To wonder why so many people think social services steal babies

[Abbinob]

Recently the local police posted on fb about a young woman who had gone missing with her baby. The baby was in care when she's went missing with him.
Cue a hundred posts of how social services and their secret courts and forced adoptions and 'bonuses' for adoptions etc are to blame and that she had no choice etc.

What makes a good social worker?

In 1989, as a result of the enquiries into the tragic death of Victoria Climbe who died after chronic neglect and buses from her aunt and partner, the Children Act was born. The key principle of the act is the welfare of the CHILD is paramount. Involved in this act are legal parameters to private and public family law. These are what governs Child protection social work.

Section 20 allows for a child to be taken into care voluntarily if a person with parental responsibility agrees.

Section 38 gives the courts the power to issue an interim care order which means a child can be placed by Social services into stranger or kinship foster care and share parental responsibility with those who already have it. This lasts for 28days at a time but can be renewed.

Section 31 allows the courts to grant a care order which means the child can stay in stranger or kinship care with a long term care plan usually to remain in care.

The only other way a child can be taken from their mother/father/person with pr 's care is if the police execute their powers of protection which last for 72hr.

In the act, a duty is placed on the local authority to consider family first and to offer contact unless risk to life is proven.

Thoughts I'd put those facts on the table to guide.

From what I'm reading there seems to be confusion into Forced adoptions. The word forced means to have no power over. For a judge to grant a placement order which essentially frees a child to be placed for adoption and for a judge to grant an adoption order (ignoring at this point interfamily adoption i.e step parents) the judge and the judge alone has to be satisfied that every attempt has been made to keep the child with firstly their parents either together or apart or if this is not possible, be placed with family. Of course, if the parents do not agree to the child being placed for adoption and therefore feel powerless, they are going to say it is forced.

You will never hear of good social work, happy families who have had social workers involved or no mistakes happening. I believe this is because it's not interesting to most people, it's not 'neelws worthy' and those who have had good experiences are usually clever enough to enjoy thier children instead of selling their stories to the papers.

Every day there are social workers out there working 60hr plus weeks for a starting wage of £23,500. They sit and listen, ferry families about to appointments, worry, stress and cry over those who don't want to be helped and occasionally, and a hell of a lot less frequently than you would think, have to make the heart breaking decision that a child may be better off, safer and even happier away from their parents

I think personally where it all goes pear shaped is because SS never explain or apologise for any errors. This is probably because they must NEVER give the impression that they make wrong calls for fear of being accountable so the faulty, error prone SS system rumbles on. I have worked with SS and seen how they all close ranks if threatened by scandal.

There is too much back covering and pulling up of drawbridges within SS. Just like the banks and other major institutions that ruled our lives in the past by setting interest rates and mis-selling etc., SS needs to change and they must become more accountable and more transparent if anyone is ever to trust any of their decisions. It is very dangerous when there is too much power and very little public accountability.

I believe that there are some excellent, dedicated SW's out there doing a very difficult job front line. It is the managers that are the problem and they need to be called out for the terrible errors i.e. Rochdale, Baby P, Orkney.

Yuki Why did you make the assumption that people never get apologies? They won't be public due to confidentiality but that doesn't mean that where genuine mistakes have happened that people don't receive apologies or responses from their complaints.

Sorry if this offends but I do get tired with the 'oh poor social workers' posts. I agree they have an incredibly difficult job to do but just the same some are not good at it. It doesn't make them all saints.

But sockamnesty, I think the point is, that it's really hard to identify those people amid the clamour of voices insisting that they've been victims of unfairness. When everybody is insisting there case is wrong it's hard to find the people who are right.

But they don't work in isolation and the Nspcc has opened a whistle blowing hot line for those who feel aggrieved

In every profession and work place there are good and not so good but it's all relative and ofcourse if you feel you're in the right and don't agree you're going to think they are wrong and 'no good'

I have worked with some interesting colleagues and we have a whistle blowing policy too. However when you're already holding three case loads it's anxiety making to consider another person leaving who won't be replaced due to recruitment freezes

IME big errors get apologies but often the low level don't cause visible long term impact ones don't.

Very recently I was in a meeting with a fairly new SW and her team manager and several other professionals,one of them questioned something the NSW reported as fact (she was also in attendance at the time the alledged incident occured) the NSW was incredibly patronising to the point of rude and started down the 'you are not qualified enough to understand the implications' road until her manager stopped her, quite obviously stopping her.

I've been wondering since if her line manager said that without fail every single other professional within the room were Ex SW's themselves.

The thing that had been questioned was questioned because it was a significant misrepresentation of what had actually happened was obviously a misrepresentation one where anybody with half a brain wouldn't have even registered as a concern or anything yet got turned into a serious lapse in parental ability.

Not the precise situation but think totally normal clean wise child painting at a table in a clean house during visit. Noted in file as filthy dirty child mother lacked understanding required phone call after meeting to be told to bath her child (not precise words)

That mother should have been apologised to as should the professional

Well it's not really bill it only is when they lie. IME most people who have little to no understanding as to why letting your kids witness violence and abuse or the other types of examples in that post do tend to give those reasons.

It's the ones who are sexually or violently abusive that tend to lie to others obviously that's just my viewpoint and not based on a study or anything

Depends what you mean by "low level". I've had apologies from various professionals e.g. written letter from GP apologising for mistake in prescription that could have been fatal or an apology for not returning a call when agreed.

worried the hotline that has been set up by the nspcc is to report colleagues not for parents to use. Going by there blurb it's also for colleagues who commit child abuse not ones who are crap at their jobs or who may be less than honest about service users

There will always be social workers who are lazy, incompetent and/or downright dangerous. The same goes for nurses, dentists and teachers etc. It's how we - as society - address it that's going to improve practice. I don't know what the answer is.

The brief we've had is that the intended use of the hotline is for reporters(not media types) to report if they feel thier referral wasn't investigated properly

I do think there need to be tighter regulations when accepting students on degree programmes in the first place. I saw students being pushed through the course, both academically and in terms of placement, when they should have been kicked off the programme.

And with the link between children who have experienced trauma/abuse/neglect whether looked after or not with incapacity to care safely there will always be abuse due to the lack of capacity and resources available to effect change.

zariyah agreed, my God agreed!!

Off topic slightly but you must live near me as I have seen the police appeal for the girl and her baby, and the comments. Honestly, I think the comments gave way too much information for the public to know and the police should have deleted them.

Zariyah.... The Ombudsman website is very interesting to see how many complaints are actually upheld and how many apologies are given.

What it does not reveal is the devastating effect making complaints has on those making them, even when upheld. The whole system is onerous and like walking through a minefield for ordinary people with little knowledge of the SS system.

The OP said that SS has the reputation of stealing babies. I think it is more that they do not account for the decisions they make, good (hopefully saving lives of babies and children) or bad. Mistakes happen and the portcullis comes down.

There is no recognition by SS of the damage done to a child taken from all they knew, parents, wider family, friends, culture, schools and placed for adoption. There is no recognition that the cycle of abuse can be perpetuated by taking children from birth parents and putting them in care rather than putting in more services to support the parents with any issues of poverty and mh.

SW's do a very valuable job and have my respect for the child protection work they do. They are front line and hard working. It is the system that has become bloated and needs sorting out so that those making life damaging decisions do not hide behind the drawbridge whilst the front line troops are given up as cannon fodder.

Yuki You've missed my point. Lots of complaints are resolved before they reach that level, in many areas of social care and health. Equally, look at the HCPC website, showing that social workers (amongst other registered profs) are publicly named and shamed. The idea is to be as transparent as possible, whilst protecting the most vulnerable individuals.

I disagree with your comment about the harm that comes to children whilst in care. There is considerable research and work being pumped into this specifically because we know that children in care have much poorer outcomes than they should. That's why taking children into care in the first place is a gamble, because it has to be that their life will be better in care than with their families. That is beyond tragic. The state is removing children from horrendous situations into bad ones. We (society)!are creating problems for the next generation, whatever we do...or don't do.

There is so much work and support possible for children in care and birth parents and pilots taking place but they cannot be a priority at the moment with millions of pounds of cuts bring made.

worried perhaps I'm wrong but this suggests not

www.gov.uk/government/news/home-office-launches-child-abuse-whistleblowing-helpline

It says it's to tackle internal child abuse

On a slight tangent, I had reason to be involved with my local child and adult services (parental disability) and they either didn't know what their responsibilities were or have a deliberate policy of lying to get out of them. Eventually, I hired a specialist solicitor who went through their notes point by point.

Oh, the lies!

It was brought home to me that most mistakes are not apologised for because they do not exist in the written reports. The solicitor tactfully pointed phrased several bare faced lies as 'a gloss on the truth' and asked for them in writing.

We never got them in writing. Instead, we got what we knew we were entitled to.

If I was a single mum in difficult circumstances, trying to deal with a system that worked together and could explain everything away with no real interest in the truth but only in what worked in terms of their planned outcomes, I wouldn't have had a chance. It doesn't surprise me that social services rarely think they've anything to apologise for. On paper, they probably haven't. And there is no way of arguing with that unless you demand a letter for every single exchange. And can afford a lawyer.

Correction: She didn't go through their notes, she went through my notes of what they had said.

The lack of paperwork done in a timely fashion and almost policy refusal to comunicate in writing is a huge issue around here.

there is no legitimate reason why communications cannot be done in writing instead of by telephone if the service user requests it.

And there is no good reason for not providing minutes in a reasonable time

What rights do parents in the UK have to see any paperwork on their cases? Wondering as over here (Finland) I can request a copy of my child's entire file at any time which has the write up of every single meeting and every phone call and every report made, and I immediately get sent a copy of any report made concerning my child (that's how I knew the exact nature of my ex's and his parents' allegations) and a write-up of every decision made my the social care team.