Is it too late? Is there anything I can do?

[SummerDays2020]

This is a very sensitive issue so I don't want to go into too much detail. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated and if there is another board that is good for this topic I'd be grateful to hear that too.

I support a young family member. She is a young mother. She lives in foster care in a mother and baby placement. I thought she was doing well. However, she told me she failed her 'parent assessment'. I was shocked as I can see her child has developed each time I see them. The child is very happy and smiley. I see the mum talking to her child, singing to her, cuddling her.

Things that have been brought up in the report I have never seen - they say the child's clothes do not fit. Every time I see the child they are in suitably sized clothes, mum sends me photos most days and child always well dressed and I also see SM photos. They say she doesn't encourage the child but again that is not my experience. I just don't understand. They also say the mum is regressive. I'm not quite sure what they are refering to or what the issue is. Is this enough for them to take the child away?

Mum is devestated. She was in foster care herself and lacked a mother as a role model. However, I honestly believe with some support she can be a very good mother to her child. She doesn't take drugs, she went out on her birthday and had a drink but doesn't usually go out, she doesn't shout or hit her child, she cooks her healthy meals, bathes her and puts her to bed and buys her toys appropriate to her age.

Is there anything I can offer to do that could help? How can I best support her? I'm worried sick.

That poor girl.

Some of these 'parenting assessments' are not fit for purpose.

I failed such an assessment with my eldest (now adopted) when I was coming up to the age of your friend/relative. My assessment consisted of 90 minutes in a children's centre and I had to give baby a bath in one of those portable baby baths. The report stated that I wasn't confident as I asked the social worker whether the water temperature was OK and I seemed nervous as I lowered baby into the tub. I was also ridiculed for not using age appropriate toys. It was a children's centre and the only things in the room remotely suitable for a newborn were things like rattles which I shook for him to get his attention.

In my case the foster carer was totally against SS's judgement and intentions too.

Please advocate for her as best as you can. Lord knows she needs it as these assessments are brutal when SS have a goal in mind and serve only as a box ticking exercise so they can claim they've done their bit.

I’m sorry this happened to you and your child. Not fit for purpose sounds like an understatement! I do wonder what the evidence base is for these things. 💐

@SummerDays2020 awful, she is young, regressive sounds very subjective and would prone to SW bias. The idea that anyone would perform well under the pressure of potentially losing custody of their child is also very unreasonable. She’s lucky to have you looking out for her

@SummerDays2020 awful, she is young, regressive sounds very subjective and would prone to SW bias. The idea that anyone would perform well under the pressure of potentially losing custody of their child is also very unreasonable. She’s lucky to have you looking out for her

I wonder if SW thinks that all good with child coming from the support circle (foster carer and you) rather then from mum herself. Mum feeling nervous makes things worse and she’s coming across as not capable.

You sound so caring and lovely and also so good to be offering this young mum support as she had a difficult life herself and sounds like she is doing a great job. I worked in Citizens Information in Ireland and yes you should be able to go as her advocate and to speak for her. I would make a list of all the positives and have that ready for the meeting and also ask what do they want as she is doing a good job and will have your continued support. Keep us updated as hope it all turns out ok. How can that worker know what is going on after a few visits and ask her for the details of what she has said and for copies of all reports.

Also write a letter supporting this young mum listing everything. She is so lucky to have you and you will make a big difference.

Evidence everything with written reports and date and time stamped photographs. Also ask for an independent review and report from a children's charity such as children 1st or barnardos. Anything positive that proves she is more than capable and not what SW are trying to protray will stand her in good stead if she has to fight for her little one in the court system. It sounds like SW are scheming for whatever reason and not to be trusted.

I too am not familiar with the UK system, but where i live in the case I know of, the children were placed together in a public housing system that caters for kids removed from their parent/s. In this case the Aunty became their legal guardian, but because their mother had abducted one child whilst in the Aunty's care, the children were placed as per above.

Our equivalent to the UK's SS up to this point, were supportive of the Aunt who in turn had her paternal family's support, however quietly a meeting was organised with the bio mother and G.mother (who they all originally lived with while the mother was addicted and selling herself from the same house) and without the legal guardian or the Children's solicitor advised, they decided the three children should be returned to the biological mother who by this time was pregnant with her 4th child.

I understand the system is stretched to the limit, but there has to be fail safe systems put in place that ensure decisions are reviewed prior to implementation.

What I would suggest is to urgently get the lawyer to put some sort of process (court order?) in place so the child cannot be removed from the Mother until its been proven by an independent 3rd party she is unfit. That might stop them in their tracks because they won't be telling anyone about it until they go to uplift the child... good luck!

It seems very wrong that the reason they think this mother might struggle is because she has grown up in care. So the solution is to remove her baby and allow that child to be brought up in care too?!

I'm so sorry to hear that. It makes no sense. I will do my very best for her and her DD.

Oh, thank you. I hope I can find a way through this. You are right it is very subjective. I've not read the report but mum read some bits to me. AFAIK, it doesn't say why being regressive (if true) is a problem - like what harm it is doing to the child? And honestly, this is the thing, she was describing to me how much SS involvement has affected her mental health. I know it would badly affect mine being watched and judged regularly, let alone this young woman. She's not been sleeping since the report but she still gets up every morning and looks after a busy toddler.

Thank you, I'll have a look if that could be their angle. It is absolutely not true, though.

Thank you so much for the useful information and the kind words ☺️

I"ll do this and oh, I pray you are right.

Thank you for the information.

I know, it will just add more trauma to this little family.

I used to work in this area. Will the mum give you permission to speak to the social worker?

what relation are you to the mum? It sounds like social services aren’t aware of you? Are you supporting the mum? How are you supporting her? Usually the aim is to keep children with their birth families with support and things have to be very bad before they consider moving children. Basically they are working to ensure the safety of the child. If you are a supportive influence they would want to know about you.

There's a possibility the Social Worker has taken a dislike to the young Mother. Yes this does happen.

I had to put in an official complaint against SW once.
SW assumed I would agree with her assessment, I didn't, and had proof she was telling lies

Good luck with supporting the young lady and her child

PS. don't be intimidated by the so called experts... they can get it wrong.

Write her a letter of support and make sure it's taken to the child protection conference. Get anyone else who regularly sees them to write supporting letters. Get her a Mackenzie friend for the child protection conference. Fight. Hard.
The chair of the conference should be independent, address them if you can get into the meeting.
Raise this with charities supporting women and in national media because it's topical and if this is publicized every time it happens maybe the law will change to protect the right to a family life under article 8 of the human rights act.
Don't wait until they take the baby.

It absolutely will. My mum got the child protection conference to let her keep me and my sister even after the decision to take us into care had been made.
She basically got everyone who had ever met us to write letters of support and she took them to the CP conference and read them out. If the foster mum can write a letter that will count for a lot too. The chair will help.
Also don't mention to SS or in a supporting letter that you've read the CP report because it's supposed to be confidential and they can get her done for showing it to people (it's how they gag people while they do this).

When I worked for a care agency about 5 years ago, I got sent for a weeks work to a block of three flats where mothers and their babies were sent for these assessments.

Their every move was filmed and recorded. They asked me to watch the monitors and write down absolutely everything I saw.

There were parenting manuals that I had to memorise and record if they were being followed and ultimately my records would be used in court to determine wether these vulnerable mothers were allowed to keep their babies.

It was truly awful, the manual they had to follow was so strict it set them up to fail. One point was to make a bottle, the kettle had to be boiled and left for 30 mins before using to make formula- I questioned what if the baby was suddenly hungry outside of their feeding schedule? I just got told that they had to follow the plan, but still write down that the baby was crying from hunger.

I left after a day, I didn’t feel comfortable judging people by standards that I myself didn’t keep. I wasn’t qualified in the slightest to have a bearing on such huge decisions, they phoned my agency and I was there an hour later, having only a background in elderly care and not even knowing this centre existed in my town, recording official documents!

They also asked me to go and sit with a baby whilst the mother had a meeting, I was being recorded the whole time and was terrified that it would somehow come back on me and my children would be looked into.

You need to fight this all the way. If you know deep down that this mother is capable then you need to fight tooth and nail to advocate for her.

ask for the assessment criteria and make sure she wasn’t set up to fail.

Reading all these horrific stories you would think we were still living in the 50's. It seems that this young woman has already been judged by social services because she herself grew up in care which is shocking as she seems like a loving and caring young woman and with the support she will be just fine. Strange how all the real abuse cases just fall through the net like baby p for instance and numerous other cases that are so sad and appalling to read about. Look what they did here in Ireland to young unmarried mothers many who were raped by those in high standing society and took their small babies off of them and hushed it all up and the shocking story of The Tuam Babies.

I'm not a blood relative but we are connected through family. I am supporting her by being at the end of the phone/message always. We speak most days, sometimes face time. I also visit and take them for lunch, to the park etc. I also help her financially if she needs it. I will find out if they know about me. I truly believe with support this family can stay together. I can see how she has developed and how she has responded to things the SW have said.

The relationship we have is like aunty and niece.