AIBU to be disappointed in Social Services response to concerns raised?

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I’ll preface this by saying I think social workers do an absolutely incredible job in extremely challenging circumstances and this is no way intended to be a thread bashing social workers!

This morning I was on the bus during school drop off time and a woman got on with a number of children, she shouted and swore at the children, called them names and threatened to hit them. The bus driver intervened and they got off at the next stop. I was debating saying something myself but the bus driver beat me to it. When I arrived at work I looked up the number to report my concerns to social services and called them up. Admittedly, I did have very limited information (I had first names I had picked up from overhearing the conversations, the vicinity they got off at for school, a teachers name that one of the children had mentioned and the colour of the school uniform. To cut a long story short I was told unless I had the children’s full names and date of births they couldn’t take a report. In the end I spent an hour myself googling nearby schools and checking the staff lists for the name of the teacher mentioned- I tracked this down and reported my concerns directly to them who said they would be passing this Information onto children’s services.

AIBU to think that if I’m able to track this down then surely call handlers should have the resources/ability to do this too? Maybe I was being a bit OTT but I tend to be of the opinion that it’s better to report and it be nothing than not to report and it be something. I imagine a lot of people who have concerns regarding the welfare of a child won’t always have full names and date of births and it made me think/worry how many at risk children are being missed due to reports not being taken when information or concerns are volunteered.

Yes they should have more time, money and resources to follow up calls, but that’s the governments fault. The fact is they don’t have this time, money etc, and all you saw was a mum shouting at kids on a bus, that’s a lot of tail chasing for most likely nothing.

Call handler are just that. They are not detectives or investigators. If it was just threatening and shouting you witnessed rather than actual physical assault it is unlikely anything would be done anyway. Some parents are just very shouty (not condoning it but as a retired SW there are plenty more serious and immediate things that need to be dealt with).

What exactly did she say to the children on the bus?

Which sort of safeguarding case should be dropped in order to prioritise investigating a phone call to the effect of 'a woman on a bus, who I don't know, shouted at and threatened to hit some pupils who I also don't know'?

It would be interesting to hear the bus driver's version, what words they used and how they perceived it they don't get involved that much around here so the driver clearly had a strong opinion.

It's a tough one op as we weren't there but you're right, there is a trend to do nothing and then see something tragic on the news. Agree that, like many services in the UK, social services are under funded.

If the bus driver intervened then I'm pretty sure it was a hideous situation. In my area they don't tend to get involved unless they really have to. I've seen them ignore some horrible incidents on the bus. Hopefully the family involved can get some support as it's obviously needed.

If they spent just one hour on every report they received with little or no information then they would do nothing else. Do you know how many people phone up with "I saw or heard something but I don't know anything"? Maybe they should have the time. But they don't. Clearly you do.

The reality of the situation is that this behaviour would not meet the threshold for SW involvement, there are not enough SW’s available to deal with what could be classed as less than ideal parenting. I can assure you that the people who take these calls are inundated day after day with people, usually professionals, raising concerns about serious and urgent CP issues, they do not have an hour in their day to devote to playing Sherlock Holmes.

Limited time and resources.

Social workers don't have a spare hour to track down the details of someone who shouted at their children.
Not very nice parenting is waaaay down the list of priorities. School is probably better placed to offer early help or signpost to things like parenting classes.

Kindly, yes, YABU. This isn’t a social services remit, it’s a police 101 remit. YANBU to expect something to be done and some action of some kind but you did all the investigations yourself. You should’ve reported to the police and they should’ve followed up, probably with the bus company for CCTV. They’d have likely known local uniforms and some local staff names too because schools often have police connections.

You come across as an annoying busybody warrior-type

Touché! You really should name change.

You sound lovely.

Even if they did track her down, what could be done?

she’s shouting and swearing . Quick welfare check. That’s it

I work closely with social care and have made numerous referrals and shared concerns and each time I am left agog at the lack of interest from SC. I do believe that they are so under funded and understaffed that it has be to be a pretty horrific situation for them to intervene.

About par for the course in my experience. I tried to report neglect of my MIL with advanced dementia, but was told by Adult Social Care that a third party report was not acceptable. It would have to come from MIL herself, despite the fact she had no capacity!

Someone shouting and threatening their kids would not meet the threshold for sc involvement. It will however be logged and be part of a picture. You would be naive to think anything will be done as a result of the referral but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have tried.

They get dozens to hundreds of referrals per day. If each took an hour to search for, as well as all the usual paperwork, checking if it meets threshold etc, you would need to employ a whole team just to track people down to follow up on random comments from passersby like yourself.
The woman is likely already known to school/ss etc if she's shouting and swearing like that on a bus.

I’m not sure that shouting and letting off steam at a group of children is necessarily abusive. It’s not great but the shouting is often a safety valve.

I’m pretty sure that the worst abuses happen where no one suspects or sees and it’s not necessarily (or even very often) the public shouters who carry it out.

I swear you are deliberately goady in nearly all your posts. If this was the majority of people's attitudes then a lot less children would receive help when they are in abusive situations

Hang on, was this woman a relative of the children or just some random woman?

Because if the latter that's not even remotely a social services matter.

I do agree that underfunding and understaffing must put call handlers and social workers under an immense amount of pressure and like I said I have a huge amount of respect for the job they do. I suppose it’s just a scary thought to think how bad things need to get for children before someone intervenes.

Just to clarify, it wasn’t just standard shouting telling your child off (although appreciate this is my opinion!) but to keep it brief one child was called a bitch and a slag, one child was called a cunt and they were told they would have teeth knocked out and be kicked into next week if they didn’t shut their mouth along with a number of other threats and insults that I’ll not go into. The bus driver had to intervene as other parents were complaining/expressing concern to him as they got off the bus with their own children. The children were calling her Mum so she was definitely their parent.

I wouldn’t have expected social services to drop everything and go kicking down the door or anything but I suppose I expected it to be a lot easier than it was to get the information/concern noted down in case it formed part of a bigger picture if that makes sense. However perhaps I did go down the wrong route! It’s hard to know what to do for the best in these situations I guess.

Completely disagree with you, children need more people like the OP. Every day there’s tragedies happening because people didn’t want to get involved and raise the alert!

OP you absolutely the right thing. Your call.would have been taken by the MASH team, who do include social workers. Unfortunately without names there isn't much they can do, so yes, next time I'd report it to the police first. They can investigate and findings will be passed on the Social care.

And to all you who are saying she should keep her nose out... shame on you. Safe guarding is everyone's responsibility.