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?

My advice to Christmas would be to set out a chronogical timeline and attach copies of correspondence to it.

Good luck christmas do you have a local Healthwatch. Also, I'd write straight to the top noting concerns you are able to evidence. Every call and convo, take a note and send a written summary, recorded delivery.

AIMS has a helpline> [email protected] phone > +44(0)300 365 0663

Thread is about to run out!

I will have a read back on Christmas’s story

This thread is interesting. Would it be possible to have a continuation thread when this does run out?

Christmas what stage are you at?

Do you have copies of all assessments? Intial, core etc?

Is the info contained in assessment reports accurate and based on evidence?

If escalated to next stage are there reasons and what evidence it is based on explained?

That would be great stillme1. For good, bad and in the middle experiences, also anyone with advice OP has gone though, I think. Would you mind starting it please?

Christmas Spero was offering to help Claws. Maybe she could help you? She's at the childprotection resource site which tess linked to.

Hello @NipInTheAir, thanks for responding. I don’t agree that the ‘control’ aspect of social work (in whatever area - children, adult health & social care, mental health) is centred around whether or not there is a court order - by ‘control’ I mean the social work/state action of intervening/getting involved in people’s private and family lives to either get them to do something (eg take medication, send the children to school) or desist from something (eg physical chastisement, misusing alcohol, exposing children to harmful relationship dynamics or violence). This aspect is not necessarily incompatible with ‘support’ but I suppose has different modes/aims (eg with support I guess I am saying ‘I can help you with this’, whereas with control I guess I am saying ‘I want you to do this or stop doing that’).
In terms of your experience, it’s really hard to comment as I have no wish to deny/minimise your experience - or anyone else’s - but I guess there is no access to any other perspective on what took place. You described, if I have this right, that a more respectful attitude from the SW you dealt with could have changed things quite a lot. I think that is often true and very important. What I also took from your post though is that you felt CAMHS were inappropriately/unfairly seeking ‘red flags’ about your parenting in order to explain your daughter’s emotional health problems and self-harming. This is a tricky one and I think is a delicate balance we social workers can be clumsy with in terms of how we express it - it seems to me vital to understand an individual’s experience/behaviour in the context of their social and family system (including how the family communicates, family experiences, expectations, values etc) to try and make sense of it and work out what needs to happen for things to get better. I can see how this can be either couched in ‘parent blaming’ terms, or heard/understood as parent blaming - and of course people become defensive when they feel they are being criticised, blamed, judged or asked to make changes. It’s a difficult and painful process and there is the potential for lots of misunderstsnding and miscommunication. For example, to me your post comes off as being quite concerned with establishing that your daughter’s issues were completely individual and in no way related to your parenting or her family experiences; you might be completely correct about that, and also I could be mischaracterising your position. Actually for me this illustrates the importance of the point that (I think) you were making - that respectful communication from the professionals who you had contact with may have given more space to reflect on any changes or support that could be helpful without needing also to grapple with feeling attacked. I hope that makes some sense and I welcome any thoughts
I wish you and your daughter well by the way and I hope she’s doing ok.

To the other poster above who was seeking advice for @Christmas, I would always recommend finding Surviving Safeguarding’s blog.

Deri do you perhaps think then that the term advice or supported parenting might be more helpful.

FWIW dd was diagnosed with a neuro developmental disability by her psychiatrist. ADD. depression, anxiety and self harm are often co-morbidities. She got to 15 before problems started in her GCSE year with balancing 11 GCSEs. She was always a high performer, predicted 5/6 A*/A. Nobody ever raised a single concern. Happy balanced family and no pressure from us. All we have ever wanted is happiness for our children. They have had love, security, support, good schools, good friends, thoroughly good lives.

CAMHS would not listen to her concerns about achievement. Her psychiatriat did. As soon as she was diagnosed she turned the corner. She dropped 4 UMS points across 3 A'Levels. CAMHS staff, nurses and social wprkers, did not have the clinical capability to begin to look laterally and diagnose. Indeed the CAMHS nurse when she was diagnosed told me when I told her "well now mum I think she's being a bit old at 17 to be diagnosed with that".

Getting high quality care and support via the state proved impossible for us. If it's impossible for professional, educated, wealthy, sound, happy families I can only imagine what it's like for those in less optimal circumstances.

It felt like a form of bullying.

Another with a liar for a SW, basically made out the case was about one thing when really it was about something much, much worse which was deliberately hidden from the childrens’ father (my DP). Currently seeking legal advice as it took the police to get to the truth of it. Can’t say much as we’re seeking legal advice but I used to think SS were there to help families. I don’t anymore.

Stillme1 so sorry to put you on the spot there. It's just that I think my username will attract the put me downs. If not you, maybe someone else on here?

Comes as a shock, doesn't it Duchess? There have been good experiences on here too, though. A pp suggested it depends where you live?

Even the most brilliant sws can't always offer the resources a family actually needs. Not because the family have extreme needs necessarily, but simply because they don't have the resources they'd like to offer, either because they don't exist, or they're in such limited supply the family don't yet meet the high criteria for them, regardless of how much the sw believes they need them now. Unfortunately lots of support is firefighting rather than early intervention. And sadly by the time the family gets to the point they meet the criteria it can be too little, too late. All of which is a system fault, not ss or the individual sw.

And again you get the problem of inexperience (of life, rather than just being newly qualified) where the right support isn't offered because inexperience has already led to incorrect conclusions on what the problems are. Or maybe it is beneficial but on a practical level the parent can't access it or follow through on what the sw have said is a must. And the sw is so sheltered they see it as not engaging.

And there is no denying that in some cases it's a matter of making the evidence fit the crime.

christmas when you say you haven't yet had anything from any support agencies, maybe if you post those you've tried some of us might be able to suggest others? (Naturally only the national/ well known if you don't want to reveal your area)

Might it be better to take this out of AIBU and put in OTBT where threads last 30 days and don't come up in the feeds?

11 more posts for this thread. Am at work and reliant on phone here and can't link, etc.

@NipInTheBud - possibly. I’m not sure. I think that whatever we call anything in this field, it will frustrate/alienate someone, not that this means we shouldn’t continue to try and find inclusive words and language to describe social care activities or to be always compassionate in how we communicate.
The issue of getting diagnoses at your daughter’s age, and what that means (for some it’s useful/desirable and for others it’s the last thing they want....just like everything in social care the possibilities run the spectrum of A-Z) can be really tricky and frustrating.
What kind of support/treatment do you think would have been what your daughter needed, and why do you think it fell short - what was missing? Genuine question but please don’t feel obliged to answer if you don’t want to.

Deri zhe needed to be assessed by a qualified doctor in the first instance not a camhs pmhw or social worker. She was offered group therapy in the middle of the school day which would have meant losing almost a whole day of school for a 10-11.30 session when school is an hour away. Get back to school at 12.30 for last 15 minutes of a lesson, then lunch!

There was no listening and they refused an alternative. I was told to get a counsellor off the intefnet when we declined the intervention. I was not skilled to do that and most good therapists won't accept an under 18 who is actively harming anyway. The only alternative waz to seek private medical care and the psychiatrist recommended therapists etc, and orescribed AD's and then diagnosed. The crisis where she took a tiny od 48 hoours before going to A&E to make sure she hadn't harmed herself precipitated the ss referral. Exam time. CAMHS had closed her case qhen we refused group therapy and when they refused to provide an alternative. Why would we want to be referred back to them esp when the pmhw who assessed her had chewed gum throughout the assessment.

Now it would have been nice if the sw who rang had said "hello Mrs Air, we received a referral re your daughter. You must be feeling very worried about her, I can confirm there are no previous concerns on her record and we will be closing the case (which they did) but can I sign post her/you to any support. Examples are:
Now wpuldn't that have been more constructive? Would certainly have avoided a formal complaint.

@NipInTheAir I can absolutely see that it would have felt distressing and unhelpful to have unsatisfactory/uncompassionate* contact from children’s social care at such a difficult time, and that a more constructive and supportive tone when making contact with you may have made a crucial difference to how you experienced that contact.
I suppose another perspective (thinking about a practitioner who has just been allocated that as a referral) is that,on paper at least, there is a young person who has just had a hospital admission due to an overdose; however parents and/or the young person have indicated they are not prepared to accept the intervention offered (the group therapy at a time that is disruptive to attending school) and not prepared to look for alternative provision (due to feeling underqualified to do this). This may well raise the concern as to what services/help the young person is in fact accessing to support them to reduce their risk of harming themselves; whether the young person’s school attendance is being prioritised to the detriment of their mental health and safety (not that attending school isn’t important - indeed it may well serve as a number of protective and recovery focused factors for your daughter - but the question would be which is the priority right now). I am speculating here and could be completely off piste (and intend no offence) but if you presented at the time as more concerned with what form of address the practitioner used for you and/or whether the CAMHS worker was chewing gum when speaking to your daughter (which I agree isn’t great) than with resolving the issue at hand, this may raise concerns about whether you were prioritising her mental health. In any event they were clearly satisfied that you were, as they closed the case and you’ve evidently sought treatment privately which sounds like it was a lot more helpful, so I am not trying to cast aspersions but just to consider how a situation may appear to a person on the outside.

I definitely feel that if we had better funded mental health services you very possibly wouldn’t have had anywhere near such a negative experience: by that I mean individuals and group interventions nearer to you and at more flexible or convenient times so that there needn’t have been that barrier in the first place. I do think that people will go on having experiences like yours while this is the case and that is shameful.

*I just invented this word

Oh dear you are very confused. Perhaps i wasn't clear. CAMHS assessed, offered group therapy and closed case seven months before the referral to ss. At that time we had a cons psych and camhs hd proved themselvez unable to help.

They said in their own letter that stresses were school and a hievement related and she may be happier once settled. Then offered something that woukd destaabilkse the start at new school and refused to offer an alternative.

You do seem intent on pushing the blame back on me. Let's be clear: CAmHS refused to lrovide an adequate intervention, refused to help with an alternative, and closed the case. Tberefore we got a psychiatrist for our dd. You know, because we care. They didn't. We were the ones who got excellent care for our dd and kt wasn't a counsellor off the internet as suggested by the gum chewing pmhw. It was a consultant psychiatrist. How on earth does that conflate to not following their advice re an intervention. It's fad better than anything they would have done

Nobody should be concerned about the form of address because it ahoukd be respectful and appropriate in the first place.

You really arè gping out of your way to parent blame.

Can anyone tell me what OTBT is?

Go to talk, click other stuff and you will gind otbt. A quiet place.

deri parents decisions can be used against them, whatever they decide! To suit SW’s agenda!

An extract from my complaint to head of SS, following core assessment report. You cannot win!!

“Despite Ms Claw’s resistance to the current reintegration plan there is no evidence that she has taken steps to facilitate a new school or home schooling as a possible option and is not prioritising educational needs”

Ds was not fit to attend ANY school or receive an education at that time, he was an emotional wreck, hence Ds being the subject of CAMHS safety plan and my GP medical signing him off from school until further CAMHS assessment and plan.

I agreed with EWO suggestion of home tuition, while Ds was not fit to attend, which is why she sent a representative to the meeting where the plan was made on xxxx.

“I am concerned about her ability to engage with professionals and understand the information that is being given to her. All professionals involved with this family are able to give examples of how Ms Claw has misinterpreted what has been said to her and this has resulted in her going against the advice given and doing something very different for Ds’

I have given you a copy of all the written advice that i have received from professionals and i was following their advice. As you will see CAMHS ‘Ds is not to attend school, if it increases his self harm and suicidal thoughts’ and GP’s medical certificate stating ‘Ds is not to attend school, until assessment from CAMHS is complete and a plan agreed’

I have already supplied social services with copies of everything i refer to, but will enclose again for ease of reference.

I totally agree that Ds needs an education and steps need to be taken to ensure this happens. I have applied for EHCP and sought expert advice. As Ds’s parent, who is responsible for his safety, i want to make sure it happens in a safe and successful way and does not result in escalating Ds’s school anxiety and self harm as it did when Ds returned to school in Xxxx.

I would appreciate it if social services could explain their processes and on what grounds the case has progressed, as this has never been made clear to me.

Damned either way!

Ok @NipInTheAir thanks for clarifying the timeline. No intent to ‘push the blame back’ on you, just trying to unpick what was clearly a stressful and distressing situation and make sense of what was negative about your experience and what role the behaviours/perspectives of the services you came into had in that.
I suppose this contributes a bit to the point that as social care professionals the situations we become involved in are varied and unique, which makes it difficult to generalise, and that one of our roles is to probe and question what is in front of us, which is difficult to go through when you are the one being probed and questioned, if that makes sense. I don’t speak for any other social workers, only myself, but it seems to me that we often get this.....I don’t know....not wrong exactly, but not right enough and I find discussions like this (while demoralising on one hand) really important for reflecting on that.

AIMS > We see a huge variety of standards, misunderstandings, prejudices, ill-informed interpretation of risk factors, cultural incompetence and even racism, in the initiation of cases from health visitors, teachers, midwives, nurses, doctors and others Says it all!

Thanks to OP for this thread, I think it's been cathartic for a number of people. Good bye thehog you're so obviously a Guardian ad Litem