People who have never experienced being in family court

[SavanahXx]

It really does my head in when people side with social services. They have an opinion that "they are just doing what's best for the child". These people that have the opinion mostly have never even had involvement with SS, therefore don't see the lies and manipulation of a situation that they use.

It's easy for them to say that a parent 'could pose a risk' but do you know how hard it is to prove you wouldn't?

I seen an utterly revolting article that really baffled me. Social workers manage to get away with this stuff daily. Yet its not reported as it should be. This child was removed, with a judges permission. Then placed back with the mother by another judge.
There is so much corruption in our society and it needs to change.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/13/social-worker-criticised-child-taken-away-mother-refused-give/amp/

HeadintheiClouds

^^You’re seriously suggesting that your friend’s child was removed because they’d been neglected by social services, not your friend, mummytomunchkins?
Amazing! That’s a rather extreme example of people simply not understanding their culpability in what happens to their own children and wildly blaming all around them for their own shortcomings^

Yes yes I am saying DF was let down by SS. DV was involved. DF tried to safeguard and get early care help. All of which was ignored until it went to court. Then they sided with the other parent. Abuser in question was arrested and DF refused to allow back. DF even went into a refuge to protect the children. SS then tried to blame DF by saying it was their fault it happened. DF done everything to protect. SS abused that and manipulated the situation. So yes SS neglected DF and children by not providing support when requested.

YANBU. Never had SS involvement myself but as a professional I have seen so, so much poor practice that I would say it was extremely common place for serious decisions to be wrong. What’s worse is that often those who, to other professionals, are very clearly neglecting or harming their children are left with custody whereas others are removed for the most spurious of reasons. I can’t give examples for obvious confidentiality reasons but it’s honestly shocking.
I do think for most ‘normal’ people it’s a form of mental self protection. People would rather believe that SS are competent and good because the alternative is bloody scary.
What’s more those ‘lovely nice’ families that have social services involvement and are fully exonerated are so relieved and afraid they don’t tell anyone. I can think of three families like this.

I thank God that’s SS have never had any cause to come near my children as I think they are largely untrustworthy to do their job to an acceptable level.

I'm not going to respond directly to the OP as I don't think it's going to be of benefit. But for anyone on the thread who might worry about whether it's easy for a SW to remove a child, and who isn't familiar with the English court system, the set up doesn't stack the odds in the SWs favour.

First of all, the threshold is 'evidence of significant harm', or likelihood of. For any case to go to court, the local authority solicitor has to provide a document to evidence that threshold is met. That threshold has to be agreed in court by the judge for anything to proceed.

In English courts, there will be a legal representative for the social worker, one for each parent and one for the child. Typically the one for the child takes a contrary position, and the parents usually do obviously. So you've got at least 3 legal reps usually who will try and pick holes in the SWs case. Judges are VERY sceptical of social services in my experience so they really don't overlook anything because it's someone from the 'system'.

In reference to young children removed due to bruises etc, I have never come across a case where that is led by the social worker, it is always the medical evidence or concern that leads this. If a child protection paediatrician says it's a concern, the SW has to respect their specialism and put it before the court.

Similarly there is an expectation in any case that at a minimum social care, health and the police give a view and provide evidence re the concerns, and obviously education if the child is old enough. If any of these don't support the SW evidence the court would scrutinise the difference.

Im genuinely surprised that people could think that lots of malicious/false allegations make it to court. SS get false or exaggerated reports all the time, especially where there's feuding families or separated parents or neighbour disputes. It's usually pretty obvious to see through those. In my career I do know of one situation where there was a false allegation that led to removal (reunited in less than a week) That was awful to know it could have happened that way, but there were significant concerns - the false allegation was malicious, but based in reality which was the only way it could have got through. Think an allegation about someone being drunk caring for a child for a parent with a heavy drink problem and neglect that had already been observed. So it was credible enough that action was taken. While the child was temporarily removed, there were enough concerns (other things witnessed by members of the public, and non social care professionals etc) that the case remained in court. Fortunately the parent themselves viewed it as a wake up call and was able to turn things round with support and the child remained with them.

Fwiw my experience is both from working in CP and personal experience within my family.

@clarissa469 as far as I remember from reading the report into baby p and from watching the documentary the main sw didnt lie but was overwhelmed by her workload and couldnt follow up in the way she had done previously. Other sws were not properly trained. Or do you mean the department lied to cover their own backs?

@redexpat yes I mean the department lied

As a social worker I would say that what you have to keep in mind is that councils do not want to remove children, from a basic point of view it’s incredibly expensive and councils don’t want to spend money so they have no motivation to want to do this.
Also for an application for a child to be removed it takes at least 3/4 people in authority to agree that the bar is met then solicitors have to agree that the legal threshold is met and that’s before you get to court. Generally the children’s court guardian also has to agree otherwise it doesn’t get far. So even if there is poor practice by a social worker that’s a lot of unbiased people who then need to agree there is the evidence and the risk.
It’s much easier for social workers to minimise the risk and close cases and that’s the poor practice I’ve seen, not social workers removing children unnecessarily. The cases that haunt me are the ones where you know that children at being harmed and you don’t have the evidence to do anything.

So why dont you train as SW OP and show them how it should be done ?

I am currently working with a child (non social work capacity) who is under 5 and experiencing quite severe emotional and physical neglect in my opinion. The parents don’t take care of medical and physical needs or personal care. The child has in my opinion bruises that can’t be explained adequately and is still in the care of the parents despite SS being involved since the child was a year old and many many reports from us and neighbours about concerns for this child.
I honestly think the child would have to end up seriously injured or dead before SS take action. It makes me utterly sick to hand the child back to the parents at the end of each day.
Let me be clear the social worker involved is of the same opinion as me but her managers have tied her hands and in turn there’s have been tied by a judge who has decided to give these people a third chance to change their parenting.
My point is child abuse has to get to a ridiculous level before a court and social services take action to remove and there would have to be a serious level of collusion and lying across many agencies and people involved with the child to make that happen, every professional involved would have to get together and develop a conspiracy to have a child removed just for spite which is so unlikely it’a unbelievable.

I think som SW are crap at their jobs and arseholes yes. Law of averages denotes that you'll get a mix of people in every job.

I also think some people cant see the wood from the trees. My friend would swear blind SS were awful and kid snatchers, that her family was loving, its only now she admits how much she failed them. Going back to a dv relationship, which she had been helped from, one which the dd was finally beaten by the dad too. She would pretend they weren't together, encourage kids to lie and have them traumatised seeing her hurt and them all subject to controlling enotional abuse. Only when the dd was beaten and the kids one step from removal did she stop and think and realise she'd demonised them to avoid the truth of what she and the dad did.

I work with children and young people who have been through the 'care' system, most of whom who were removed due to a combination of chronic neglect, physical and emotional abuse. A lot of these young people now struggle to form and maintain healthy relationships with their peers, carers and birth families because of the abuse they experienced.

From reading their reports, the parents were usually given chance after chance over years before SW finally had enough evidence to convince a sheriff to grant them a removal order. A lot of the young people I work with can't understand why they were left in abusive, neglectful homes for so long, and feel angry that their parents still can't see or take responsibility for the harm they caused.

I get that it can be hard to admit you was wrong for some people.

This also applies to parents who waste their time and energy blaming social work instead of acknowledging the concerns and engaging with SS.

Why don't I train as a social worker? Because I would be ashamed to be apart of a corrupt baby snatching organisation who think they are mightier than everyone else. Granted they are not all like that. But even one makes the organisation look bad.

Also I'm fed up of foster carers trying to say that they see the stuff that happens. When the child has been physically abused or seen horrible abuse that's one thing. But the children given to them because of potential risk... You already know that they can lie yet you still fully believe everything that's said about the parents. THEY CAN LIE.

Please get that through your silly nieve heads.

It's naïve, not "nieve". If you're going to insult people at least spell it right.

I have friends who are social workers and they are often very distressed because they know a child is at risk but their hands are tied due to courts or lack of funds / resources. All they can do is watch and wait.

Personally I'd rather social workers were overzealous and removed 10 children prematurely than have another Baby P death.

Op I'm with you. People who haven't experienced it or who do t k ow others who have dont understand. These people lie, twist things and tbh if you slight then or tell them you think they are wrong (even when they think you are) I've seen them go all out in these circumstances to do their best to remove a child for any reason what so ever because they are annoyed someone disagreed with them or something. It's awful and people on her eyet again have no idea. There's so much blind ignorance on here by the masses on so many issues

I wonder if the OP actually works or has worked in anything to do with child protection from the other side and has seen how damaging parents who have 'done nothing wrong' are to their children 🙄 1 sided much.

Your opinion of whether a parent has 'done nothing wrong' is just that, an opinion, and will no doubt be biased in the personal cases/personal experience you're referring to as it's not going to be objective if it involves people you know.

SS get slated if they do act, slated if they don't. Sorry, but offending or upsetting parents takes a far lower priority than keeping children safe.

There's been too many occasions where things have not progressed where they should and situations escalated. Better safe than sorry.

There are good and bad social workers. We had a malicious complaint last year and our sw was lovely and shut down the horrible I terfering hv who had never met us who seemed to want to prolong the case for no apparent reason.

I haven't had to work in child protection to know the effects because I have lived the effects since being 4 years old. I think I've got more of an insight of the effects than these trained social workers who have never really had a bad thing happen to them.

Then you don't have experience of seeing if from both sides do you, so couldn't possibly view things objectively. Even if you do seem to think you know the personal backgrounds of all social workers and whether or not they have had anything 'bad' happen to them 🙄

How have I not seen it from both sides? I've both lived it and witnessed it.

OP I really don't understand? There isn't one person on here claiming to know "what it's like" in your situation. You still haven't answered my question either. What is it you're trying to gain from this post? It just seems you want to bicker the point that you're right and everyone else wrong.

As a social worker, I have written plenty of court reports. I remember one particularly bad time when I worked out I submitted 100,000 words in 3 months. That's basically a book. Not a single one of those was done in work time. I would start at 6am on a weekend and not even bother getting dressed, I'd put in two fifteen hour days and go back to work on the Monday. Id work til 6 or 7 in the week visiting kids and typing minutes and the rest, then at least 2 nights a week id go home and do as much as I could, working til 3 or 4 in the morning then get up and go to work for 8.30.

Im not saying that for sympathy, it was my choice to do the job and that's how the job is in many parts of the country - you can't change it, if you don't like it, you leave.

But can anyone really believe that if a parent wound me up that I would choose to put myself through that, to get some kind of revenge on a family and remove a child? I mean, even if you accepted the starting point that some SWs don't care about families and lie for no reason, why on earth would ANYONE put that cost of themselves? That's not an exaggeration, and plenty of my colleagues were doing the same - you'd email a question at midnight expecting a reply in the morning and you'd get 3 or 4 responses from your team immediately.

When a SW takes a case through to court, it's not like any of their other work is taken off them. You do a huge amount of extra work to get a case in court, at very short notice, then go before a judge who scrutinises every word and requires you to do a huge amount of more work within a 12 week timeframe to fit court timescales.
In addition if the child is removed on an ICO there's a significant number of extra visits and meetings to fit in to a diary that is already full. And you've still got all your other child protection work, urgent response work, etc.

As PP have said, the poor quality work is when SWs don't see things or over optimise because they don't have the headspace to investigate or be curious. Noone is taking something to court because it benefits them.

Speaking as a foster carer for many years I will say the SS process is never to remove a happy, very much loved child from his/her parents for no reason. Also babies are not removed and immediately placed for adoption "because it is in the best interest of SS".

Every case is different. In ALL cases parents are given every opportunity to display that they can provide "Good enough" parenting. Once this is displayed the child returns home under a well thought out care plan. If there is no progress being made, in terms of parenting, other family members are invited to apply to care for the child. There will be assessments made on the alternative family members, and contact arrangements set up.

In my experience very rarely do family members put themselves forward to care for their grandchild/dn/younger subling. Some do, initially, then pull out during the assessment period or fail the assessment. This process is not quick, easy or straightforward. It can take years - by which time the window of opportunity for the child to be placed with a loving, forever family via adoption has gone.

I, and I know many other foster carers, have adopted children because by the time SS have given their birth parents and birth family opportunities to sort themselves out the clock has stopped. One of my foster children spent 9 years in and out of foster homes. Another spent 7 years in foster care whilst the parents were intent on taking SS to court over varying disputes, rather than spend the time concentrating on getting their children back home.

The process is never straightforward. Every parent is provided with ample opportunity to have their children returned. I have been involved with some brilliant SW's who focus on the child's needs and go all out to help them return home. Sadly, this depends on the parents and not all parents are capable of "Good enough" parenting.

I have also met some nasty, conniving, vindictive SW's. Their stance is, usually, backed up by the team manager. Once a stalemate has been reached between vindictive SW and child's parent I am sad to say the child does not return home. I've had over 100 children to stay. Some very short term, some long term. Only twice have I dealt with two separate SW's who were determined to thwart the parents attempts at returning home. One I don't think the child would have returned home anyway. The other I reported the SW as I strongly felt the children involved should, and could have returned home. I was then accused of not being able to work with SS.

I have also fostered children who have been removed from their parent. Yet the new born has remained in the care of the parent because nobody can say for certain that the baby will be abused/neglected (even though the older siblings have). It's not long before the baby enters the care system though. It's bloody sad that a baby has to experience suffering before SS can prove the parenting he is provided with isn't "Good enough".

"Good enough" parenting means very basic parenting. Mainly that the child is kept safe and all his basic needs are met.

To let them who haven't dealt with them aware of what they can really be like. Maybe more people will speak out about their appalling behaviours

@clarissa469 🙌

OP, unless I've interpreted what you've said totally wrong, you've literally just said that you've never had to in child protection, thus implying you haven't experienced CP situations from the side of the people having to make those decisions.

@SavanahXx who you are to say social workers haven't had a bad thing happen to them?
look you've gone through a shit time but you're just being petty and ignorant now. You aren't listening to any else's point of you so this thread is just counter productive?

My dd was on CP for six months. Her father was violent towards me, including punching me when I was holding her when she was six weeks old, breaking thousands of pounds worth of stuff, etc etc etc. Turns out he was a crack head on top of that as well. I had no idea. I was told that I was a liar with an alcohol problem and mental health issues. (His allegations).

He continued to make allegations against me. I am a boring middle class teacher, so I guess they saw me as a target. It got as far as a PLO despite me doing everything to work with them, every single person who was involved just could not understand why the hell it was happening...

Long story short, they turned around and told me (after months of forcing me to hand her over to him) that I was under no circumstances to allow him contact with either her or me. And if he contacted me or turned up, I was to call the police immediately. This was after threatening to take me to court to have her taken into care if I did not comply with their demands. They suddenly wished to protect me and my daughter from him.

I've now got a CAO, a PSO and a surname change for my dd. And again, if he does darken my doorstep again, I've been told to call the police straight away. They are privy to more information (so obviously know the full truth about him) than I am, refused to listen to me when I voiced my concerns (with plenty of evidence), absolutely castigated me, on his flimsy and unproven allegations... currently at a stage two complaint. Although, typically nothing is happening. I will never get my daughter's first year back.