Aibu to think that my kids aren’t coming back?

[SeaOfDespair]

I had my girls removed last month and it’s been a very traumatic experience. My family are so far away, my friends have dwindled away and I’m stuck looking at these 4 walls.

I’m seeing a private child psychologist and doing some work with him. He understands how harsh the system can be. I’m doing 2 different parenting courses online. I’m paying for all of this myself and has been a bit of a struggle recently.

My solicitor just tells me to go along with whatever they want. I’ve ticked one thing off the list, but they’re not forthcoming with starting their own assessments. Social worker is either sick, or can’t be bothered.

My youngest has arrived to contact with bruising to her face 4 times. She is cruising, but never managed to be bruised within my care. My elder one seems sort of happy, but is having a lot of tantrums and isn’t able to communicate with me.

From them wanting to keep them at home on an order, their original intentions until the court hearing, to pretending I don’t exist. They didn’t even turn up to the meeting last week. No apology given. No notification of cancellation.

From a case of closing ranks to keeping the case open, it never did surprise me that they applied for a court order. My social worker’s reasoning? I don’t agree with their concerns, so there needs to be a care order.

Am I being unreasonable to think I don’t stand a chance in hell of getting them back, if they’re not willing to even bother working with me?

@NerdyCurvyInkedandPervy I wish I could drive. I would love to go back home to have some more support. The train fare is slightly over £100, so even with a rail card I’d struggle to afford it once a fortnight, never mind once a week. It also takes 4 hours or so without any cancellations. Last time I went up there, I set off at 8pm and didn’t get home until 2 am with trains cancelled and delayed. It’s an absolute headache and it would be selfish of me to not prioritise seeing them. But I totally understand. It’s killing me being asked about the girls and being over the road from the park, even going to the supermarket is getting really difficult. It feels like my heart is being ripped out when I’m having to constantly face places which have now turned to bad memories. I’ve been trying to get a job for the days I don’t have contact, so that I’m not spending my life staring at these walls.

So with a rail card, I think it would be just under £70. So £210 a week, £420 a fortnight. I get way less than that without eating and paying my bills.

This is horrendous. I'm so sorry for you, OP.

I'm so sorry to read your story, SeaofDespair and I also hope that you get your girls back soon, and get the appropriate support that your DD needs.

I have knowledge of a case where all it took was one professional raising welfare concerns, and then another bunch of them following through on that report, to instigate a removal and a move towards permanent removal. This was despite other, equivalent, professionals querying the original report and putting forward their own reports - it was all disregarded. It became ridiculous.
The parents did get their child back but it was a long road and a feeling of the SS closing ranks rather than admitting that the report was wrong. So I know it can happen.

Best of luck - I hope that you manage to get through this soon. xx

@thumbwitchesabroad it does honestly seem like a dog with a bone at times. My case started with a referral that wasn’t made in good faith. There were obvious untruths in her report and the fact that it was made after I complained about her should have been noted. It has all been go from there, really. When their concerns become contradictory, they will suggest I just don’t understand. I ask them to give examples and they will roll their eyes, whilst not being able to give any.

And thank you

It sounds silly but before you get a job just check in with SS (email preferably) that you are needing to occupy yourself and continue living but will not let it overwhelm you.
Even if they don't give a clear response the proof that you took it into consideration is there, they may add to the report that you are stretching yourself too far/unrealistic by thinking you can be a working parent which may leave them at risk of neglect.

I also have experience of those bastard reports as a kid, a parent and a relative of the family, as well as batshit levels of 'interpretation' of your circumstances they like to push the 'risk of' factor.

Email them letting them know, don't wait for a response. Then try and start rebuilding a life, they want to see you coping with life so force yourself to take part in daily activity/employment and maintain /build routines.

It is a shit situation but it isn't over yet.

I can’t comment on whether your children are better off with you or not. However, if you have the money to pay for courses etc, I would think it was money well spent to pay someone to come with you to meetings as an advocate.

If you are constantly in a battle of who said what with the SW, can you not get things agreed in writing, so you all know where you stand?

SeaOfDespair, your circumstances sound dreadfully stressful. I really do believe you, I have a friend whose baby and wife are currently being kept in a mother and baby unit for literally no reason at all. His wife is too scared to leave as she is worried SS would take the baby away from her. This also started after he made a complaint about an element of their service, he has ADHD rather than Autism though. Things like you describe can and do happen. Its also not just as easy as agreeing with and doing everything they say when they change the goalposts and the focus of their concerns. Addressing one spurious area of deficiency or concern leads them to focus on another and if the deficiency isn't genuine you can't actually fix it anyway. You really do seem determined, calm and collected, you just have to keep presenting this to them, for however long they choose to stretch this out. I really wish you all the best, don't stop trying to find the right advocate or legal representative as it could really benefit you 💟

When they couldn’t use one concern, they moved on to another...

I think you have misunderstood the 'circular conversation' you described at Wed 13-Nov-19 22:17:34.

You seem to believe that flat out denying their concerns means they have no right to maintain the concerns.

This isn't how it woks.

In fact, flat out denial of their concerns, and arguing, are massive additional concerns.

If you want your children back, stop denying, and stop fighting with the HVs and the social workers.

It seems from your recent posts that you tend to grip one single detail from someone's post and ignore the content and even the details in the rest of the post.
You responded to littledrummergirl's Wed 13-Nov-19 23:41:48 post where she tried to go through possible SW reasoning and to enumerate details you have posted of your problems in the previous accommodation, with the retort But my curtains are up in this place. Which missed the point completely.

The taxi to appointments story jumps out at me:
I’ve taken her to speech therapy. I’ve taken her to have her hearing tested. Sw: “yeah, but.... you actually refused to go to appts unless we paid for a taxi”. I took her up on her own offer. She said that I told her I wouldn’t have bothered going without their help. I actually said to her that if she couldn’t get a taxi, don’t panic as I’ll get the bus down. No big deal

This whole business about a taxi is a big deal.
There is a huge problem here with the taxi conversation. The conversation as reported sounds like two ships passing in the night.

You have several times on this thread made remarks about how long it takes and how much it costs you to get to contact with your DDs. My guess is that when SW talked with you about taking your DD to her speech appointments you made the same song and dance about cost, effort, etc., of getting there.
Did you miss speech therapy appointments?
Did you try making excuses to SW about practical difficulties in the way of getting to speech appointments?
Did you try to wangle taxi fare out of the SWs?

You tried to get Tenancy Support to put up shelves and a curtain rail after all.

Since your main argument here is that SW are being vague and moving goalposts, you need to find an advocate who will sit with you and explain the content of all meetings you have with SWs, and all written communication from SWs, so that there will be no more misunderstandings.

It is not good enough for you to say 'But I need more information, more details, more specific instructions. The SWs won't tell me exactly what to do and no matter what I try they want more,' and dig in.
SWs can't guess what you don't know or can't understand.
You don't know what you don't know.
There is a huge understanding gap.

Digging in and lobbing accusations or questions at SWs that demonstrate hostility to them has not worked very well for you up to now, and it won't work well for you in the future either.

Get an advocate, no matter how much time and effort it involves.

I can't really get to grips with what is happening to you now op, and hope things will get better for you, But I must say, that you have written it all down very well on here, in an articulate way I mean.

Hire a private lawyer OP. I believe you. I have seen first hand how alot of social workers can be to other people. Here in the states they tried it with me years ago with a little lie my son told in kindergarten. About climbing a tree with his dad. And a squirrel getting killed. No such thing happened. The SW kept hounding me it was totally out of line. She kept harassing me. I got a lawyer. And that was that.

It takes a lot for a child to be removed like this.

Not necessarily. The threshold is very low and ‘risk of future harm’ is a thing. It only takes the SW to ‘think there might be a risk’ to meet this threshold. And it doesn’t have to be based on any facts, so a hunch or a SW that doesn’t like you is all it takes, sadly.

Someone upthread suggested contacting mencap to be your advocate in meetings. This sounds like a really good idea. They probably think you are being evasive and argumentative when you’re actually communicating the only way you know how. Unfortunately the reason why your dds were taken from you isn’t the main thing to fight right now, it’s now how to get them back. To a certain extent they are one and the same. But if you focus on the why, you will miss some of the how.

My friend lost custody to her ex as he told social services that she was making her daughter's additional needs up...a bit like Munchausen's. They took his side.
Guess what? Her dd has been diagnosed with Autism ( which her ex cannot handle) and ss are not interested in returning the child. This is despite the fact that the ex who has custody, cut her dd's dolls eyes out as ahe wouldn't eat brocilli. Ss don't always get it right.
She is messy so i think Ss like a spotless house...very tricky with kids about.

It’s a long process to remove children and they don’t do it lightly. If you’re saying it was because the place was a mess the. I can imagine what exactly that means ie uninhabitable. I suspect that you’re giving us the sanitised version of why your children have been removed. It’s an absolute last option. A case conference is a multi agency setting where all parties vote on the decision. All those parties must have decided that the children were better off away from you. It must be very difficult for you and I’m sorry to sound harsh. I hope you can work with them to reach a solution.

I absolutely do believe you - having been in a similar situation myself - not SS but another child related “professional” lied about me in an email to others helping my child, and it’s only because the doctors knew us so well that they were outraged, and knew it was lying... two of them said she was covering herself, and if I’d lived in a different area, and not been in a “perfect” family SS would have been on me like a shot. I’m still traumatised by the whole thing. Meanwhile, I’m getting a lot of thoughts clicking into place about my language making people hostile (especially as I cannot stand lying/ playing games and will call it out when I see it), andstuff you’ve said. I definitely think that they are discriminating against you because you’re not neurotypical. If you are able to get outside support again, I think it is really important. Maybe even some help thinking like them, or explaining what you are trying to convey. Good luck, only those who have been through something like this first hand can understand that it can happen.

PS watch this video. If you can’t face the whole thing, start at 10’20” or so. The whole neurotypicals talking to the neurodiverse thing... really really relevant here I think.

It sounds awful and I'm sorry for you all. I wonder if you have acknowledged their concerns re things like moving around alot? It's not ideal obviously but seems like you have had some unfortunate circumstances. The same with the previous house and repairs have you acknowledged their concerns there ? Can you get proof of everytime you tried to contact landlord ect so they can see you were trying ? Have you admitted that it wasnt in an ideal state and you could have done more to rectify it ? Had you already raised concerns regarding your daughter before SS became involved ? Was she at nursery ? You said you have a bad upbringing but say you have some lovely family are they able to help support you and come to meetings ? I wouldn't think moving would help you now if they have concerns that you move around too much. Also it may mean less contact. How did it come that they offered to pay for taxis ? Could it have been that you were seen to be complaining about the cost or the time involved in the appointments? I also think you should have someone with you at all appointments to go over things with you. I would also request everything from the meetings in writing and ask them to list all concerns and what you need to do to rectify them. If you feel they are not treating you well it is even more important to have someone with you can your family do this for you ?

I have no experience with SS directly, and you are probably doing this already, but I think it’s really important to get everything in writing at the end of every meeting. One thing that jumped out at me was that you feel they are being very vague. That they feel you are not following their recommendations, but that when you do follow up on something, they deny asking you to do it. There could be a communication problem here. NT people assume an ability to read between the lines, whereas people on the spectrum can take everything literally. Plus we can focus on the wrong things - shelves, for example. That could have been mentioned in a general, “improve the place” way, but you could have heard it, thought “but I don’t need shelves”, and dismissed it. Which they then see as dismissing their concerns.

At the end of every meeting, I would ask them to help you with a point by point, specific list of what they expect from you. Maybe even get them to sign it. It’s awful and demeaning, and shouldn’t be this way, but for now you have to work with the system as it is, not how it should be.

I've had a "stand up discussion" with a social worker who doubted the autism diagnosis of a student. I had to explain to her that as a teacher and social worker, we have no qualifications to either give or take away a diagnosis of autism and regardless of what we believe, we must assume this student is on the spectrum.

Her basis for disbelieving the diagnosis was that the boy had friends and was on the basketball team. She was 22. She told me that on her first day,she was handed twenty something files and told to crack on basically. She's never had any sort of mentoring or shadowing since she was a student in a completely different area to where she was based then. So she came straight from uni and was in people's homes and families writing assessments for them straight away. These assessments form evidence in court cases.

They are too badly funded and overstretched to train anyone adequately and that is where inconsistencies come in and bias is allowed to prevail.

SS are completely overrun.

*Seaofdispare
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First do you have legal representation. If you are not working you will get legal aid. Once you have this in place, let them discuss and request evidence for the historical accusations.

I would request a meeting with the social worker and her manager (or a senior officer). If you have legal representation in place I'd calmly advise they are going to deal with the historical accusations, but you need to know going forward what you have to do to get your children back.

1.) request in writing what you need to do with clear time frames.
2.) keep a diary of any phone calls/discussions/ meetings with professionals.
3.) contact your landlords about the outstanding repairs - keep a record.
4.) ask you legal representative to send a letter to your landlord about outstanding repairs.
5.) use your time to clean and sort out the house. Make sure all the children have a clean area to sleep, eat, play etc. Take photos for your evidence.
6.) request the children have a guardian so their wishes and feelings can be represented.
7.) be clear going forward you are happy to work with family support, school etc.
8.) ask to be included in all meetings (including those at school). Ask how you can support homework/reading in contact.
9.) keep in regular contact with all professionals (but don't be a pain calling daily).
10.) ask for a time frame for your parenting assessment, again insist this is provided in meetings.

Overall you need to stay calm. Constantly entering in to conversations where you are on the defence is not helping. Your legal representation can request reports and case recordings, so if there was any historical concerns they would be recorded.

My biggest advice would be to start a file, request everything in writing and ensure your home is a safe clean environment for your children.

I’d guess that the way your aspergers presents makes you misinterpret others meanings in communication and makes you misinterpret theirs.

Arrange an appointment with the sw just to discuss this. They don’t get training on aspergers so don’t assume they know anything about it.

Have an advocate with you at every meeting to make communication clear.

There should be an action plan.

Do what’s on that and present the evidence to the next lac and court hearing.

Don’t argue just agree and comply.

It sounds like it’s perfectly feasible you can get your kids back with support.

Point 10 should read - inside it's in writing (not meeting).

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