To think some posters are naive about SS?

[fudgeraisinbiscuit]

I see many posts where people seem to believe either that SS will offer support and that parents who are loving and coping but struggling can contact them for a hand-hold, or posts where people believe a not ideal yet normal situation can and should be reported.

AIBU to think posters are naive about what SS actually do?

Most of these cases are lose lose cases. Where the courts are just trying to decide which is the lesser of many evils for a child. I do however know of a case where I feel a vulnerable mother was taken advantage of and her baby taken that was not in line with standard legal requirements and I think of her often. There will always be tragic injustices and bad decisions made when you are dealing with these extremely complex, individual and unknown situations. And SW’s are quite an important cog in the system so if I was on the wrong side of a SS intervention I’d be terrified of what kind of person my SW was.

I do think parents with 10 year olds are going to get more support than those with newborns or pregnant

That is because 1) babies and younger children are generally more vulnerable. 2) It is likely to be far more traumatic to uproot a child of ten than a baby and best interest of the child needs to be maintained at all times, including mental well-being and 3) If parents have managed to keep their child safe until ten years of age then it is highly likely that with support, they can cope with another 8.

It’s not because babies are cuter and more adoptable.

I think people are very naive about how difficult adoption and fostering is and how often it breaks down. Outcomes for children removed from parental care are very often worse, even when their home life is appalling. People just don’t seem to get that.

Fudgeraisinbiscuit what is your suggestion when there is too many children for the parent to cope with then?

Would you rather all children be removed into care and likely separated anyway regardless of whether one could have remained and had their needs met once the parent had less responsibilities?

The UK also tries to place with family.

Totally agree. Those services that some councils used to offer as low level support (ie non-statutory services) have been gutted by austerity, even before this they were minimal. There also seems to be this bizarre blind faith that care orders are always justified despite lots of evidence that this is not the case.

There is also a naivety about adult services, got a neighbour whose a bit confused? Ring social services and let them "deal with it" whatever the fuck that means. Got a hoarding PiL? One phone call to social services will sort it out apparently.

I’m pretty sure they can remove a child as an emergency measure goat,they certainly could in 2013

No. They can apply for an ‘emergency protection order’ but then so can anyone. A family member, policeman etc. Social workers can and do apply for them in extreme cases where they believe there may be imminent danger to a child. A court is still the only authority to order one. They can send social workers or police to take the children but social workers neither have the authority to take children without the courts, nor are they the only people who can apply for one.

You could apply for one if you had a good reason.

I saw a program not so long ago about children in care homes being taken advantage of sexually and often end up in prostitution. The girls spoke on film and explained that girls as young as 4/5 are being abused but no one does anything and turn a blind eye. It was so sad.

You just have to look at more high profile cases such as the girls in Rochdale and Ss doing nothing to help those girls, it was the amazing woman who worked at the family planning clinic kicking up a fuss. She had a spine that woman!

Ss were more concerned about the babies the girls had, ignoring the fact that the mothers were children (under 16) themselves but didn't help and writing them off as slags who got pregnant.

Disgusting!

Many years ago I had just left an abusive relationship and my child was newly diagnosed with autism - I was struggling and requested a social worker. The woman that came into my life then quite possibly saved it, she was amazing. It wasn't just the practical support she arranged but it was the chats when she would tell me that I had all the answers and knew what I was doing but I just needed to listen to my own voice instead of my ex's. I couldn't tell you how many times she said that to me but it slowly sank in. She gave my children their mother back, much stronger and wth a self belief that still carries me through life challenges today. Not all social workers are like her of course but that's my only experience of social services and I am eternally thankful for them.

The outcome for older kids in care is pretty shit. So eg a neglectful parent with a 12yr old and a baby, the baby might be removed and the older child left. It has fuck all to do with baby snatching though or adoptable qualities.

If the 12yr old is settled in the community, with neighbours, friends, extended family etc the ability to care for themselves to some degree, it's often a better outcome than care. Physically they might be better in care, but mentally they won't be. So for the person making the decision removal happens based on which will do the least harm long term.

Whereas the baby a) has a better outcome in care and b) has a lot lower threshold for coping with neglect.

There's also the fact that ss simply don't have the resources they would like. They would have liked to give that mother a place in a mother and baby unit to learn the skills their own upbringing didn't give them. They would have liked to offer support throughout the last 12yrs. They would have liked to offer support because of the likelihood of pnd before it happened. They would have liked to offer support when it was still mild. But their resources are so limited they can only offer support when it reaches a certain level, and even then not all the support that is needed.

There is no defence for the bad/incompetent sws. But ime the problem is that there is a ludicrously high standard before they are held accountable, so you can be a bit shit in area 1, and then move on to area 2 and be a bit shit there too and so on. And there's very little their colleagues can do about it, colleagues who find it just as wrong as the public, and meanwhile get lumped in with them.

Depends whether your kids are “adoptable” or not. I’ve seen cases where SS has taken away a healthy baby but left older, disabled or less “adoptable” kids with the parent.

I've seen the opposite of this, families with several children removed, baby left with mum to "see if she can cope with one"

Have also seen younger children removed whilst teenagers are left because if they don't want to be removed they'll go back anyway.

I think Ss are overstretched, flawed and frustrating to work with at times however they are NOT baby snatchers. There is no agenda to supply adoptive parents with healthy babies. If anything they do too much to keep families together when removal would have been kinder all round.

@fudgeraisinbiscuit for goodness is sake it's not because they're 'adoptable' there is no target it's bullshit like that that makes people scared to ask for help.

There are sometimes different decisions made for different children in a family due to their age yes, I worked in the legal dept for quite a lot of years and agree that that is true.

But use your noggin and think about why that might be. A 13/14 yo who has a fierce loyalty and always lived at home is likely to resist foster care and keep running away or back to neglectful parents. Putting themselves in danger along the way, it might be more realistic to put in lots of support than remove even if criteria are met...

A 12 year old can fix themselves a sandwich if mums on a bender, a 12 week old cannot.

Decisions like that are not easy and sometimes it comes down to putting a child in the 'least damaging' situation. As yes, foster care and removal is traumatic no matter how
Good the foster parent.

I agree there are individuals, as with any job and some will be better than others but of the hundreds I met they were all trying their best in a shitty underfunded system

@GoatWithACoat

Of course but we all know (those in the field which I assume you are) that "voluntary" arrangements are often used in cases were social services want a child out the home but don't think they will meet the threshold. Often grossly misused.

My experiences of SS were diabolic. I have never seen such stupidity and total lack of common sense. The worst aspect is that they can never accept or admit that they got anything wrong but the facts are staring them in the face. My views come from various disciplines in SS. They dive in at nothing, fail to act when there is something, then argue black and blue when the facts come to light.
I would have had some respect if they could admit their faults.

If posters read the thread they'd see that almost all posters are acknowledging that SS are NOT child snatchers of pretty babies for perfect couples but that babies are more easily adoptable than older children for the many sensible and practical reasons given in previous posts.

As for some kids being subject to care orders while their siblings aren't this is how it's supposed to be. I know of a case where the social worker got massively criticised by the judge for applying for a care order for 4 children when they were only able to demonstrate 1 was at risk.

They are supposed to assess risk for children as individuals.

But (IMO) separating a child from her parents should only be done in extreme cases

Which is the case.

Most other European countries try to place with family, I believe

Same in UK.

If a child can be kept with her parents, she should be

They are.

Just because people claim that SW do X Y and Z doesn't mean they actually do. People with long term involvement with social services are rarely reliable informants on the system, almost every tale is that the evil SW stole their kids and glosses over the abuse, neglect and inadequate parenting.

Just a thought ( a completely unqualified one and would happily be corrected by someone who knows their head from their bottom)

If statistically, more young children where taken from their homes. And older children and children with additional needs SEEM more likely to stay with parent, then I would assume it has to do with the child's best interest, whether a child would be able to adapt etc

Could be wrong but that's where my mind would go

From a professional who regularly works closely with children's social care, threads like this are very unhelpful. People make sweeping generalisations often based on what a parent with social care involvement has told them. There are multiple levels of social care intervention from early help, family support up to child in need and child protection cases. Social care do not remove children, it's a court process and there needs to be substantial evidence of risk and lengthy legal proceedings to do so.

I assume you are talking about child protection SS, where safeguarding concerns are reported?

There is also a disability team, who can support parents and disabled children.

"They dive in at nothing, fail to act when there is something, then argue black and blue when the facts come to light.
I would have had some respect if they could admit their faults."

^^
This! Wasting time finding something out of nothing whilst ignoring things in other cases which are staring them in the face!

They will then always argue "we were safeguarding the children" when in a lot of cases, stressing decent families out with unnecessary meetings and paperwork and disrupting family life is not safeguarding the children, it's bringing chaos into it.

Social care do not remove children, it's a court process and there needs to be substantial evidence of risk and lengthy legal proceedings to do so

This ignores the use of "voluntary" arrangements which can be ongoing for some time before a court becomes involved.

This "unhelpful" thing always pops up in threads like this. Why is it unhelpful exactly?

They dive in at nothing, fail to act when there is something

This is such nonsense. You don't know its nothing until you actually "dive in" and find out, and you don't always know there is something. Often you can't know.

People expect SW to be mystical psychic all knowing, and castigate them for every time they are not.

Discussing public services is very unhelpful? I don't agree at all, I think it's imperative that these things are discussed. I think this thread is great actually, sensible and valuable. For one thing the idea of SS being child snatchers has been pretty much debunked with good information about how decisions are made between older and younger children and why a younger more vulnerable child might be more likely to be be removed. I've seen too many threads trying to discuss similar issues immediately shut down with ridicule and scathing responses to the OP and anyone who has concerns.

I’d be fascinated to see a link to any of those cases

www.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/why-many-mothers-with-post-natal-depression-now-fear-social-services/amp/

Where does that article say babies are being taken off parents and older children left? There’s one persons opinion and that’s it 🙄

I agree holly

A poster over the page details her experiences with SS. she is educated and articulate. What happens when people are not?