencies also have the same level of inconsistency and error margin. But their individual input is obviously a smaller factor in the case of removing a child so is less likely to have the same catastrophic consequences

YANBU.

A distant family member is trying to get custody of his child (who is on CP plan) who on paper is suffering from confirmed emotional abuse, potential physical abuse and likely sexual abuse (from mother's boyfriend) His school confirmed he is sent to school in dirty unwashed clothes, he is emotionally very unwell and has very inappropriate behavior. My relative has been told that as it is only 3 months since the CP conference it is not possible for him to apply for custody as she may improve her parenting skills. There is a lot of horrific stuff I don't want to go into here, but you see dogs being removed by RSPCA on TV for less. I am totally appalled by the system.

On paper, giving people a chance to "improve" looks admirable. I doubt the reality is so great. The kids that have been concerning us here, where I live (not just me but other folk, too), are about 2 and 4. If they were got out of that situation now, they'd stand some chance. We're not sure if it's drugs or alcohol - probably both - mixed in with both parents having MH issues (the police would only say to us "there are Issues" but that confirmed what is fairly obvious to anyone with eyes). Either way, there is nothing there about to change, no matter how much "help" or "support" put in place - someone who screams at their 2 year old that it is a "fucking cunt" (heard her calling the same child "fucking sod" the other day) is never going to be a kind, sensitive, loving parent - not in a million years. The underlying "issues" are never going to go - and those kids will also be violent and antisocial as that is all they know. Throwing money at these kind of parents will achieve nothing. I would throw the same money at adoptive/foster parents, instead.

Waiting a few more months for things to improve just adds to the situation. As others have said, if children were dogs, someone would swoop and rescue a lot sooner. Strangely, hearing the way this woman was bellowing abuse at the 2 year old at the weekend, my reaction was "I'd report someone for speaking to their dog like that". We have reported and reported. The kids remain firmly in situ and the SW visits to the house have stopped, giving the parents the message they're Teflon and can escalate the abuse.

One of the problems is that the family have to be in ' crisis' before any real intervention and the thresholds have been increased to such high levels that children will enevitably be left to languish. Also who determines what is meant by 'in crisis'?
It's so sad and distressing.

What looks unbearable to adults isn't always to children.

I have to say one of the oddest comments ever written on mn.

OP, can you kick up a stink somewhere? call nspcc? alert some other body?

doreen I agree and also the care home system terrifies me