to be confused about social services

427 replies

whentheraincame · 15/08/2022 19:06

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?

OP posts:

Jellycatspyjamas · 17/08/2022 18:40

Previous, I meant precious - autocorrect isn’t my friend this evening 🙄

UndertheCedartree · 17/08/2022 18:49

Jellycatspyjamas · 17/08/2022 17:27

So you do think all is fine and SS are perfectly accountable then?

If you read my responses on this thread you’d know the answer to that. The idea that there is no review, reflection or accountability isn’t true - there are a variety of internal and external processes in place. I haven’t said there aren’t improvements to be made - you asked if no one ever said “somethings gone wrong here” and I explained the processes that exist that do just that.

I’m trying very hard to answer questions around accountability - I haven’t at any point said everything is fine. It’s very easy to say it’s all shite, and social workers are unaccountable and irresponsible and uncaring - it’s much harder to say what accountability would look like. Someone referred to accountability in terms of medical decisions - those processes exist for social work (and I’d argue getting the nhs to admit malpractice is no easy thing either).

So review needs to be internally instigated.

Reviews are internally instigated, but not for every case where a child was returned following investigation. The complaints process allows for an internal independent review, but the complaints process needs to be instigated and followed to initiate the review.

I think this one of the big problems families are expected to lead complaints...families who are too traumatised or otherwise vulnerable to do so. I was given a complaints form as a sort of 'apology' but I wasn't in a position to do it. It's the same issue within mental health, sometimes bad practice persists because the patients aren't well enough to follow complicated complaints procedures.

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