To disagree with social services?

[Lilyfrilly]

I’m hoping someone here works in social services or just has some knowledge and advice.
name changed for this post.
my 4 children have been on a child protection plan since February this year. We go to core group meetings every 6 weeks with the professionals, to discuss how the plan is going and if we’ve done what has been asked of us.
we’ve gone from having a bad relationship with some of the professionals, to having a good one and working well together on the plan.
at each meeting, all the professionals are asked to give us marks out of 10. It’s gone from 3/4 to 7/8- the last few meetings have been really positive. Social worker visits unannounced at least once a week, and is always satisfied.
our next conference is in January. This is where the decision will be made on if we need to stay on child protection or can go down to child in need plans.
there is nothing more I can do than what I have done. Things are going well.
however, my social worker has said not to get my hopes up as although things are going well now, they have concerns things might not go so well again in the future.
bit surely in that case, we would just go back up to child protection again.
If that is the reason they use to keep us on the CP plan, then they could always say that reason since no one can see into the future. So my question is…. If at the next conference, it’s decided we need to stay on child protection, would I be wise to just accept that or can I challenge it? I can’t see how we would still meet the threshold but I’m anxious now.
i feel like I can’t do any more than what I have. I’ve also heard CP plans can’t last more than 2 years. But the thought of another year of this…

In your case @Sindonym , had your childrens’ school discovered they were locking themselves in a room to protect themselves from their disabled sibling, then in all likelihood social services would have been contacted

They do if they want to access any sort of respite. My son attended a special school and I don’t know a single child there who didn’t have a social worker at some stage or other.

This is wrong. Have you not heard of Children's Disability Services/Team? Many families with disabled children do have a social worker. It's the social worker who arranges care packages and respite.

That is the Children with Disabilities Social Work team.

Not social services as in this scenario

It's all Social Services. Social Services is made up of different departments.

But it’s completely voluntary. You apply for it. If you were to say - no thanks or not bother, there would be no “involvement”.

You actively pursue it and apply for it.

Gateway to respite care.

Very very different to this. And you know it!

@feef83 Not sure stalking across threads is allowed?

But yes of course school & SS knew. SS first became involved when we asked for respite when son was 5. By the time he was struggling at 15/16 we had a very good relationship with his social worker because she had been reviewing his respite package for a number of years, having taken over from the social worker who set it up. . She knew everything because I told her everything & because we needed services. Youngest’s school knew because I told them. They did things like collected him to take him to school because neither dh nor I could bring him until ds1 was on his bus - and he was the last one picked up (with good reason).

SW told me they hadn’t removed eldest (which would have been hugely traumatic for him as would have involved. a move of hundreds of miles) because she assessed we could keep everyone safe until they found something local. That finding something local took 8 months and we were in weekly, sometimes daily contact during that time.

We still catch up occasionally now although my son has not been in children’s services for years. She was an amazing professional who fought to keep ds1 in the family & close by, for which I will always be grateful.

it is very usual for social services to be involved when a child has complex needs related to disability. The level of involvement we had was unusual but was for 1 year out of his 13 years of involvement with children’s services & reflected his needs at the time. It’s how SS should work.

It was the OP who contacted Social Services. They then gave her a social worker who then got the ball rolling on getting the help the family needed. They wouldn't have gotten involved if she hadn't contacted them. So, again, you're wrong to say that "many families with a disabled child do not have social services involvement". Many do. Many need support.

The OP has a child with complex needs and became overwhelmed. SS have stepped in and it sounds as if she is being honest with them and is aware that she has not provided the children with what they need.

I advised her (way back) that it makes sense to keep going with them because they can set up support that she and her children wouldn’t otherwise get.

She doesn’t need to be treated like scum or othered for having a social worker.

And yes - this.

i don’t know anyone with a child with complex needs who does not have a social worker. Think if you got to an annual review & there wasn’t one it wouldn’t be unusual for school to refer anyway, to see if more support available,

There are no separate ‘disability social workers’ in my area. My son’s social worker did all types of children’s social work including LAC, CP and disability.

If you were in a position to design your own support plan, what would you want it to look like?
Imagining, that money was no object and you could pay for it.

I’m struggling with perimenopause exacerbated untreated adhd, and I’m unreasonably jealous of the support your dc are receiving. That’s a little tongue in cheek of course, and I do recognise how intrusive and stressful it is. But I’m also thinking that it would be amazing to be able to voluntarily access support like that.

If you were to pay (or wave a magic wand) for the help and support that would improve your lives, what would that look like?

Yeah, I actually think in my area it is "children's services" until 18, then you go into "adult disability services". Adult disability services aren't great. A lot of parents struggle with that transition. The children's social workers seem to be more involved and proactive.

Definitely. They don’t really look at the whole family in adults either. We have pretty much nothing to do with adult SS as son is now 100% health funded - everything is via the Community LD Team,

Not said in this thread at all. The OP asked for help after being put on the CP plan (and this was not “asked for” in any shape or form)

Since CP started

^ went to panel to ask for respite care for one of my children as he is disabled and I was at breaking point having never had a break.

Have you ever parented a disabled child while suffering from mental health issues yourself, @Feef83 ?

No.

But you said the OP has asked for SS involvement. When that was inaccurate became she asked for respite care after SS had become involved without any such request.

Read again. Thurs 17:23. I'm on my phone now so I cant copy & paste. OP contacted them for help.

I read that post. She asked for help multiple from GP and SS but sadly did not receive.

When SS became involved it was not as the result of one of these requests

OMG. It says right there in that post that she got a social worker after contacting SS. How do you think they knew she was struggling? She got them involved. They saw things getting worse. They put the children on plans. It was all part of getting the help she needed.

No, I didn’t say that. It was a different poster. I was just trying to determine whether you have any idea at all what the poster was going through before you decided to judge her on the internet.

I do own it, but I honestly did try and get help.

I read it as the Op tried but by the time SS actually got involved… it was thrust upon her rather than as a result of her result.

I am not judging.

Although it sounds very very frightening for her children

TBH with the significant disabilities her son has and her being woken up every 2 hours at night to care for him any school that did not refer the family to SS for additional support would have been negligent (imo).

So it doesn’t really matter how she got there. If she didn’t refer herself another professional working with the family should have done so.