to be confused about social services

[whentheraincame]

Bit of a long one but it's something I have thought about a long time. There's two narratives:

SS don't do enough; don't act to remove children in obvious danger (happens sometimes of course)

SS are overzealous; remove children from loving homes (going to happen at times, right?)

there was a show over ten years ago called I Want my Baby Back and it was absolutely heartbreaking and admittedly it terrified me. Basically hairline fractures were found in children and parents were blamed for abuse. The argument was (I forget details and could never watch again) from some doctors that these were the result of Vitamin D deficiency (which let's face it, was endemic a while back and in the news loads)

So the argument was those children were wrongly removed. One mother cried "I want my baby" and honestly it's never left me. I'll have a cry about this later as I always do if I think too much about a child being removed from a loving mum.

So my question is if anyone has proper insight. I'm scared of SS in general. Although I actually had involvement with them myself when I left an abusive ex and they came to check I was not going to go back, nothing further happened once they met me - so proof they are fine I guess.

But I remember seeing a lady on the news, well spoken, and saying SS need to return her children who were removed. I had a friend tell me in work once that a friend with undiagnosed autism got the children removed due an incident where one got hurt by the other (which happens. these things happen, children do get hurt and it's often an accident that couldn't be prevented)

I guess I just don't want to see SS as evil child snatchers, and want insight into how they operate in reality and what actually gets children removed from parents' care?

SnowWhitesSM
thanks , smug and I talk a load of bollocks.
If you are a social worker you certainly are a very judgemental one.
i don’t sit and lecture our fc about the food I prepare, I prepare it. If they eat it great if not they have something else. Fc was 3 when then came, they didn’t know food was unhealthy.
I didn’t say parents turned up with alcohol I said drinks, meaning they could have brought one for child while they were in the shop.
i (and they) wanted to have days outside of the contact centre, surely an afternoon at the swimming baths and a maccies is better than an hour in a small dismal room in a contact centre, especially if the intention is returning the child to their parents.
im not saying every fcarer is like me, I obviously don’t know what goes on in their houses. All of the carers I know care for the fc very well. Maybe birds of a feather flock together?
If you’ve had bad experience of fcarers and you are a social worker you should report them. We have regular visits from our Childrens and our own Sw, often unannounced, if they’ve got a problem and think we are ‘shitty’ they should report it. We have to be re registered each year when we go to panel, we need reports from school, SWs, everyone involved with the child, if we’re shitty they should report it.
we have lac reviews every 6 months where everyone around the child, including the child attend, if we are shitty someone should report it.
If everyone does their job properly there should be no shitty foster carers.
Im putting my view across, sorry if you don’t like it, as I wouldn’t like to think that if someone’s child needs, for whatever reason( they could have no support and need to spend time in hospital) that the fcarer is treating their child badly and ‘slagging them off’
As you probably know there is a national shortage of foster carers and I know many excellent ones who have left, the ones I know go into it with the best intentions, hoping to help the child and their family, never setting them up to fail. We try to maintain a good relationship with parents, ‘mums not well at the moment so I’m looking after you’ is what we said to this particular child. Unfortunately some parents see us as the enemy and when people on here who work with us are saying it too it doesn’t help.
So in a nutshell, next time you work with a ‘shitty’ foster carer, report, if you and all your colleagues do this there will be no more ‘ shitty’ foster carers.

SnowWhitesSM · Today 08:00
Foster carer - lovingly cooks nutritious food.
Foster dc - doesn't eat the food and feels funny about it. Can't explain why.
Foster carer - this is what you're eating, look how hard I worked to cooked this, eat up your veg it's so good for you. You want to grow big and strong don't you.
Foster dc - yuk I hate your food. May or may not throw food.
Foster carer upset. Fdc upset.

I think you’ve been reading Tracey Beaker

I don’t recall the above ever happening in Tracy Beaker

I think again there is this need to make things personal. It isn’t.

The point shouldn’t be who can best parent the child, the point should be who the child’s parents are.

Yes, 'chasing down facts' seems very at odds with my experience of SWs jumping to conclusions that are copied onto each new report despite being challenged continuously. No further fact finding around these issues occured. The response either was they agreed the 'fact' was incorrect and would be changed on the next report (but never was) or just that they knew better than I did about my child despite meeting them once for 15 minutes and so the "fact' remained.

Neverfullycharged
sorry- I meant the flowery language,

• this is what you're eating, look how hard I worked to cooked this, eat up your veg it's so good for you. You want to grow big and strong don't you.

Also I think this is not a bad comeback after being called smug, that’s being personal.

i agree, we should never forget who the parents are. We are not the child’s parents, we are their foster carers, doesn’t mean we should treat them differently to our own children though.
The Sw are their corporate parents, they have far more ‘ rights’ over the child than carers do.
Most children are removed due to drugs, alcohol, domestic violence either one or all.
some parents can sort themselves out, some through no fault of their own no matter how hard they try can’t.
They may have no family around them who can offer support, this is when the foster carers or adopters step in.
In an ideal world no child would ever be taken from their parents, unfortunately this isn’t the case.
Just like you would expect teachers or nurses to care for your children when they are in their care this is how foster carers work ( the ones I know)
Some children go home, some don’t, some go on to adoption, some come back when adoption fails, some can’t cope in foster care and prefer residential. All cases are different.
We’re not trying to take over the parents role, we would prefer not to have these kids and that they stayed at home but sadly this is not always possible.
However if as some posters are saying, ( not saying it’s not true but that it’s never happened to me) children are removed without a reason, surely their parents would be happier knowing that their children are being well cared for and that they can form a good relationship with the fcarers so hopefully when the child returns they are not too damaged.
Not all carers are smug, shitty or using their child as a cash cow, those who are should never get through to be carers, if they are the problem lies with the ‘professionals’ working around them.

You do end up feeling you have to be very guarded as assumptions will be made about things you say and presented as facts. I've already shared how in general conversation I told the SW how my autistic DS didn't like his bed being touched by others as he had his cuddly toys set out in a certain way. The SW took from that, that his bed was never changed despite no evidence to suggest that. I was scared to tell them something like 'my DS likes cooking' in case they inferred I don't make meals for my DC he is made to cook all his and his sister's own food or something.

That's interesting. I have ASD as does my DS.

The main problem, as I see it, is that SS are a system, and no system can accommodate all the variables in each individual case - therefore there should be flexibility applied because no two cases are the same, especially in the case of medically diagnosed child abuse.

At the beginning of my case, I was confident that while yes, my child needed to be safeguarded due to the concerns identified, a robust investigation would be done, including medically, and all other possibilities would be ruled out before a conclusion would be drawn. I balked at the notion of needing a solicitor - we had done nothing wrong.

However, the actuality was this - reporting doctors said “child abuse” and the SWs said if the doctors say so it must be true. From that point the only way to get further investigation was with permission of the court. This takes time.

Yes we got three “expert opinions” - 2 experts in child abuse, one of which At GOSH only saw x-rays and claimed that was all she needed due to the type of fracture. The blood man identified anomalies recorded at the time of the fractures, but by the time he got involved those anomalies had resolved - how? Why? We’ll never know. He was duty bound to concur with the other experts on the balance of probabilities that abuse had occurred. And when wrote to him with adoption apparently imminent, he said he genuinely didn’t realise that was the possible outcome, but he was sorry, there was nothing he could do.

I was told my DS couldn’t have brittle bones because his calcium levels were normal - which totally overlooks the possibility of OI - a collagen abnormality.

When we suggested a collagen test could be done, it was said that it could be considered further abuse if we pressed for it. It was a biopsy and Lord knows the thought of DS suffering was abhorrent but what if his actual health? I have selective hyper mobility but this was considered irrelevant.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the system for accused parents is a juggernaut that is nigh on impossible to stop.

There we’re a couple of workers who were relatively humane in their treatment of me, but plenty others who weren’t.

There was also an element of punishment in subtle ways - I was BF but this could not be accommodated while DS was in FC and no expressing was allowed either. I asked at my GP for help to dry up my supply and was flat out refused for no good reason - yeah, as my supply was rather prolific that was a hellush thing to manage around journeying an hour each way in the week for two hours of contact, plus a day in the Family Centre once a week to demonstrate my parenting. Which was the furthest away, most difficult to get to Centre locally - another test of commitment I suppose.

Sorry for venting, but a PP is right - these things need to be highlighted and changed and if we can’t discuss it without being told we’re lying, mistaken or conspiratorially biased against bad practise, the losers will continue to be children every time.

Sorry for venting, but a PP is right - these things need to be highlighted and changed and if we can’t discuss it without being told we’re lying, mistaken or conspiratorially biased against bad practise, the losers will continue to be children every time.

It sounds like the whole system worked against you - including health and social work. Multi-agency practice has many strengths but having so many agencies all saying a variation on the same theme can feel like a juggernaut coming towards you. I don’t know what the answer is but practitioners who keep at the forefront of their minds that they are dealing with people first and foremost, and who don’t lose sight of their own humanity would be a start.

More widely the “system” needs to change, it needs investment on a significant scale and needs to centre people (both children and their parents) more. I also think families who go through child protection processes where children are removed pending investigation need to be offered independent counselling so they have space to process what’s happened and to recover from the inevitable trauma of that. Closing a case with no further support isn’t good enough.

I thought you felt like everything was ok, "as is":

What form do you think that accountability should take. Social workers are already accountable to their employers, their registering body, they’re accountable in law, and in the media.

Being accused of deliberately harming your newborn is a soul shattering experience. Having to “accept responsibility” in legal terms without actually confessing to get your child back, knowing that you will be forever on record as an abuser and considered a danger to children forever and have no concrete answers to WTF just happened has a long term impact.

No amount of bravado or people reassuring you that well, he came home so all good can make up for sitting in a bath at 2am convinced you’re going to spontaneously combust because if this one allegedly impossible thing can happen so can this other completely irrational thing… and the anxiety is so strong you feel as if you’re going to explode.

Yes, support or counselling for parents would be great, but SS are there for the children only. Allegedly abusive parents have made their bed and must lie in it…..

In cases of medical controversy there should be a completely different protocol IMHO - but then we have MSBP / FII thrown into the mix ……. I still hold Roy Meadow directly responsible for the death of Sally Clark.

Aww sweetheart 🥺 that was so well put I can relate to that so much. The worrying well if I don't know how it happened how can I stop it from happening again!

I was 4 years into a 6 year degree that I now can't use. They don't realise how much it affects you for the rest of your life

I really hope you have found peace with it or do very soon. It's hard to move on when you have a million things going on in your head and questions that will never be answered.

All I can say is well bloody done for being so strong and being a fighter. I just hope one day more people will know what families like yours have been through it cannot be hidden forever

I agree that the medical issues need their own support and development work.
I know there are a shortage of child protection pediatricians.

Social workers have to have confidence in what medics are telling them about medical issues. They themselves are not medically trained and need to rely on what the trained professionals in that area are telling them.

There is plenty that social workers can take responsibility for but they can't over rule medics on medical issues.

*I thought you felt like everything was ok, "as is":

What form do you think that accountability should take. Social workers are already accountable to their employers, their registering body, they’re accountable in law, and in the media.*

Where did I say I felt everything is ok, there is already a level of accountability in social work - some people feel that isn’t enough - asking what more they feel needs to be in place isn’t saying everything is ok as it is.

I don’t know anyone in social work who would say there aren’t problems in the system, but there are precious few concrete ideas on how to change things that don’t leave children potentially at risk.

The difficulty, I think, is that the public generally accept that there needs to be some way of protecting children whose parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. When we think of those parents though we often think of a particular type of person - chaotic, substance misusing etc etc. It’s a shock then when they find themselves inadvertently in the same process by dint of a medical process or some such that raises concerns.

The process of investigation is stressful in its own right, it’s bloody awful to think that someone is exploring the possibility of you having caused or allowed harm to come to your child. The process is intrusive, and slow, and can feel very public, and yes it absolutely can feel traumatic especially when you know you’ve cared for and protected your child.

The investigation process is necessary though, because professionals don’t come with a 6th sense that tells us which parents are harmful or unable to care, and which ones have had a particular turn of events which have led to an investigation. I’ve had very respectable, professional people cause incredible harm to their children - from the outside looking in you’d think all was ok, and if I’d taken that at face value those children would have continued to be sexually abused. The investigation process is intended to get underneath that presenting image to what might be going on behind closed doors - for better or worse.

I have a million ways I think things could improve but there’s neither funds or political will to effect significant change, partly because the wider public assumption is that if you come into contact with child protection there must a reason, and you deserve everything you get. And yes, that can weave it’s way into social work, health, education staff who feel it’s their mission in life to catch people out, which hinders all kinds of safeguarding and gets in the way of good practice.

I certainly don’t think everything is ok - my posts on this thread alone would tell you that - I also don’t think there are easy answers.

partly because the wider public assumption is that if you come into contact with child protection there must a reason, and you deserve everything you get

I don’t think our stance is as far apart as that then @Jellycatspyjamas , as this is exactly what I have been saying.

Had Leiland James been placed with a nice, normal family his case wouldn’t have received any attention at all.

I think what perturbs me on MN threads about SS is that, whatever (inadequate) level of accountability and safeguards against errors and malpractice currently exist, people often seem to be arguing for there to be less accountability and safeguarding, not more.

The phrase "damned if they do, damned if they don't" implies there is too much criticism of SS when they get it wrong and either fail to protect children or cause harm to innocent families. We're told they don't get enough praise when they do their jobs properly, and that essentially it's unfair to suggest that they should do better.

When someone suggests on MN that social services might've done something wrong, benefit of the doubt goes to social services first, rather than anyone else, with people saying "there must be more to it" or "I get the feeling we're not getting the full story from OP" or "social services don't just x without a good reason". It's often implied that the thresholds for intervention are so high that it's impossible for someone to be entirely falsely accused anyway, and examples of quite severe neglect or abuse which don't result in children being removed are used as evidence that the accused party must be at the very least worse than that to have merited removal.

I've got no dog in this fight. I have no children, I've never had anything to do with the part of social services we're talking about outside a brief encounter as a teenager thanks to my engagement with other services. But I can see dodgy assumptions and arguments, and a worrying belief in the near-infallibility of social workers, and it makes me feel very concerned when phrases like "damned if they do, damned if they don't" are trotted out, because its only purpose can be to argue that there is too much criticism when SS get it wrong. With stakes this high, I think arguing for letting them get away with errors is dangerous.

No, it absolutely wouldn’t and I can see that it’s very hard to argue that removal may have been the right decision because the reality is he died in care. While he may have experienced adversity remaining with his mum, there was nothing to indicate his life would be in danger with her. It should throw up questions about the support available to her as a victim of serious domestic abuse, and his removal.

The focus of the learning review was, rightly, the assessment of the prospective adopters, but I’d also have liked to see a review of the decision to remove and the permanence plan in the first place.

Excellent post

and it makes me feel very concerned when phrases like "damned if they do, damned if they don't" are trotted out, because its only purpose can be to argue that there is too much criticism when SS get it wrong.

When I use that phrase, and I do, it’s not to argue there’s too much criticism. For me it reflects the reality of a job where you’re constantly second guessing your decision making knowing that too much intervention in the wrong place can be as devastating as too little intervention in another.

There are very few jobs where missing a relatively small detail, giving the wrong person the benefit of the doubt or simply waiting a few days can reasonably result in the death of a child. There’s level of skill involved in making those judgement calls correctly and the environment that social workers operate in all too often works against the kind of longer term relationship based practice needed.

There is also the reality of poorly trained workers, in teams with a culture of suspicion, power and control and an atmosphere of arse covering. And there’s the reality of workers being utterly overwhelmed by high case loads, constantly working with parents and children with significant trauma histories who lose sight of what they are there to do.

Theres no one answer, and I think sometimes folk can criticise from a fairly simplistic place of “if x had just done y” without maybe being aware of all the reasons (other than laziness or malice) for why x didn’t happen. Social workers do often find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea - if you try to explain the context in which you work you’re seen as defensive, if you say “yes there are problems” it can feel like you’re saying you personally are shit at your job.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

The phrase "damned if they do, damned if they don't" implies there is too much criticism of SS when they get it wrong and either fail to protect children or cause harm to innocent families. We're told they don't get enough praise when they do their jobs properly, and that essentially it's unfair to suggest that they should do better.

Completely agree with this. The job is tricky, of course it is. But that statement seems to suggest that because it is SW should somehow not be held to account in the same way.

And when I talk about accountability, I don't mean just for the individual. In fact it is primarily aimed as the SS as an organisation. The things you mention @Jellycatspyjamas are exactly the things that should be scrutinised and the organisation held to account - bad training, poor support, underfunding. And lots of job are life or death. And have lots of processes to hold people to account (medical profession is an obvious example).

But… that's your job? Of course you should be trying to discern where intervention would be helpful and where it wouldn't. And if course you should expect that decisions are scrutinised afterwards, and if it turns out that there was a way to know beforehand that the call you made was the wrong one, things are changed so it doesn't happen again.

DITD,DITD used to mean "Whichever choice you make, you'll be punished". But in this context the reality is "Damned if you do (when you shouldn't), damned if you don't (when you should)", which is only really the same as everyone else's job, too. No, not everyone's job involves the lives of children, but it's normal accountability. If you personally use it to mean "my job is hard" then fair enough, but its original meaning and the reason its used here is to suggest unfair no-win situations.

The problem is we appear to have an underfunded, underresourced service with inadequate information infrastructure and some areas of very poor working culture and working practice, with too few well-trained staff to get rid of the duds, which many members of the general public still somehow credit with impeccable professionalism when someone comes out and says "The service did wrong by me". And when it is criticised there's an instinct among those working in services and those who believe in their integrity to, first, assume the person criticising is wrong or lying, and second, talk about how difficult the job is and how unfair it is to criticise. The job would be a lot less difficult if it were resourced properly, but resourcing isn't the only problem. We also need to deal with a culture problem.

Sorry, that was to @Jellycatspyjamas

I’ve been through the SS system, initially as an adoptive parent, where our experience was mixed and dependent on which saw we were dealing with.

Then later I found myself under investigation myself. This happened because I became badly impacted by my previously undiagnosed cPTSD when my DDs (now 13 and 10) were small and I was in a bad way. I ended up drinking too much and reported myself to children’s social care, aware that my DDs were being impacted by what was happening.

I then found that my words were being constantly twisted and used against me, and misunderstandings led to me being accused of lying and not cooperating. We found ourselves under a Child Protection Plan, understandably, but the process was terrifying.

For me, the worst thing was the cavalier attitude in the reviews towards sensitive information, which other professionals didn’t really need to know about. They brought up info that wasn’t really relevant concerning my own childhood SA. The first question asked by the reviewer was ‘Where is your F now?’ He had been dead for many years, which would have been clear from a cursory glance at the files. (Or she could have asked me privately, surely, if it wasn’t?). I wasn’t happy about all the professionals there, including teachers at our DDs’ school, and the school nurse) knowing that much about me.

The SW in the end came to understand me better and admitted that they had been too heavy handed and with hindsight a CPN hadn’t been necessary, as a Child in Need plan would have been sufficient. She saw how hard I worked to turn things around and access the therapy I needed.

My DH and I got through it mainly because we were articulate and had family support. It made me think of my DDs’ birth parents and how it must have felt like for them. Especially the birth mum, who had grown up in care and been in numerous different placements.

And have lots of processes to hold people to account (medical profession is an obvious example).

There are a lot of processes to hold social work to account too, but the general public seem to be unaware of these. From internal complaints procedures, to independent reviews, to professional conduct procedures, local government reviews, significant case reviews and, where I am, fatal accident enquiries.

Which is why when folk say there’s no accountability I ask what they think should be in place. Social workers get suspended, sanctioned and struck off like other professionals (eg medics).

I've thoroughly read to page 9 but want to digest every response. It's a real eye opener and just what I wanted.