AIBU to be angry that social services not investigating how my DC ate clinical waste at school?

[Weemammy21]

Got phone call from school to say my DC ate clinical waste at school and had to be taken to hospital. For context my DC has severe Sen and has a very detailed and EHCP giving school funding for 1 to 1 support to be provided through mouth the school day. Many education specialist report detailed need for constant 1 to 1 supervison and never to be left alone or unsupervised and yet DC was left alone at clinical waste bin and ate some of the contents. DC attends a private “specialist autism” school that charges an excessive amount of money for the placement. When school took DC to hospital they withheld information from the hospital that he consumed items from clinical waste bin and downplayed it to the hospital by saying he ate from a domestic bin and also refused to disclose to me or hospital what the other contents of the bin was. A day later the school disclosed that one of the items in the clinical waste bin was a used incontinence pad. When all this information was sent to LADO for school area social services have stated that they are not going to investigate it as a child protection incident as “thresholds have not been met”. I can’t understand how s child eating clinical waste at school can be dismissed as not being of sufficient concern to conduct a child protection investigation! AIBU to be super angry that
a) this happened my DC who was supposed to have constant 1/1 support
(b) the school did not take sufficient action to protect my DC whilst in their care
(c) social services LADO doesn’t think it is serious enough to instigate a child protection investigation? I removed my DC from school immediately but as no CP investigation is occurring I am very concerned for the other Sen children and their parents not knowing what occurred. Also witnessed other distressing incidents when I arrived early to collect DC from school and did notify LA of my concerns for DC safety months before it happened.

As awful as it is that this happened OP, LADO is not the correct channel to deal with it properly and thresholds for action are not especially low.

School governors are a better bet for you!

Gosh that's awul my son is at a special school for children severe learning disabilities ,I think the most concerning part is the withholding of information
Does your child have PICA ?

I make many referrals in my lane of work, and they never meet the threshold that’s days.

The Criteria for invention increases as funded decreases. It’s a sorry state.

As someone has already suggested, contact the press.

to find, retrieve and then consume a pad isn't something that would happen in a moment is it?

My toddler whipped a used sanitary towel out of the bin last week and was sniffing it. It happened in the blink of an eye, I was with them in the room.

"Ate it" could mean bit it rather than consumed and swallowed the entire incontinence pad.

But regardless I'd be more worried that a) a clinical waste bin was accessible b) they weren't honest about it.

It's serious, but as others have said it's not a social services/LADO issue, it's a education/health and safety issue. Go via Ofsted.

LADO would get involved if there was suspected to be a serious act by a specific individual(s) think of it like an additional layer of HR/disciplinary for people who work with children. If whatever Ofsted/education find out suggests it's the act of a identifiable people that has led to this they would get involved. At the moment it doesn't sound like there's enough to suggest that's the case. It could be an issue with the way the school is set up, the staffing levels, the type of bins used etc. That's for Ofsted to investigate.

I have worked in a LADO office and they did take safety incidents like this further. The fact that they don't investigate stuff themselves doesn't mean nothing happens.

I'm so sorry to read this. Hope you get answers

This is so sad I'm so sorry this has happened to your son, I would be heartbroken. Is he to remain at the school? I guess there is already limited provision for a child with such complex needs.

I'm just thinking in a hospital setting this could quite easily happen as the bins are just kick bins but if someone had been assessed as requiring 1 to 1 care and something happens then it would be on the registered professional responsible for their care. It would be taken incredibly seriously and there should absolutely be an investigation by senior management as to what has allowed this to happen and how to ensure it never happens again. It would be a very serious event if there was supposed to be 1 to 1 cover but that was not provided.

You absolutely need to escalate this complaint OP, but social services are not the right body to investigate this, they don’t regulate schools/professionals.

The official response from the Social Services LADO regarding the thresholds not being met stated:

“- Behaved in a way that has harmed or may have harmed, a child

• Possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to the child
• Behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates they pose a risk of harm to children
• Behaved in a way or may behave in a way that indicates that they may be unsuitable to work with children (Working together to safeguard children, 2018)”

That was the LADO’s response word for word. Well if:

1. not providing a severely Sen DC with their 1 to 1 supervison when they knew it was unsafe to leave DC unsupervised and
2. allowing DC to eat clinical waste
3. lying to the hospital about the type of bin DC ate from and withholding information on what was contained in the clinical waste bin does not meet the above thresholds then no child is safe there.

If it happened at school, I think it's Ofsted rather than Social Services, surely?

@Beseen22 DC was removed from the school immediately and is not returning. I am worried about other children at the school and their parents not knowing the risks this school is taking with their children’s safety. Horrified that the LADO at social services does not think this is a child protection issue and do wonder if this is because LA is more interested in placing children there than ensuring they are safe from harm.

You clearly are unhappy with the placement. Not everything that goes wrong will be a CP high alert safeguarding investigation. Would it not have been better to ask the school what went wrong and how they will prevent a reoccurrence? I speak from experience. My ds hit his head on a hatch. There were mistakes. They investigated the incident and fed back what they had learnt. I moved on. I didn't remove him. Removing him isn't the answer.

I work at an independent SEN school where all the children have at least 1:1 support, however there are points in the school day where support levels drop to enable staff to take breaks. Does your child’s EHCP specifically say he needs 1:1 support at every moment of the school day or is it more vague? For most of our students they need 1:1 support to access education but there are times we can reduce support levels (Eg: 2 staff to 3 students) to give the staff breaks, only a handful of students literally need their 1:1/2:1 support at every moment (usually due to very challenging behaviour or very complex medical needs) and for the others we need to have points of the day such as break times where they can share staff.

Does the school have a risk assessment in place for your child and/ or relating to the disposal of clinical waste? I would ask to see these. I would also ask for the details of exactly where the clinical waste bin was and why your child was unsupervised and how long for.

I can understand how in reality a scenario could occur where, for example, a staff member was in the bathroom with a child carrying out personal care and realised there are no wet wipes, I can see staff might nip into the bathroom next door to grab a pack and only be gone 5-10 seconds however child was so quick they came back to find his hands in the bin. Or another situation where the TA is sat in the classroom with two children and another TA, one child starts displaying challenging behaviour which requires the attention of both TAs and the other child seizes his moment and bolts out the door, by the time the TA’s stood up and gotten out the door yourself he’s vanished into one of several rooms off the corridor and it takes the TA 30 seconds to locate him in the bathroom, by which time his hand is in the clinical waste bin and putting things to his mouth. Not necessarily okay but reality is it’s not really possible to be constantly watching or in reaching distance of a child, there will always be brief moments where the staff member has looked away or has to attend to something else, and it’s not possible to plan for every scenario and at most schools I’ve worked at the clinical waste bins are in the bathrooms, they can’t realistically be locked away. It may have been a genuine accident, or on the other hand there may have been negligence at play. It’s very reasonable to be upset and want to find out the facts and it’s awful if the school have tried to cover up what happened or don’t want to learn from it as there are clearly things the school could improve on. Someone up thread has says about having bin cupboards and one way waste bins, we don’t have these in my school (the bins are just pedal bins in the bathrooms, the contents of which anybody could access if they wanted to) so maybe these are things to raise with the school. Sometimes a situation or risk can’t be foreseen but there is never an excuse for it to happen a second time and I would be expecting the school to be changing their protocols and risk assessment off the back of this.

@MolkosTeenageAngst My DC has an EHCP making clear constant 1/1 supervison is required all throughout the day, not just for learning. A thorough risk assessment was done and assurances given as to the safeness of children at the school but over time I have witnessed many events that involved not only my DC but other children that have been distressing and heartbreaking. A lot of them are non verbal so they are just completely ignored and hurts really bad to have witnessed so many different incidents.

This is gross negligence on the schools part.

Escalate this complaint to the governors, ofsted, the local press and if need be, publish this on the schools google review page and on the school social media outlets.

Also contact your local MP for support.

Multiple people didn't do their job properly and we can safely assume that this is not the first time.

Your poor DC.

I would be looking to contact

I would be looking to contact the parents of other pupils too.

I am a safeguarding officer. You have a clear misunderstanding of the social care system. This is a Health and Safety issue not child protection. That aside...

Drill down into what would solve your issue. The nuts and bolts of it are:

● Move the clinical waste bin out of reach of children.

If the school make a policy change to do this - will you be happy?

Thats an easy solve.
What did school say when you said this was your desired outcome?

I agree with others the issue is with the school and the fact that clinical waste bins are so accessible to the children and the fact that your son needs 1:1 care which wasn't given and ultimately allowed this to happen.

Like PP have said, this is not somewhere where social services would get involved. Best bet would be making a complaint to the school and dealing with it that way.

@JenniferAlisonPhilippaSue

Am I the only one so far who can see the schools pov on this? Eating wee/poo soaked incontinence pads from a bin is pretty extreme behaviour. It can’t be feasible to literally monitor your child every second. If you push this then I think the most likely outcome would be that they decide that they cannot accommodate the child’s needs and they’re better off leaving until a space becomes available at a more suitable school.

Sorry but this comment has really angered me. Did you not read the part that not only had the child been left alone long enough to reach into the bin bit also retrieve and place something in their mouth, when they were supposed to have one to one supervision but when taken to the hospital they actually withheld information AND lied about what type of contents were in the bin! Yes accidents can happen in the blink of an eye but be honest and find a way forward to ensure it doesn't happen again, instead they lied to try and cover their own arses!

IMO the school and the chair of governors is only interested in covering it up. The fact that the school staff lied to the hospital about what happened to my severely Sen child put my DC safety and life st risk as hospital was denied the opportunity to make informed decisions about what medical care orctests DC needed. It is this and them waiting another 24 hours to confirm a used incontinence pad was in the bin that makes it clear they can not be trusted to care for Sen children as their first and only priority was to conceal what occurred to medical professionals at the hospital and cover it up. This is every parents nightmare and a change of policy is not enough. I contacted the chair of governors and he didn’t even bother to respond.

This must be so distressing for you and your child. Hope he is feeling better now. Contact the school chair of governors and complain. Also go to local council and even ofsted. This has to be investigated. Its unfortunate but Schools really downplay their mistakes and its so unfair. This needs to be investigated so that it doesn't happen again with you child or any other child.

@Weemammy21

The official response from the Social Services LADO regarding the thresholds not being met stated:

“- Behaved in a way that has harmed or may have harmed, a child

• Possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to the child
• Behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates they pose a risk of harm to children
• Behaved in a way or may behave in a way that indicates that they may be unsuitable to work with children (Working together to safeguard children, 2018)”

That was the LADO’s response word for word. Well if:

1. not providing a severely Sen DC with their 1 to 1 supervison when they knew it was unsafe to leave DC unsupervised and
2. allowing DC to eat clinical waste
3. lying to the hospital about the type of bin DC ate from and withholding information on what was contained in the clinical waste bin does not meet the above thresholds then no child is safe there.

While the LADO will be a qualified and experienced social worker, they are not “social services” and do not undertake child protection investigations (those who do do not investigate schools/professionals). The LADO role is separate from children's social care, and is to lead the investigation into complaints made against named individuals who are alleged to have acted in a way which causes harm or risk of harm to a child. I wonder if in this case it’s a structural failing in school rather than an individual’s actions. Hence in this case, Ofsted would be the appropriate body, or formal complaint procedures.

Sorry I should have written “lead the investigation into complaints made against named individuals in the course of their employment”.