I haven't read the whole thread as I know it would depress and frustrate me.
Prior to having close family go through the family court system, I would NEVER have believed the things that can happen. I have sat in court proceedings, numerous meetings with social workers, school staff, CAFCASS etc when my sister was having problems so have seen first hand how the process can work.
I'm sure there are very many dedicated, highly competent social workers who are good people. My experience is sadly miles away from this. I assumed at first that we were unfortunate enough to be working with one bad apple... until it became clear that the further up we went with complaints etc, the whole tree was rotten. The more we complained (through the proper channels, with evidence), the more my sister was mistreated, and of course by extension the children were badly affected.
We have since had involvement with 2 other local authorities and, while there does not seem to be the same level of misconduct, there is certainly incompetence.
I could write a book on this. Anyone who has not had their own bad experience of family court and social services would simply not believe what I had to say.
Our experience includes clear misconduct, lies, blatant misquoting of the children, ignoring any evidence from other parties such as school or GP that didn't fit the narrative, failing to read reports and therefore writing reports full of false information of missing vital facts, and giving misleading information to one parent and being more forthcoming with the other. We did have one clerk in court who once called a social worker out on some aspects of this but the next time we had different clerks and magistrates. We tried and failed to procure court transcripts that would prove the clerk had outright stated that the social worker had acted illegally at one point.
To give a couple of specifics that I hope would shock you (if you believe them)...
Social services claimed that a 9 year old boy who had self-harmed (cutting) a number of times at school and had then talked about wanting to kill himself and later wrapped the cord of his PE bag round his neck was not at risk. It was not a concern that his father (who had residency at the time) had not sought medical advice or therapy, or even had a meeting with the school about it.
A second example - the father had been convicted of harassment and battery of the mother prior to family court proceedings. Social services failed to refer to this in any reports, and when called on it said he had recognised his actions and moved on. This was barely a year after the conviction and he had pleaded not guilty and never admitted fault or apologised.
On the flip side of this - my sister cried or got frustrated with social workers several times, which I would suggest is a 'normal' emotional reaction to a very traumatic situation. They repeatedly claimed she had mental health and anger issues. She got letters from GP and counsellors dismissing this and attended anger management classes to prove she was cooperating, but continued to be labelled as mentally unstable in future reports. There was not only no evidence of this, there was actually letters from professionals stating she had no such issues.
These are just a few of the more easy-to-explain issues we had, in just our family. If only a fraction of the families involved with children's services have only a fraction of the problems we did, it is still a horrendous situation.
Going through all this with my sister made me very, very wary of social services. While I felt very unlikely to ever find myself in a similar situation, I remember not just thinking but actually concluding that if social services ever had concerns about my children that appeared as though they might escalate, I would leave the country with them before they placed any restrictions on me. And I say this as a boring, 30-something, middle class teacher. Radical, yes. But having seen what I've seen, I would not risk significant social services involvement in my particular local authority.