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?

Yes I am very much aware of this, but the poster I am replying to seems to want children to go home when risk is suspected, which is why I am asking them questions.

I'm a Children's Guardian. Before any child is removed from their parents' care, a social work team would have to evidence that the child is at risk of significant harm - firstly to an internal panel, to get approval to issue court proceedings, and then to the court. There are several legally required steps beforehand that I won't detail here. Once the case reaches court, a Children's Guardian is appointed to separately represent the child's interests. I instruct a solicitor on behalf of the child. I am independent of the Local Authority and my job is to scrutinise their work and ensure that the decisions made in court are in the best interests of the child. Sometimes I may agree that removal is necessary, sometimes I may disagree. I make my recommendation to the court, but ultimately a judge considers all the evidence - including from the parents, who will also be legally represented - and it is a judge that decides.

The court process is long and it triggers a number of assessments to determine the risks to the child, whether parents can care for them safely, whether any other family members can care in the event that parents are unsafe. The aim at the start of this process is ALWAYS to return a child home to their parents. If not, to ensure they can live safely within their family. Only when it becomes clear that both these options are unsafe is consideration given to a child being placed permanently outside their family.

A decision to place a child for adoption happens at the very end of this process, when all other options have been exhausted. Again, there is an internal panel that will need to approve this plan and it will have to be signed off by that most senior figures within Children's Services. I will scrutinise it and if I think there is even the slightest chance of an alternative, I will challenge /oppose the plan. And again, the ultimate decision is made by a judge having heard everyone's evidence. It is literally a legal requirement for adoption to be considered only as a last resort, so trust me the bar is set very high. Along every step of the way, parents have the right to appeal decisions that are made.

I am a parent myself. The idea that social workers WANT to remove children is just utterly bizarre. Every social worker, Children's Guardian, judge...everyone involved in the process...wants children to remain with their families first and foremost. We are human beings, we are parents, sons and daughters, we come from families and we understand the strength of the bond that exists between a child and their family of origin. We understand the damage that removal causes, even when it is necessary. Why on earth would anyone want to see that happen if it doesn't absolutely have to?

I think a big part of the problem is the fact that what happens in these cases has to - quite rightly - remain confidential, to protect a child's identity. Parents may choose to go public with their side of the story but the other side will never be told as to do so would be a huge breach of confidentiality.

But honestly. The narrative surrounding SS involvement and decisions to remove children utterly baffles me. I lose sleep over making sure the children I work with are safe, happy, and can stay with their families. My colleagues are exactly the same. I've never met a single person who enjoyed separating children from their family, there is no place in this profession for anyone like that. The conspiracy theories are just ridiculous.

Ok this is my take on it. It's a massively complex situation but generally people who have their children removed from them love their children very much and want to keep them. They're typically very damaged from their own upbringing and/or suffering with mental health or addiction problems. They're very often repeating patterns that were normalised in their own childhood and either can't break out of the habit or don't understand how damaging the pattern is. So if somebody who has had their child removed tells you how much they love their child and how they did the best they could, they're not lying it's probably a very complex situation.

Add to that social workers are human and can make errors. I'm not a social worker, I work in education alongside social workers, and in the time I've been in my career (20 years) I've seen socials workers' caseloads increase massively. So whereas once they would've had 8 families on their books, and the time to build up relationships with the families, now they might have more than 30. It's literally not possible to get to know that many families in order to gain their trust and correctly identify the issues within the family. It's further compounded by 'good' social workers being given the harder jobs this further increasing their workload and more and more people realising that if something happens on your watch then your career is over.

There's a lot of antipathy towards social services and not all of it is undeserved but I do wish people would realise they're not mind readers. I'd love to see a huge cultural shift whereby if they do have to contact you, say for example your baby has had two accidents in a short period of time, or your partner had a volatile past relationship, then instead of berating them and panicking, people feel relieved that they're on the ball. If they get a referral about two head bumps or a drunk ex shouting at your door or whatever, they have no way of knowing if it's wholly innocent or a sign of something serious so they need to ask questions if they're doing their job properly. And if we want to avoid another Arthur or Star or Peter then they need to be allowed to do their job.

In my experience abused children are often full of shame about their situation so will rarely just come out and say X is hitting me. Finding out who needs help is more often than not putting together 100s of bits of information, that on their own aren't too bad, but added to everything else pick up a much bigger picture. So child A tells a teacher he wishes he had his own toothbrush - not great but not enough to remove him from the home. He tells the dinner lady he's famished because he slept in and missed breakfast, he goes to the doctor for treatment for a burn because he ran across the worktop and stepped on the hob, a neighbour noticed him using really aggressive language with much younger children. A different neighbour sees him hurting the pet dog in the garden. He has poor attendance at school, he tells his friend that he's too tired some mornings because he was up helping with the baby. Any one of those on their own wouldn't get your child taken from you, they could be just signs of a child acting up or a slightly frazzled parent, it's the bigger picture that they're trying to see if that makes sense?

You’ve got a profession that often gets the heat when things go wrong, so is poorly thought of, that then creates a situation where young, often not terribly gifted people are being churned in but not retained

Id also say you have people going into the profession via the degree route who simply aren’t equipped to do the job. Universities, in my experience, are incredibly reluctant to fail a student social worker and so these folk end up in a career they are wholly unsuitable for. When there was a vocational route into social work there were multiple opportunities to either teach the skills they were lacking in or redirect them to other professions, that’s harder when someone comes to the job as a qualified worker and universities simply aren’t as on the ball as they need to be.

There’s a big shortage of social workers so some will end up in post that really shouldn’t be. Services have been cut, lots of early help has been cut. Social workers I think are the most vilified profession. They can’t talk about their work, you never hear about the success stories and how many families that they’ve successfully worked with. Only about where it has gone wrong. One mistake and your name will be dragged through the press regardless of the fact that you might have missed something because your caseload is too high, you’ve not had supervision for months, your team leader is off sick etc. We’re human, mistakes will happen, all we can do is put in proper safeguards to make sure that we learn from them. There are some amazing social workers who really do care and make a difference, but they get lost/forgotten about in the narrative, not helped with the press and sensationalist reporting.
If we had a properly funded social services, with plenty of early help resources, Sure Start centres, properly funded CAMHS and social work was a more attractive profession then there would be less bad apples and people would be more willing to ask for support because they’d actually get it. My local authority is struggling, the threshold for involvement is incredibly high, schools are providing early help and are paying into family support services and yet the social services budget has been cut further because apparently they can make efficiency savings. They’re constantly advertising for social workers as well. Our LA’s children’s social services is rated outstanding…… If ours is outstanding then either they pulled the wool over Ofsted eyes or the bar is set too low. The reality is probably both…..

Even if a social worker did think a child was “adoptable”, they still need to reach the legal threshold for intervention, still need to evidence the child cannot be cared safely at home now, or at all, and have a judge agree.

I've been privy to them getting tunnel vision and doing everything they could to present a biased picture because they wanted adoption. The judge wiped the floor with the way they'd gone about it and didn't agree. The adoption didn't proceed. The safeguards in the system worked on this occasion but should there really need to be a safeguard against professional bias? The OP asked about SS and this kind of thing isn't held up to public scrutiny because it supposedly jeopardises children's privacy.

medical assessments are very quick because of the circumstances.

It can be months.

The other thing ime is there's lots of talk of 'support' but not often very much materialises.

The support is often telling the parent what very obscure therapy or specific housing they need and shrugging their shoulders if they can't afford/access it on the basis that they're there for the children not the adults. That's not support.

it is a judge that decides

Fair enough but I think you know that we know you know exactly what boxes to tick. Very complicated sentence...

Absolutely this. In my experience, both through work(I no longer work in social care though), and through personal experience of neglectful parents, the threshold for intervention is far far too high. I know of three families where numerous reports have been made over years, by family members, parents up the school, even their own friends, and nothing ever gets done. And these parents think they are the bees knees, they really do! It’s totally normal to them to have children being bullied for being smelly, sleeping on bare mattresses, having no food in the house, witnessing domestic violence, drug dealers in and out. It’s just insane!

I personally think there are excellent SWs coming out of uni. Our team values them because their training is up to date, they've had smaller caseloads and more reflective practice than we have had on a regular basis and we foster a curiosity about what others have learned. Being reflective and reflexive is paramount to good practice.

The safeguards in the system worked on this occasion but should there really need to be a safeguard against professional bias?

Of course there should, because professionals are people first and foremost. We all (everyone, not just social workers) come to things with our own experiences and see things through our own lens. Sometimes those biases are subconscious and out of our awareness, for most people their subconscious bias causes no one any harm, but in social work - as with other people professions - the potential for harm is there.

We need checks and balances across the board, in the form of post qualifying training, peer discussion, supervision, multi-agency meetings and discussions, court and legal processes. Oddly enough training, supervision and peer discussion are the first things to be squeezed when budgets are tight and case loads high.

I personally think there are excellent SWs coming out of uni. Our team values them because their training is up to date, they've had smaller caseloads and more reflective practice

I agree, I know some absolutely superb students who will be such an asset to the profession. I also know a minority who should never have got past first placement.

Surely the most fundamental thing is that they are a nation wide organisation with thousands of different people all capable of human error?

Sometimes (and I hope the vast majority of the time) they will make correct judgements.

It's not something I really talk about ever but I have had involvement with SS due to DP's mental health treatment. One referral was standard but there were 2 separate occasions where DP's medication caused him to be visibly extremely tired and I was caught out with work commitments so he had to take the DC to some things. Each time they have had a referral they have been very kind, down to earth and understanding. Can see that the kids are clearly loved, provided and cared for. Each time no concerns have been raised. And that was over the course of 2 - 3 years with completely different initial SWs each time.

However we all hear of horror stories both ways. My mum who worked in a school told me stories of children who were left in appalling conditions I won't even describe. All SW did was introduce a sure start type support where someone came in in the morning and evening to check on the DC. Then one day a SW who had no prior experience with the family decided they didn't need even that. Eventually the younger DC were taken into care but the teen DC at my mums school. But then of course there are all the absolute tragedies that make the news

The only thing I know for sure is that it must be a devastatingly hard job to do at times.

how long would you personally be happy for a child to be left at risk for while results were collated, one day, one week, one month?

I'm personally uncomfortable with a system that takes months to return a baby with ED when a consultant could reach a diagnosis in a week if not a day.

I’ve been involved with families in this situation for most of my career (not a social worker) and can only think of a few occasions (still too many) where social services have got it wrong either way
I desperately feel for parents who have their children removed and it’s frequently due to lack of being able to care for them properly rather than lack of love
Sadly many parents are unable to prioritise their children over their own needs - some of the needs including drugs, alcohol or abusive relationships

Jellycatspyjamas

In this case the judge didn't like the blatant manipulation and the way that the family had been set up to fail. I accept the need for the safeguards you describe. Not corrupt attempts to strongarm the decision maker. At the end of the day SS gives the judge information and that should be given in good faith. Too often SS 'know' what they think the judge should decide and tee them up for that outcome in the data presented. Not always of course, but to suggest this isn't pretty common is disingenuous.

Children who are removed from the birth family completely are only removed as an absolute last resort, this is when no one in the birth family is suitable, or no one in the birth family wants to take the child/ren on.

Not true in my experience. They prefer babies (ie adoptable) go to new people who have no links to birth parents.

They really don’t. If they did attempt that it would fall apart upon the hearing.

Are you going to answer how long you would personally be happy for a child to be left at risk while medical investigations are carried out?

Some of my DC's SWs got their names wrong too. It really doesn't give you much faith. They think they know all about your DC having seen them once but can't even get their names right! There were times when I sincerely asked who would protect my DC from the harm being done to them by the SW!

Too often SS 'know' what they think the judge should decide and tee them up for that outcome in the data presented. Not always of course, but to suggest this isn't pretty common is disingenuous.

I don’t think I’ve ever written a report where I didn’t know the decision I hoped the judge would make - it’s the social workers job to make clear recommendations and to support those recommendations with evidence gathered from the family, education, health, support services involved with the family and underpinned by legislation and a plethora of theory informing their understanding of current and future risk.

The family are also represented in court (where I am families can access legal aid for court and children’s hearings). The family’s lawyer will similarly “tee up” their argument and present the data to get the outcome they hope for.

The judge (or the hearing panel) is there to listen to all of the evidence, for and against, and to make a decision.

Why is then that if your SW goes off sick etc. all work now has to start from the beginning and as others have said then rushed. I find it mind boggling.

Question for SWs from my experience - why, when you get something wrong, even if you can prove it it’s wrong, doesn’t it get amended? Why is it brought up later and you have to be like a parrot and repeat yourself. And they write down you’re not happy about the error, but nothing is actually done.

Why? Is that policy to ever amend errors or apologise for fuck ups?

I have seen social workers both be too over the top and try and destroy a family for no reason when the child was not at all at risk in the present or future. Then seen a social worker be so crap at their job they allowed a child to be returned to the parent who was high on drugs whilst child was in their care and child was known to have drugs in their system.

Social worker failed to arrange a blood test for the child in time to present to court as evidence, so child was returned to the mother. So really does depend on who is your social worker, some are good and some are incompetent.

when you get something wrong, even if you can prove it it’s wrong, doesn’t it get amended?

Honestly? In my experience some social workers cut and paste historical information in their reports. The reports for case conference, for example, can be 30+ pages long with a lot of historical information eg about the families background or their process so far. Rather than rewriting the whole thing some will cut and paste from the previous report and if there’s a mistake it simply gets copied over with the rest. They may be aware you’ve raised it before but in their haste to get the report in on time they’ll forget to check.

You can call it lazy, careless, inevitable due to pressure of work but usually it’ll be because parts of the report are copied from previous documents.