Hello Spero - fancy seeing you here! I don't go on MN very often these days and have name changed (KW) in RL. I can't plough through 34 pages but I'm sure your input has been helpful. I suppose we have to be grateful for small mercies that our mutual friend JH is banned from MN - doesn't stop him and his lackeys coming out with the same old crap though.
I'm a retired social worker (30 years all told in children's services) 25 for a LA and 5 as an independent social worker. I worked in child protection and for the last 15 years with the LA I managed a fostering & adoption team. As an independent social worker I mostly carried out kinship assessments and SGOs once they were made law, and was commissioned by courts to carry out parenting assessments.
I agree with leanback - I feel saddened by the way the service has deteriorated in the 7 years since I retired. Budgets have been slashed and many LAs have had to sell off buildings and cut services every which way, as more and more savings are demanded by the government. My ex colleagues tell me social workers are sitting in car parks on a laptop.
When I first entered the profession in 1979 (was a mature student) I was in a team with experienced, committed and competent workers who had the time and motivation to help me "find my feet" - I learned more in the first 3 months in practice than the 2 years in college. We were able to carry out preventative work with struggling families. I will never forget my first "client" (that's what they were called back then) who had 3 children and there was concern for the welfare of the children and I used to visit every day! This mom had a mild learning disability and I managed to get the father of the children who was living nearby to accept that she need more support with the children. Eventually with their agreement 2 of the children went to live with him, which meant that the mom could cope with one child. None of those children came into care.
There were many families like this, whose children stayed put because we had the time and resources to do this preventative work. Obviously there were cases where sadly we had to apply to the court for an Order to protect the children.
Moving on - my eyes were opened wide when I started working for a neighbouring authority (Birmingham City Council) on a freelance basis. The quality of social work was poor in almost every case with which I was involved - the very first case I did, the aunt who was fostering her nieces told me I was the 8th social worker she had had in 18 months! The major problem was social workers struggling with horrendously large caseloads, totally overwhelming, many of the workers were young and inexperienced and the managers were often incompetent. I spent hours (unpaid) helping social workers as they had no idea how to plan for permanency and neither did their managers.
I'm 7 years retired so I don't know what goes on in court but I simply don't believe that social workers or other professionals deliberately lie and falsify reports. I know there was a recent case that Spero mentioned where reports were falsified - I think it was a clinical psychologist who reported verbatim what had been said by the parent, whereas it was revealed that she hadn't in fact made these statements. It was a bit odd as he was if I recall correctly a very experienced professional but I can't hazard a guess why he would behave in such an unacceptable way. I'm not saying professionals don't make mistakes - I just don't believe they deliberately lie in court. I think sometimes it is a matter of perception - the social worker might think X Y and Z are matters of concern in terms of safeguarding a child and the parents disagree, and so there for accuse the social workers of lying.
The other thing is that parents DO accuse the professionals of lying because it's too painful to accept what they have done. I recall a new foster carer being very indignant and upset, saying that the mother of the children she was fostering said they had been removed because she hadn't taken them to the dentist. Of course this was far from the truth - it was actually a very bad case of neglect.
It did become the norm while I was working for the LA for all parents involved in care proceedings to be assessed by a clinical psychologist which was advantageous but I think in some cases, it de-skilled social workers who came to believe that they weren't wholly competent enough to carry out a parenting assessment and provide the evidence that was necessary in care proceedings. I gather that this is no longer the case because of the cost of these assessments.
I read criticism that guardians simply go along with the views of the social workers, but I have seen cases where the opposite has been true, the social worker has changed her view to align herself with the guardian, so as not to have a hard time in court, as guardians tended to be more influential in court. I don't mean that this was routine, and of course one of the tasks of the guardian is to identify areas of agreement, and it was sometimes just a case of the social worker slanting their views towards those of the guardian.
Sorry I realise I am rambling on and haven't followed the debate. But I do want to say that these rumours of babies being "stolen" for adoption is nonsense. There are adoption targets and I know Spero has sent FOIs to every LA in the country I think? The thing is though we live in an age of targets, and the social services targets for adoption are for children exiting care not entering care - why would LAs want more children entering care when they can't really afford to look after the one that are already in the system. It's all very well having targets for children who are not going to be returned home, to be placed for adoption, but the fact is it is mostly only children between 0 and 5 who will be matched with adoptors. Demand far exceeds supply and most adopters want a child as young as possible. Once a child is over 5 their chances of being matched with adopters diminishes by the day. The need is for older children, sibling groups and children with disabilities. So whether it's the govt or senior managers who are setting these targets, unless these children can be matched with adoptors it won't happen.
Finally I believe that the tories agenda is for privatisation - we've seen it in the NHS, schools, prisons, probation, and it won't be long before social services is privatised. I think this will bring about further deterioration in service delivery, because it will no longer be a public service but a business, incentivised by profit which of course is the case with all businesses. There is a huge problem on a national basis with recruitment and retention of social workers and I think this will be exacerbated once the service has been privatised.