To refuse a school home visit?

[CoffeePlease93]

My son has just started school this year so I don’t know if this is the norm or not?

So apparently his school (not the teachers) does home visits with all the new parents to discuss any issues going on and for a chit chat (and probably just to be nosey around your home too!)

I have already had to reschedule once because we -all had COVID but I’ve got it coming up again now but it’s just such an inconvenience! I work from home, have a medical procedure coming up which I have several appointments beforehand and I also have a private issue going on (legal issues) which is requiring a lot of solicitor appointments and admin stuff at home at the moment too.

There has been no issues with my son at school whatsoever, he is doing amazingly well, glowing reports, I have brilliant communication with his actual teachers - I don’t need any extra support with anything and there is a parent’s evening coming up soon anyway.

I also have an extremely anxious dog who really stresses out if stranger’s come into the home (constantly barking, pacing up and down, sometimes wee’s - something we are working on but he came from a bad home previous to us).

WIBU to tell them I don’t need a home visit and this just isn’t going to work for me or will it be seen as bad and negative thing like I’m not co-operating or I’m being resistant etc?

And yes… I do tend to overthink everything which is why I’m asking!

@DeannaFromHumanResources right so I’m guessing you missed the part where my child won’t be there then?

You’re antagonistic, sarcastic and argumentative, and rather unpleasant sounding at times.

Sure, you’re all about the support.

Yep, bit of a personal attack IMO

@Pumperthepumper @Derbee exactly, she’s the one who started with her little aggressive message who seems to know all about me and my personality as a stranger off the internet! 😂

I think some people just write nasty and un helpful messages on here on threads just so they can take out their problems on someone else and not have to face the consequences…

🫣 oops sorry @CoffeePlease93 I don’t see the point then.

OP I started a thread (I never do) when I saw on MSM that Sarah Beeny had breast cancer. I was so upset.
I got accused of implying her boys had beat her up in my OP.

It went very oddly.

It's fine to request to meet at school as you would find it easier, no need to go into a multitude of excuses. It's also easy to say I work until x time. If your dc goes to afterschool care they will know you work

@CoffeePlease93 just catching up on this thread. Interesting to see the variety of responses.

I'm starting a new school safeguarding role (social worker) and had planned to ring parents to introduce myself and come do a home visit.

I'm sure some parents will decline. I'm not sure what conclusions I will draw as it will depend on wider things like past referrals/child's needs/demeanour and reason for refusing the visit. I can't force anyone to allow me to visit but my visit would be to allow them to put a face to a name, show them that I am willing to come and give them the time of day as there has been staffing shortage, and yes, to see the home environment

And to see how the child presents at home and if there's anything I can do to support in school/any worries

You’re going to ring all the parents of all the kids in your school and judge them on their ‘demeanour’ and how good an excuse they give?

Honestly, we never have guests because I'm embarassed of our tiny house. The idea of DD1's Reception teacher visiting sent me into a state of panic, but I never would have declined or insisted on cutting it short, because I knew that DD would have a lovely red flag next to her name before she even started school. We can all play faux naive and pretend it won't happen, but it doesn't look good does it?

I do find it weird that they want a whole hours visit though, ours was about ten minutes max - are you absolutely sure they're visiting the homes of all of the children in the class? It must be taking the weeks to get through everybody.

I understand if you cant say where you are but Id be interested to know

Are you a qualified social worker and do you work for a school under the education department? Im amazed they have the funding for that.

Or do you mean you are part of the wider safeguarding role within social services but have a number of schools that you link with?

Are your visits part of a current referral or open case as you mention safeguarding? If they're not I would wonder what remit this comes under?

Are you planning to visit the homes of every reception starter in the first few months of then starting school? Whilst their child isn't there, during the day?

What will you gain by doing the home visits rather than inviting the parents one by one into school for example?

I'm curious as to how much time it would take to go to every child's home and how much more beneficial it will be compared to seeing parents in school without the need for you visiting them across a wide area.

Op says her child won't be present during the appointment, iirr.

@Pumperthepumper it's not quite as simplistic as that, as I indicated. If a family is on CP and there are numerous neglect referrals and they refuse a home visit it would give me cause to think deeper. Surely it would for most people?

@bellac11 I'll be in a specialist autism, adhd and SEMH provision, I won't say which area but I will say up north. I am a qualified social worker, have worked in Child Protection and education in a couple of different roles. It's an academy with EHCP fees attached, in a deprived area, so they have more funding available and they have a few sites all with their own social worker. And two lead social workers to manage safeguarding training overall across all the schools and to provide supervision. They get consistently good ofsteds for their safeguarding management.

My visits will be entirely optional, and will be part of getting to know the families as otherwise I'll have little contact with some as there are a lot of taxi drop offs due to it being an send provision.

@Abraxan please see above. Not Year R visits. These are secondary age children.

@Abraxan also I can't invite parents in one by one necessarily as it's a secure specialist provision and too many unknown adults could upset the children.

So given all you have said (and you seem to have a realistic grip on how well hidden abuse can be) you think that a routine home visit is best NOT done ?

I can't see the logic.
Let's say out of 100 visits there is nothing to report in 99 visits . (Although it later comes to light that there is 'hidden dv in two of the posh houses with naive biscuits and filter coffee' ... but in one house there is serious and obvious neglect.

What would MN vote. ?
Sod the 'one' my anxiety, anti-socialness, work commitments, stressed dog are far more important.

Or

Rescuing one child out of a hundred trumps everything.

If you have nothing to hide then you should all get over yourselves and embrace vigilance regarding child protection. These children have NO ONE.. they rely on decent adults being vigilant.

The two posh families will be clever at hiding abuse. Doesn't mean we stop looking out for others .

Thats not what you said though - you said you’d decide based on their demeanour and their response to a potential visit. Are you psychic?

Thats interesting and could be a useful service but I cant get my head around the visits being from a 'safeguarding social worker' if the child is not open to services based on safeguarding concerns.

Thats why Im questioning the remit and your authority in those visits.

Obviously if you're only visiting children who are already on chin or cp plans thats different.

It’s standard round here, trust me they are not interested in seeing your house, simply doing their jobs 😵‍💫

@Pumperthepumper I said that demeanour would be part of that? Meaning that if I ring up and OFFER a visit, operative word being offer, then if they say something like 'f* off, no way I'm letting you lot near my house' that would raise alarms would it not?
Obviously I'm not psychic hence I can only go off the info that I have. Being a psychic social worker is but a dream.

@hadtochangetothisone I know you weren't replying to me but just wanted to say that as a social worker, sometimes a routine home visit can be just as telling. And also gives you time to talk to the parents.

@bellac11 My title would be DSL and school social worker. I have no authority to force a home visit but an authority and clearance to offer one iyswim? I would very much like the chance to get to meet the parents, as like I say, I won't see them at drop off most likely. And they aren't really able to come into school for visits except for on designated evenings/days.

My DC are 25 and 27 and although their school didnt do this , it was certainly normal back then

Some schools do it here, some don't. Ours doesn't. But before they start in reception we get invited in, just us and the child to meet the teacher and see the classroom so they're not new to them on the first day. Even happened in 2020. We just tested first, masked up and distanced inside.

My child had a good look around, wrote on a chalkboard, had a chat with the teacher and then off we went!

That was beneficial I think. Not sure a home visit would have been really. But I wouldn't have declined it if they would have wanted to come. I think it's really important to have a positive relationship with your child's school and their teacher, which means both parties being as agreeable as is possible.

It wouldn’t ring alarm bells no, I’d imagine they had negative involvement with social work beige and (you’d hope!) a new person would try to fix that rather than immediately jumping to conclusions.