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?

This case still haunts me today. Horrific.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Star_Hobson

@Neverfullycharged oh yes, I am fully aware that it's the judge's decision, on the flip side, when I did a SAR in order to make my complaint when it had all been stepped down (from CP to CIN to closed in about a month - after they finally accepted that I was telling the truth), there were so many inconsistencies and inaccuracies and downright lies in there, that thankfully I could dispute each and every one of them, that a judge may have been of the opinion that perhaps dd should have been placed in care, had it got to that point.

They also forgot to redact some of the things they had discovered about him, which I was totally shocked and appalled by, and genuinely had no idea about!!! Remember all I wanted to do was get him away from me and dd. Then they sent me an email asking me to delete the version I had and they would send me a redacted copy 🤦‍♀️

My case has been described as 'extreme mot dangerous' by the other professionals involved.

*extremely even

I have social services involvement due to dc1's dad but I've struggled to get their attention tbh and I don't blame the sw, I know they are overstretched. I used to be scared of them as aforementioned ex's mum made lots of malicious reports and I was terrified they'd be taken away. I now know better.

Not true.

They remove children because they HAVE DOUBT but no proof that they are not safe. Only for many children to be deemed at no risk later on. Which causes huge issues in families and tortures children who are wrongly taken.

If this has not happened to you then you would not know. Regardless of being a social worker or not. Nobody is safe from it happening to them.

I have worked with many people who have had children removed and they were all doing things which negatively impact their children (continuing in violent relationships, using drugs, living in filth to the point you have to throw away your shoes when you leave the house). All of them were innocent victims if you listened to them. I am sure there are families who come into their sights who do not deserve it - but you either set the bar high and accept that some people may have children removed improperly and need to fight for themselves or have it caught through the rest of the system. Or you set it low and accept that children will be harmed and/or die.

I unfortunately have had dealings with 8 different SW's over 2 years & I'm yet to meet a competent one.
We only got 'signed off' because the last one was leaving and it was convenient to them to close the 'case'. Ps nothing ever happened.

Honestly it's diabolical.

They got my childrens names wrong and dates of birth wrong. One was put down as being in the future.

One refused to give us her name or show any ID... we later realised this was because she had been all over the news.

Our second one was on the news for fraud but then later fired because he wasn't actually doing the work properly, then proceeded to burn all of our files he did do which was about 3 months of work. Which was then completed in 2 weeks by another horrific SW.

i told them numerous times they got my childrens names wrong but it was never rectified. I could go on and on. It was just the most unprofessional experience I've ever had with such a huge organisation

It's hard when you do a job that you work so hard in to not jump to the defense of the system and admit there are failings.

It's also pretty shit that different LAs have different budgets and the councillors decide extra money that isn't from government.

It's really shit that struggling LAs get their money cut down if they have a shit ofsted report when usually the right investment would turn things around.

Remember ofsted inspect SS. They are extremely thorough and multiple individual cases get examined - you get a rough idea when ofsted will visit but you have no idea who they will talk to and what cases they will look at. It's usually the front and back end of service that gets the most examination. There isn't a conspiracy to remove children, there are multiple checks on a SWs work from different angles.

I do think we don't all hate GPs when a GP makes a mistake and for some reason everyone hates all SW when a mistake or bad egg is in the team which is pretty shitty. You do a job where you're either getting visceral trauma and depleting your empathy, you're running on adrenaline or you're drowing in paperwork but when it's going well and you've really made a difference it's the best job ever.

There are a lot of people stuck in their ways in this profession but isn't there with any?

I will say though that the last SW we had was an angel. Couldn't help us enough. However they were new to the job and were raring to go and wanted to do everything by the book and do it right. I wish every social worker was like this.

I think generally, if you are struggling and it results in a referral, don't hide that you're struggling. I don't doubt many have been treated terribly by social workers, I've had one tell outright lies about me but I was very young at the time and not confident at all. Now, I would handle it differently but fortunately, I've got on with the other SWs I've encountered.

Anyone who wants to know more can just Google the statistics of children who are taken and then returned. It's hundreds of thousands.

There are numerous articles from social workers who feel that the system is not working and needs to be completely changed as it is failing those who need them most.

I'm done ranting but will be going to the press one day to raise awareness for this.

You can't burn files ffs 🙄

It's all stored on a system, a system that will lock you out if you've made a gross mistake. You are entitled to access any information stored on you from the last 75yrs. Why don't you make a request for it. There haven't been paper files for a good 20 years.

Local authorities have spent millions and millions on trying to prevent children coming in to care over the last 10 years or so. Early help teams, CAF, project workers, out reach workers, better training for school/safe guarding leads, parenting classes and children centres are just a few areas that has been trying to do exactly that.

Foster carers are relatively cheap compared to children's homes.

You don't think we have done this?

The laptop was destroyed and any paperwork which of course there is paperwork.. was burned. This was confirmed in writing to me by the LA and our social workers manager who could only apologise. Which just wasn't good enough. Effectively everything we had done over 3 months was lost and if you know anything about social work, the parenting assessments are incredibly detailed and thorough meaning you disclose huge amounts of information.

The fact you don't believe it is so so sad. Not every experience is how it should be.

It is actually quite hard for a child to be adopted out of the family these days.
We have an adopted daughter taken as a baby.
They assessed mum for months before deciding she couldn't go home. They then assessed family and only then did they look to find an adoptive family. When we applied for the adoption order, mum was able to contest. Even after the judge had passed the order she had 28 days to contest.
To us it felt like they bent over backwards to avoid a situation where they could be accused of being wrong. Much to the detriment of our daughter who spent a full 12 months in the care system.

I m a social worker in Northern Ireland so our processes are different from England. There is definitely room for improvement but there is nowhere really to express this or make suggestions that would actually be listened to, all the ones at the top think they know best.

Just to provide some insight.

Referrals
When a referral comes in it literally has to meet the threshold for intervention, there has been times I have rang back professionals and asked what they actually want us to do, what is your concerns because you haven't highlighted any, most other professionals just need to tick a box that they've notified us say for example if mental health concern with parent. We decline referrals for many reasons. We access certain systems to check background information of family and other things to see if any red flags at this point. The person who referred also needs to have told the family about the referral and we will ask them to go back and get consent if they have not.

Injuries
If there is any injuries then a social worker and police officer visit the child within a few hours usually at school (best case scenario). Again parents are fully informed about this. A child will usually attend for a forensic medical which is organised through the police to check injury's and further treatment required, reported completed by medical professional. A social worker would never be allowed to come to a conclusion about injuries as they are not medical professionals. Child is interviewed by a police officer and social worker together.

Removal
This is not done lightly, usually if a child is at immediate risk or serious harm then police protection order would be used or emergency protection order through the court, both are temporary and children placed with close friend or family. This would happen for example if parents/ parent currently off their heads on drugs or alcohol, or parent attempted suicide by hanging in front of child and there is no other parent in their life to take care of them. Long term removal would be the failure to meet their child's needs on a chronic level despite repeated intervention. Example parent who is addicted to heroin and lees relapsing. A parent in a relationship with a violent partner who has offences of domestic abuse and hides this partner in the house when social workers call despite previously being in a woman's shelter and the children highlighted how scared they were of them. Long term removal on a long process through courts with multiple professional involvement.

I always try my best to engage families on the process and show them that we all want the same goal, for their children to thrive in the family home and for social workers no longer to be needed In theirs lives because they are able to make good decisions. Everything we do we look at it based on a persons human rights and childrens rights.

Working with families and children is complex and situations change day to day so it will never be a profession in which all children will be saved because people trick us, lie and hide information. All I ask for is honesty and when someone is honest then that's a brilliant start. I am a mother myself so I get it, I always try to put myself in their shoes and ask how I would feel in their situation. It's challenging and there is no right answer but if people who criticise worked with us for 1 day they would get it.

And quite frankly, if you are a social worker or work with vulnerable people then you should be ashamed. Rolling eyes at someone's absolutely horrific ordeal. We were just unfortunate that we were given really shitty unprofessional social workers up until the last one.

I really worry that you cannot relate to people or have any type of empathy which is hugely needed to do that type of job.

My experience with SS has been totally negative.

Some people's experience will be positive, some Social Workers will defend their profession. For me their involvement was a total shit show and I'll avoid them at all costs.

I’m so pleased to hear this (your plans to go to the press) but why wait? Please do it now x

Anyone who wants to know more can just Google the statistics of children who are taken and then returned. It's hundreds of thousands.

Any time a child is removed the goal is to have them safely returned home - services work hard with parents to achieve this. It’s only when that work has failed that we look to place the child permanently via kinship, adoption or foster placement. The fact that so many children are returned is a strength of the system, because that’s what’s meant to happen.

That is true, and we had our children returned thank god. But it was everything in between that was horrific. The way you are treated and spoken to, the way we were judged and used.

Not all cases happen like this of course I can imagine. I hope in the future that social work is given the funding that is needed so that the real incredible social workers can carry on and the bad can be filtered out.

The other thing ime is there's lots of talk of 'support' but not often very much materialises. SW do reports and assessments but don't put support in place. My experience of Child in need meetings is the same things get said every 6 weeks but nothing moves forward.

@bluewanda

I definitely will, I cannot imagine more families having to go through it unnecessarily.

We have come so far and I needed a lot of counselling to get back to normal life that I am afraid that it will be too painful to relive. But I definitely will when strong enough.

What is good to see is that people are already coming forward with their stories. The Sunday times does quite a lot on social work but a subscription is needed to read it 🥴

This was our experience too. A total waste of tax payer's money.