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?

Parents can’t - if they make compliant a these are seen as ‘red flags’ and used against them and if they go to court they are gagged and cannot reveal any details of their case.

Interesting. I know of one case where they have a whole "SS stole my babies." website but maybe that's run by an adjacent family member and not the parent. So it's good to know parents can't reveal the details of their case.

Courts take away children not social workers.

However, times are changing with returning dc back to parents. There are lots of speakers and discussions taking place currently. There's a great speaker who goes around telling her story of her dc being (she says rightly) removed and how she turned her life around and now can't get her dc back.

Plus they'd save a fortune if they invested into helping parents get better and then returned dc. Foster care costs an absolute fortune.

Where I live childrens SC is so underfunded I cant image what the bar is to sustain their gaze. I have got to stage 3 of a complaint because my LGO do not believe they can discipline contract staff and they dont agree the legal responsibility lies with the LA. You could not make my situation up.

So God help these poor kids who need them. SW arent a bad bunch but they sure are underfunded. Like equipping a fireman with a watering can. But more than that the bosses do not care. Theres no outrage at the underfunding, just pushback to the parents telling them they should be grateful SC even exist

I saw that documentary

Fucking heartbreaking

@LostForWordsagain where do you take this information from, that children are preemptively removed from their families in case in the future there is emotional harm where there has been no harm/abuse to date?
References, case studies, law, policy, guidance, please. Not ‘my neighbour heard it happened to her cousin’s friend’

The family courts have to protect the identities of the children so if parents reveal any details they can and have been jailed

When we had SS involvement we kept getting told about what other people were like.

“Other people do this, that, lie, manipulate”.

I am not other people. No other profession would get by by limping all people into one personality type.

So are you able and willing to share the kinds of things that children can be removed for where parents love them, but are less obvious as violence or flying into tempers?

I would be really interested in shedding light as this is the area I'm dark on specifically.

Is it always risk of physical harm? Or something else?

This is very, very interesting to hear. It feels like there SHOULD be the same in place for adjacent family members...but is there?

There's a great speaker who goes around telling her story of her dc being (she says rightly) removed and how she turned her life around and now can't get her dc back.

If a child is placed for adoption or on a permanence order there is no possibility of the child being returned, that’s the nature of permanence planning.

And local authorities spend many millions of pounds on providing support to parents before children are removed - some can’t make the changes needed at all, and some can’t get there quickly enough for their child.

The question I guess is how long do you think we should leave children at risk of significant harm before we intervene.

I can’t give any details as it would possibly be identifying and not ok but take a look at the ‘fiightback’ website - they support parents who have accusations of FII/future emotional harm.

Also the SW Cathie Long has recently produced guidance on this which is a very interesting read

Everything @Mudblast said.

I work within children's services, however, I am not a social worker. In my experience children aren't moved out of their family home quick enough and families are given far too many chances. It can be really tricky to call.

I’m sure in the recent Panorama doc the parents who spoke had to get special permission to do so from the High Court

So are you able and willing to share the kinds of things that children can be removed for where parents love them, but are less obvious as violence or flying into tempers?

Your starting point is wrong I think. Parents can love their kids but neglect them, be emotionally abusive, physically abusive, they can struggle to care for children with complex needs etc. My two kids are adopted - I know their birth mother loved them. I also know her neglect of them, the impact of substance misuse in pregnancy and a whole range of other adverse experiences have left them with life long complex needs.

It’s not as simple as love=care, neglect/absurd=no care.

It is tricky. I don’t think anyone would disagree there.

And of course SS can’t just swoop in and remove children, but to speak frankly here, they do have the power to present information in a certain way, which ultimately will make removal a distinct possibility.

The pro adoption lobby don’t tend to accept that children are sometimes wrongly removed, and the baby snatching tinfoil hat brigade don’t want to hear that removal is sometimes necessary - but there is a debate to be had somewhere in the middle, I feel.

I work in healthcare. I see a lot of families having tremendous support to keep their children at home and do the basics (school/ dentist/ doctor etc).

Sometimes I wonder if it really is in the children's best interests or if it is for the parents.

@Neverfullycharged yes absolutely. Sadly some people will get the extreme SWs - be it too heavy handed or too much kick to miss big red flags - and the children suffer either way, more than if someone normal comes along

Honestly I fail to see how it’s so bloody hard for them to get it right. If a child is being badly abused the evidence is there. No need for over zealous action, just basic competence. That term “adoptable” is abhorrent, it chills me to think of the contexts in which that is used

I agree. Very often there are valid reasons for removal but also very often cases of clear abuse are totally missed then you have the cases where nothing is clear at all.

I have a feeling that there’s currently too much focus on emotional harm / future emotional harm / FII and they are casting the net wide to catch the few genuine cases of this and in the process catching a whole load of totally innocent families who have complex circumstances but no safeguarding issues but they end up on CP/losing their children.

The focus needs to shift back a bit and then maybe we would stop seeing in the news these awful cases of clear abuse and neglect where nothing was done

In my experience the risk of emotional harm is the harder one.

Things like neglect are much less black and white. I know many cases where parents loved their children but couldnt give what they needed. Often its stability thats the issue, parents where they might be able to briefly stick to a clean house, but couldnt sustain it, or were completely erratic emotionally so there was no consistent care.

Children need sustained change. Being a parent is hard work, its constant and you need to be able to meet their needs every day.

I work in mental health so see sad cases where things like depression, addiction etc means that the parent cant get things together enough to reliably be up and about, engaging and providing things like decent meals or clean clothes even when they really want to.

Domestic violence is another one. Its such a tricky situation, it often takes multiple attempts to leave and multiple incidences. People who have been in that situation are more likely then to go into further poor relationships because their vulnerable. My heart goes out to women, but the children sometimes cant wait for the change to happen and cant go through that level of instability

Often people are vulnerable due to no fault of their own, eg learning disabilities, poor family support, and poor parenting themselves which mean they just arent properly equipped to know how to prioritse and build safe environments

Why would a social worker want a child who is adoptable to be adopted instead of with the parents? What incentive do they have?

The safety of the child.
There are no incentives for social workers to have dc adopted.
There is only a significant amount of work, not something SW's are short of.

Some dc will be taken into care who could have stayed with parents, other dc will be left with parents who should have been taken into care.

Social workers can't read minds and will as they are human sometimes get it wrong.

Overall thresholds are probably too high rather than too low at present.

So are you able and willing to share the kinds of things that children can be removed for where parents love them, but are less obvious as violence or flying into tempers?

Children are only removed from the family home when it is not safe for them to remain. This will be in cases where there is serious neglect, physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse.

Parents are offered a wide array of support to try to enable the children to be rehabilitated back to the family home. Some parents will totally engaged with this support, some will dip in and out and some just don't bother.

If it is at all possible to do so safely families will be supported to keep children in the family or to be rehabilitated to the family. Outcomes for children in care are not great and if the family can be kept together that is a better outcome.

Most of the families I have seen in these situations do love their kids. And their kids love them. But sometimes parents just can't cope, are too badly damaged themselves, are too unwell, are addicted and can't look after their kids safely.

Its worth trying to remember that children are only removed for their safety, its not something that is done to punish the parents.

I know two people who have had children taken from them by SS. I am only in “contact” with one as a fb friend.

She regularly talks about how she misses her children, how evil SS, about the “quota they have to get for bonuses” and that she only lost her children because she got diagnosed with depression.

In actual fact, she was with an abusive partner that she refused to leave and when she did leave, she would return to him too often for SS to be content to leave the children with her. Her last child was even taken at birth.

Yes I feel slightly sorry for her but at the same time, those kids are safer.

That term “adoptable” is abhorrent, it chills me to think of the contexts in which that is used

Adoptable simply means that there may be people willing to be the dc's adoptive parents and the dc would thrive in an adoptive placement.

Not something every dc would experience. Dc over the age of seven, dc with disabilities, dc in sibling groups, dc with a history of experiencing sexual abuse, dc with behavioral issues are all harder to place.