To think a lot of posts on this social services Facebook group can’t be entirely truthful?

[TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl]

5 years ago, my DD made a disclosure about a family friend which we reported to the police. As a result we had children’s services involved in our lives and had a horrendous excuse for a social worker who cast doubt of my DD’s experience. FWIW: I know the vast majority of social workers are excellent, sadly we had a very brief experience with a really incompetent one, so I’m not in the “all social workers are evil” camp. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to do that job in a broken country with failing systems.

Anyway, at the time I joined a Facebook support group for those who have children’s services involved to get advice on how to handle everything that was going on. I never left the group, for no particular reason. And for some reason Facebook’s algorithm have been putting the posts on my feed more recently.

Some of the posts are very strange.

Posters claiming they’re on a child protection plan because their relatives are in the army. Or because they have a messy house. Some claim they don’t know why they’re at PLO level (which is a pre-cursor to court action). Loads of posts claiming SS are involved for no reason whatsoever, including pregnant women who look like they’re gonna have their babies removed and they don’t know why. Not all obviously but a large amount claim this.

AIBU to think that children aren’t placed on the child protection register for living in a messy house and there must be more to it?

'Following the law' is a subjective matter, affected by bias or the actions of unsuitable people in the profession.

It happens in every profession staffed by humans. Doesn't matter what the training says, people are people.

MN'ers are very naieve. Thinking everyone who works in police,SS, is a doctor, is good. They aren't. Plus even those that are have their own agenda, many coming from abusive childhoods wanting to make things better. I had a bad experience, my parents who are retired senior SW'ers were shocked. I since tried to help / advocated for families struggling.

I can't absolutely guarantee that this post is absolutely full of lies.
It didn't happen and most of it actually couldn't happen because the procedures and systems make some of it absolutely impossible.

One social worker and one team manager is not solely responsible for putting a family on/keeping them on a child protection plan. It's a multi agency decision for starters.

So whilst there may be some truth in the content of the post, this perfectly highlights the issue with those social media pages.

I know it's going to sound like I'm blindly defending social services but I'm really not, I understand the failings and the issues. I won't however allow stuff like this to be just accepted unchallenged.

This is the sort of posts you see on the 'I hate social services' pages. It's dangerous and harmful to other families who actually might otherwise engage until they read post after post like this which terrifies them.

Dontmesswithmedarna - I’m sorry you went through this.
There are bully’s and corrupt people in all professions- just look at the police politicians and the number of nurses bought before the Royal college of nursing.
If she is lying then how comes she was able to get these workers sacked?

I don’t disbelieve that there is some unethical practices going on. My experience was with adult social services rather than children’s and the lies they told, the vindictiveness and pig headedness that went on to get their own way was unbelievable. Thank god we had recordings of what was said and voicemails as there was so much gaslighting going and denial of things having been said.

In our case we had taken steps to safeguard our children and had spoken to children’s services to get advice, children’s services denied that we had ever spoken to them.

Also not true.
What power do they have?
What decisions can they make in isolation with no oversight?

I’m a child protection social worker and have been for 13 years, I must have missed the day when we have the gaslighting training……. 🤔

Well, I am in the USA and the laws are different but the Social Workers are the same. We are dealing with a church friend's situation now. Two adult sisters - DS1 is parent of two boys (ages 4 and 2). Is a SAHP, gets child support and works parttime as a cleaner. While she worked her kids were babysat by her DS2 who has a daughter age 6 in school and was expecting a baby. DS2 had baby arrive at 8 months. Her DS1 naturally took care of the niece while mom was in hospital.
In US hospitals mothers are routinely tested for drugs, alcohol, and STDs after delivery. DS2 tested positive for drugs. Baby was immediately taken by SW into foster care. SWs also came to the older sister's home and took the 6-year-old into foster care. When the aunt protested she was told that an investigation would be made into her and her sons might also be put into foster care because she (1) used a drug addicted person as a sitter and (2) she should have known her sister was using drugs. Also (3) she should have reported her sister and didn't, thus endangering the unborn child and the older child. They even threw in a threat of fraud (4) because she paid her sister in cash and her sister didn't report the income. They did not live together. DS1 did not know about her DS2's drug use or income tax filings. She has now lost her two nieces and been threatened with loss of her own children. She may have to give custody to their dad to escape foster care.

They have to use discretion every day. They review cases and make judgements on what to escalate and what not to escalate.

Of course they have power. They attend a case conference. If they say 'I think x' people listen.

@watchfulwishes your opinion is yours. I'm not saying there isn't or hasn't been mistakes but that post was full of things that just CANT happen.
The reasons I'm studying is to try and be the SW I needed when we needed help my experience wasn't positive so I'm not going to blindly defend them.
All I know is that so far in my training or studies taking away people kids just doesn't happen on a whim.

My DH is a social worker, social services DO NOT intervene with a family unless there is a reason because they simply dont have the staff to take on cases that dont need them to! They certainly wouldnt be involved if your house is messy! Mines messy of a day, I have an autistic toddler who is like a tornado! However, when I say messy, my house is still clean (thats the difference).
I am also diagnosed Bipolar, my medication has been managed great the past 4 years, however, just after my DS was born, I had a quite severe manic episode and naturally the hospital informed Child Social Services. They came to my home when I was released from hospital to have a chat with my husband and I and was completely satisfied that I was perfectly fine to look after my children now my medications were sorted! Never heard from them again and at that time of my manic episode I was convinced my new born DS was a Jackal!!!
So in short to summarise, social services will not put you under a supervision order for a messy home, they will not remove your children from you for no reason, that is the last thing they want to do or will do, so Im guessing all these facebook stories are giving "their truth" not the actual truth of their situation!

Makes me we can accept some police officers are dodgy, but we have to pretend all social workers are wonderful.

Some very damaged people are drawn to social work.

You can never trust an entire profession, only a fool does that.

The trouble is people do believe these stories and it terrifies them. I have a fear of social services after being told my baby would be taken away from me because I was untidy, the day I came home with her. I obviously wasn't in a good place anyway but that was the catalyst for my PND. I obviously now know that isn't true, and would never have happened but I still have that fear in the back of my mind. I think some of these people genuinely do believe that's what's happening or just don't want to admit how badly they are struggling.

It is possible the “I got them both sacked” is also a lie…

Of course social workers can and do make mistakes. They're human. But one vindictive social worker cannot ensure a child is removed. Social services don't have that power, only a judge/the police can remove children.

My mum used to work closely with families that had SS involvement (not a social worker though). Many of them genuinely believed they were being unfairly targeted because SS just didn't agree with their parenting style, even though their children were being abused and neglected.

I think it's complicated, because I think some people are in huge denial and "just cluttered" can actually mean serious hoarding.

As a teacher, I know how hard it can be to actually get SS involved, especially when there's a new risk to older teens eg mum moves in an abusive boyfriend or teen moves in with dad who is abusing drugs etc - even in some cases where a 15yo has been kicked out of home it can be hard to get SS involvement.

I know they are really overstretched, but ultimately it's schools that end up picking up the slack.

From that point of view I find it hard to believe they would get involved for something trivial, but equally I do unfortunately believe some social workers will make the choice that makes their life easier (which is obviously true of everyone, but in some professions has more serious consequences). And it is obviously in the context of being massively overstretched. I'm sure if funding was better then SS would provide better support.

I don't think anyone is saying they're infallible or that there aren't unsuitable people in the job. Of course there is. I've worked alongside social workers at times, I know the system and the pressures on it.

What we are saying is that some of the things they have been accused of on this thread cannot physically have happened. Not, something slipped through the cracks or someone screwed up. It could not have happened which then leads me to think the rest of that story was also fiction or at best heavily manipulated.

And I wish you well - but don't get defensive about people not trusting the service.

It is an underfunded and underresourced profession where staff are under constant pressure. That does not make for a functioning working environment.

major alpha female type

Who says that irl?

I’m a social worker.
In short yes they will be in some sort of denial.

And @DONTMESSWITHMEDARNA - wow - you are a walking talking red flag.

DD was friends with a boy in her class. I got on ok with his mum. Out of the blue one day the lad and his siblings turned up to school with foster carers. The mum told me the kids had been stolen and she would be fighting to get them back. What she wasn’t telling anyone was that SS had placed her in a new home on the understanding her partner could not be in the house due to drugs and violence. She let him and they were both dealing. They went on to rip off members of the community. They were also aggressive to their children. She kept that so quiet and had I not found out I would have been none the wiser and felt bad for her. I think often people are in denial and really don’t seem to get it.

It is possible the “I got them both sacked” is also a lie…
I feel the same. It sounds like someone with a high desire to feel they're really in charge and prove they don't take nonsense, when it's highly unlikely they did anything of the sort.

Postapocalypticcowgirl I agree with you. Seeing what doesn't meet the threshold for SS involvement, including where parents have been calling out for help, has certainly made me very sceptical about claims by some people that SS put their child on CP for a messy house/an unmade bed/because they (insert average parenting label).

It's the SS version of "I got a detention for asking for help with my work" when asking for help with my work actually means: had disrupted the lesson during the teaching, had to be spoken about behaviour several times, was turning around and disrupting the lesson with their friends, not asking the teacher for help, but when the detention is issued for repeated disruption they were "just asking a question about the work".

Sadly, there are many parents who can spend clocking up hours on Facebook, writing about how awful their social worker is and how unfair they are being treated. Meanwhile their child lives in filth, barely showers, teeth aren’t cleaned and has nowhere decent to sleep or decent food to eat.

I work in adult social care, so I appreciate I am not familiar with children services processes. The only time we are bothered about a messy house is if there is actually a health hazard. So extreme hoarding - can also include hoarding of human waste, fridge full of mouldy food - which may indicate self neglect, rat infestation, excrement in inappropriate places eg defecating in the bath.

if you become aware of a safeguarding issue, there are so many processes and procedures and checks in place, that I can’t see that there are hoarded of vindictive social workers out there.

I ived in vans and squats half the time with known drug dealing addict to multiple class As parents, who failed to feed me, sometimes hurt e and left me with randoms. SS provided many of my clothes and once a loo... We saw them fairly often over all (few times a year?) - never put on a plan though... Dad died of drug/alcohol complications in bed with DB - still no child protection plans (should have been! Mum went on a bit of a rampage then...). DB is only just 18 now, so little changed between my childhood and his.

I'd be bloody amazed if any of that was enough for SS involvement, judging by my own and DBs experiences.