Aibu to expect people to help themselves in their own lives?

[Lazymazy1]

Have wanted to be a social worker for many years, have a degree and was looking to do a MSc.
However, doing voluntary work with a family who are in a very chaotic position, who won't help themselves, ie getting pregnant again whilst effectively homeless. Not taking control of things which will make a big difference in their current situation.

It isn't a case of can't, but won't help themselves, perhaps ingrained.

Am I being unreasonable ? Or are there good reasons why people just won't help themselves?

There's a scheme encouraging women to have an implant in return for tesco vouchers...

A form of eugenics right there pk

There seems to be an assumption that women willingly continue to have kids after a child has been taken into care. Do you know of any?

I don't know any personally but recently I had to go through tribunal rulings of Care Orders where the birth mother refused consent to adoption. Many of the women had had 6+ children, who had been either been taken into care in groups (ie 3 children at a time) or within a day of the birth. There was one woman who had had 11. Her first 3 were taken into care together and then almost every year she had given birth and the baby was removed within 24 hours. Whilst the "implant for vouchers" sounds terribly crass and many shades of unethical, in the above case it may have prevented 7 children growing up in the care system. As she contested every single adoption the children were 3+ before they found their forever homes. A lot of damage has already been done to these children by that stage. She could not see why the authorities felt her drinking, addiction, repeated partners who were violent would be a threat to any children.

But in that situation what evidence is there to believe that Tesco vouchers would be in any way motivating to a very damaged woman who is stuck in an endless loop of pregnancy then loss?

Have some shopping vouchers to fill the deep psychological wounds behind this cycle? That rather presupposes that the woman is carelessly popping them out in a casual and unemotional way, if a baby can be swapped for some tins of beans etc.

And I suspect this stereotype doesn't reflect reality in most cases.

The only way I see this working in reality, is by trading on the addiction that should be being treated, not encouraged: If alcohol, addiction and violent men are the driving forces in someone's life, then it will be these forces that might stand a chance of persuading them to break out of the devastation of their children being taken from them. And that injects an even greater unethical side to this... perhaps enough Tesco vouchers would be enough as they'd fuel the alcohol addiction, which, as its an addiction might well be strong enough to override everything else.

Fundamentally, anything that leads into the practice or beliefs of eugenics is never going to end well.

It's horrifying that the conditions are right in our society for eugenics to be considered an option.

The lines between incentivisation and coercion, informed consent and misinformed enforcement, paternalistic guidance and medical assault become blurred as soon as you start along this road. There's a reason why eugenics is practiced by extreme right wing governments and dictatorships.

And why there's never been a 'good' example of it... Look at the forced sterilizations in Peru which only ended in 2010, which happened under the banner of 'family planning' to raise the poorest in society up out of poverty. But in practice creates a system where indigenous women were conned and forced into unhygiene and unaneathetised butchery of their reproductive organs. They were forced against their will, endured a traumatic physical asssault then were left unable to perform the duty expected of them by their husbands and society. And it didn't even 'cure' the poverty this disgusting policy set out to do.

I've mentioned this as I know people disengage when the most infamous mass sterilization of the disabled, ill, destitute etc, in 1930s Germany (which swiftly moved onto just slaughtering those worthless scum instead).

I know this might seem difficult to relate back to today, but whatever the solution to change those living in deprivation and without seeming able to help themselves... we cannot break the most fundamental rights that have been so hard won. For example, the rights of the individual to control what happens to their own body.

(Sorry slight soap box moment!)

If i had your opinion OP i would definitely be resigning from my job as a sw. There is no room for judgemental opinions like that when working with our families.

I'm baffled by the OP and many opinions on this thread.

Child protection social workers do make judgements, all the time. But they are professional judgements, not moralistic ones. We make judgements about whether a child is at risk of harm and how well parents are able to provide a safe, healthy environment for they children. We are not paid to have massively moralistic or emotional responses to families in need. That is not our role.

Its very worrying that anyone in this line of work, or considering it, would think it was OK to talk in the way some on this thread have about families with complex needs.

It might be insensitive, but we do need to have these difficult conversations. Clearly, whatever we are doing right now isn't effective enough and we need to try something else.

I have met adults like those described here. They definitely do exist!

Some of those I've met just need a good kick up the arse, but their SWs have to baby them instead, which just continues the cycle!

It does seem completely wrong that women who cannot look after their kids through their own life choices, be it drugs, violence, etc can just keep having them. It's not about money, it is about the profound effects of being fostered or forcibly adopted which put the child through turmoil and the devastation it wreaks on the mother when she knows what is going to happen to her child. Surely it would be better to insist on a programme of contraception until the would be mother has been given the appropriate help for her problems. If that's Eugenics and isn't acceptable, what are the alternatives?

I don't support forcible contraception even for parents (let us not forget the men as well as the women) who cannot cope well.

In practice also most people do not have a lot of children whether rich or poor in the West now. My grandparents on both sides were one of ten or 12 children but since WWII most parents have chosen to limit family size. I do not think there are large numbers ofp arents having very large families. The reason they are sometimes in the press is they are quite rare.

Anyone noticed it's only women's ability to reproduce that's focussed on - not the (usually) violent men controlling and coercing them?

Indeed although we do have the brand new criminal offence of coercive control by the way.

I dont think the coercive control law covers reproductive coercion but it bloody well should do!

Yes it's a new law but in this kind of area it takes a long time for it to be accepted as correct. Look at rape in marriage. Plus even though I have a brother and friends in the police we do often disagree about their attitude to this kind of thing as there does seem to me (and this is borne out by rape and sexual assault stats) still a lot of misogyny on this kind of issue.

Absolutely, Graphista.

Many of the women I have worked with who have had multiple children have been in abusive relationships where drug addiction and pimping (or coercive, abusive relationships) have been at the root of the issues.

We cannot (absolutely cannot) go down the route of enforce contraception as some sort of cure-all for this. It won't work (bottom line). Its like saying 'kill all paedophiles and paedophilia won't exist'. NO.

The role of men in poor reproductive decision making is often ignored. Because God forbid we make them take some responsibility! You've only to look at the laws on child maintenance (onus on women to apply, many loopholes to escape payment, minimal payment amounts in relation to actual costs of raising children, poor enforcement rules) to see that having and raising children is still considered to be a woman's fault/responsibility/duty

Yes graphista, very true.

Another thread on mirena coils has got me thinking..,

If our society started to heavily 'persuade' those perceived as the 'skivving underclass', what happens if a woman can't tolerate the type of contraception she's been pushed into having? What happens if she gets horrible side effects that effect her health and quality of life so much it's intolerable?

If 'ordinary' women sometimes struggle to get hcps to remove a coil from their own bodies, what hope would a woman have of being listened to if she'd been told she must have it (or another form of longer term contraception)?

I suspect that the perceived benefit to society / tax payers would be judged to out way an individuals pain or suffering. Especially as that person will have already been judged and found unreliable and unworthy... so how would she get her voice heard?

The violation of human rights for greater good argument is a slippery slope.

Misc have you seen the social worker thread that's included discussion on 'encouraging' women who've had their children taken into care to have LARC ?

Oops confused the threads I'm on both clearly

I agree NO woman should be getting pressured to have LARC even less so pressured to keep if the LARC causes problems and they want it removed.

There is a pilot research programme called If I were Jack which has been rolled out across schools in UK which aims to raise male awareness of the responsibility of fatherhood, with the aim of preventing or reducing teen pregnancies. It is in the early stages, but sadly I think the responsibility for a baby will always fall on the mother. She is the one who carries it and has the capacity to make decisions (in theory) whilst the father does not.

Just finished reading 17 pages and don't have a dog in this fight but first thing I want to say is OP you do genuinely disgust me, not sure anyone noticed your little 'i agree in hanging statement' and to some of the pp's in this thread fuck right off with your 'some of them just need a kick in the backside' attitude, invest in education and health, schools and hospitals are in a woeful stateas the tories continue in their class warfare, if you focus on health and education no matter the cost and no matter their current class status you can give people aspirations, yeah its gonna take a while to filter through the generations it will get there, make sure that age appropriate sex educations are given on a weekly basis, no religious exemptions that will help with letting girls and boys grow up knowing and having the information on consent and protection ingrained into their life.

Income is also such a big deal in these situations, less income in your life overall and you grow up not knowing what are the right choices to make, eg buying the family a takeaway for 1 evening meal even though that money would have possibly bought enough food for 3 days, but the enjoyment from that 1 meal might have made it seem like a good idea at the time (not sure why i used takeaway but I really want a curry today ). Like some people have said this isnt just a working class problem but I grew up poor so I can only (for the most part) come at it from that direction. Not knowing if you're gonna get sanctioned, not knowing if you have got enough hours this week, not enough money to put food on the table or even if you had the food not enough 'leccy' to cook it. Then into the mix you add that 'judgemental cow' whos coming over to see you next week, you're scared what if this is the week you have done well enough (never mind adding in any diagnosed/un diagnosed MH issues) and shes going to bring in even more of the system to pry and poke at your life yeah that definitely wont add to the stress.

Sorry just rambled all over every one here but feel free to skip it and get the Education Good, Judging Bad feel of it lol

Income is also such a big deal in these situations, less income in your life overall and you grow up not knowing what are the right choices to make,

Why? just

just(Unfortunately having a personal experience of a family member being brutally, horrifically murdered. I can not forgive the trauma caused, the ripples that event produced, and the further life that could have been, but never was. Yes, all for capital punishment ).
That's great that you feel prison is satisfactory, just your pov

If you become a social worker then you will be dealing with a lot of people who can't or wont help themselves. People who don't plan, they just react. People who are afraid to do what's (objectively) best. People who can't see through the short-term pain to the long-term gain. Chaotic situations tend to perpetuate themselves, people in them don't think very straight. People who feel that they have no control over their lives can't act as if they do have control. People who have been let down a lot throughout their lives will tend to grab what's nearest and not think about the long term. People who have been in chaos for a long time often feel helpless as if it doesn't matter what they do, so they act on short-term impulse.

People associate being pregnant with being looked after. So if you're homeless and feeling scared and neglected you might get pregnant. People associate babies with love; so if you're feel unloved you might have a baby (or another baby, and another, and another). People don't always think about the other side, they are in the grip of wishful/emotional thinking. As a social worker you are likely to have to deal with a lot of those situations.

And people don't trust social workers because (if you're honest) you can't promise to fix all their problems or even solve the problem that's right in front of them. Instead you want them to "take control" and "help themselves", but these are people who don't understand or have confidence in the system of rewards and sanctions that you represent. There are also many people who have been comprehensively let down by that system in the past and have no reason to trust it now. So what is obviously the right way to behave from your point of view may not be at all obvious from theirs.

There was some research about children from very deprived backgrounds which seemed to show that these kids acted on impulse and did not have enough self restraint to act rationally. The "you can have one sweet now or two sweets in 10 minutes" experiments - young children from deprived backgrounds went for the one sweet now, whereas other young children would wait for a bigger reward later. The original interpretation was that the deprived children were acting on impulse and didn't have enough self restraint to plan. But other more recent experiments show that this may be the wrong interpretation; these children may be very used to not trusting adults to behave in a predictable way and that adult promises can't be relied on. So for them it is rational to take what is in front of them and not to gamble on an uncertain future. (Sorry I don't have cites for this, it's from my slightly flaky memory and not my own research area.)

I don't know whether any of these count as "good" reasons to you. If they don't then you probably shouldn't be a social worker because that will probably be a large part of what you'll be dealing with. And you'll need to get past the idea that there is A Right Answer That Could Fix Everything. Very rarely there will be. Mostly there wont. Hopefully your training will get you past that but if it doesn't then find a differnet career because it wont be satisfying for you or helpful to your clients.

I agree with Just, OP condones eugenics and the death penalty.

A budding social worker with a degree in psychology or a mud flinging journo looking for the monday morning page fillers? What a crock.