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?

I have been around on parenting boards and forums for abut 20 years since I had my youngest.

I don't think in all my time online on those sorts of forums I have seen more than a couple of posts saying "We are involved with social services, i've neglected my kids, put them in danger, made really bad choices". It's ALWAYS that social services are evil, have a vendetta, have a target to remove children.

Parents who are repeatedly neglecting their kids, or moving in dangerous partners or whatever are not going to admit that online. Being generous, they are lying to themselves too.

I'm a teacher and can tell you that the bar for involvement is set very high indeed. We have reported many issues and been surprised that they did not reach the threshold for support. The people posting in your fb group are lying.

There is currently SS involvement in the extended family.
There may be abuse by the dad and stepmum. Mum is definitely struggling. Child definitely needs help.

The mum (and grandmother...the SW seems to be relying alot on the grandmother) are struggling with the input because there is a lack of clear communication and constantly changing goal posts. Part of this will be lack of resources (long waits between meetings for example). But mostly... they are confused. They don't know what is happening week to week. They are reasona ly educated people (mum was a nurse before having kids, just a bit unfeasible currently with two U5s as a single parent).

SS is a mysterious organisation to most people, even those with involvement.

On a different note, I am having real difficulty with trying to get my elderly parents to engage with social services over care needs assessments for dementia as they were brought up that social services are to be feared and mistrusted.

Minor point.....its not the RCN nurses are accountable too, its the NMC (Nursing & Midwifery Council). The RCN are a trade union.

@DONTMESSWITHMEDARNA
I believe every word you say. Oh hang on, I don't.

If social services got involved with every parent who had a messy house then half the country would be allocated a social worker. Its not just messy- its likely to be neglect in the ways PP have described. Of course SS get it wrong sometimes but they dont get involved for not being tidy FGS. People are in denial about how bad their situations are hence the excuses like this, especially if those parents were neglected or abused themselves as kids- its probably harder for them to see it objectively.

But that will only be the case when there is very good evidence that awful things have happened to other children.

I've been in one house where social services were involved but the cleanliness was considered acceptable.

You definitely wouldn't want to take your shoes off in there, and I haven't hoovered my house for a week so I'm not exactly obsessive about cleaning.

From another point of view, my children were on a care plan. They went into temporary foster care when they were tiny and I was a newly single mum entirely alone in the world and crippled by PND.

I was heavily depressed, my home was a bomb site, I wasn’t coping with two under two and I didn’t understand at the time what the problem was. I thought it was the mess but it wasn’t, it was my mental health and the fact that I wasn’t coping but in the state I was in I couldn’t comprehend that.

I was lucky in that I got the help and support I needed, my home was cleaned up and my children came back in under a month. But it took me being on antidepressants for a year and a lot of support from SS to understand the way I had been living and feeling when they first got involved wasn’t normal and wasn’t ok for children to be around.

It might be that some are in denial but it’s not easy to comprehend the situation clearly when you’ve reached that point. It’s not a case of simply tidying up when you’re so mentally lost you’re not even sure if you ate a meal that day or if it was some point earlier in the week.

If there wasn’t so much judgement and stigma and people going “they’re liars, they’re delusional, they know exactly what the problem is and they should just sort themselves out and be a good mother!” then it would be so much easier for people to get the help and support they need before crisis point is reached.

Did she, though?

10000% agree.

I am well aware that social workers aren't always perfect, but it always irritates me when the more excitable papers run one of their "social workers take babies to meet adoption targets" campaigns with lots of sad face pictures of parents who claim their children have been taken away for no reason. They know full well that the social workers, doctors, lawyers etc involved cannot defend themselves because they can't give confidential information. If any of those cases were genuine they would be happy to disclose the evidence that was used against them, but strangely they never do.

I'm a social worker, although with Adults, not Children. I now work in Older People's Services but did spend a few years working with substance mususers.

Of course there are some social workers who are crap at their Jobs BUT child protection decisions are multi-agency. That means GPs, education, health visitors etc as well as social workers making a collective decision. If a social worker was lying, then that should be picked up by other professionals.

Some of the people I worked with had children removed because their lifestyles were so dysfunctional that the children couldn't be kept safe. There was often months of support and intervention before that point, but sadly some parents are unable to utilise that and make the required changes.

I think the post by @DONTMESSWITHMEDARNA needs to be read with a large pinch of salt. As others have said, some of the things she states cannot possibly have happened.

Very few people on FB groups for people with CP involvement will be admitting that their parenting is putting their children in danger. We're not talking about a bit of shit parenting, which I'm sure we're all capable of at times, but sustained abuse whether that's physical, emotional, sexual, neglect etc. The parents narrative will be "mean/evil social workers lied and stole my children".

If you think about it, why would social workers lie to make things seem worse? The amount of paperwork, time invested, resources etc is MUCH higher. If social workers are going to lie or falsify records, it's much more likely they would do it the other way round eg claim to have done a home visit when they haven't, or minimise the situation in order to keep the workload lower.

I can't comment on individual ones because I obviously haven't seen them and I'm sure social workers do make mistakes too.

However in my experience people who have been parented poorly often normalise that experience and repeat the same patterns of their childhood. It's incredibly hard to break out of these patterns. People also pick up on the most innocuous from a list of reasons to make SS involvement seem unnecessary - for example the house is unclean to the point of being unsafe (mould in bottles, medicines/sharp objects in easy reach), children don't have facilities to keep them selves clean (no toothbrush or toilet roll), discipline methods are unnecessarily harsh (locking in a dark room) and unable to get kids to school often enough (60% attendance) - to compound this dad is in the army so unable to provide day to day support with these issues.

What the parent hears is well this is because X is in the army, what can I do about that?

It's an incredibly complex issue, often complicated further by poverty and mental health issues. I wouldn't be a social worker for all of the money in the world; it's a very difficult job to get right and their caseloads are increasing by the week.

I expect many of them believe what they're saying, either through ignorance, misunderstanding or lack of intelligence.

Oh and to echo @NotLikeTheOther people who have had really shit upbringings often have no idea of what a normal childhood should look like so they can only strive to be 'not as bad' as the parent they had. It's how these things repeat across generations. It's very sad.

Well done for fighting this, I agree there are innocents targeted, but the vast majority of SWs get it right - that balance between receiving a spurious complaint and finding parenting and environments that are harming children.

@TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl well I have experience on both sides, I used to be a social worker for a local authority, and I was involved recently with a social worker due to looking after friends children.
I can say that some social workers have power complexes, are Keenan to take children from their parents & some will do everything they can to keep the family together. I remember some very questionable cases that I thought just weren't right, if you question it, you are simply ignored or taken'off of the case.

I took had an awful experience a few years later (we were looking after a relatives child) with some social worker who crashed into our lives, left a big mess & quite honestly did more damage than good. Before this experience I would have been far more balanced but now I can believe that the social services are both a mess & a nightmare to get involved with.

They gaslit us, lied in reports, just staying on this side of the law. We had no right to complain, we tried for the sake of the family & children but they were like cowboys just doing what they wanted. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I really think their input was damaging for the whole family involved.

My friend is a lawyer who works with people who are trying to get support, like an advocate. My god the stories!! You just don't realise this sort of thing goes on until you experience it yourself

I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention in my post. It was to highlight the clear lies that were told about procedure which casts doubt on the whole story told earlier.

It's obviously far more complex than can be discussed here and your post is really insightful.

Thank you for sharing so honestly and bravely.

I had social services in and out of my life growing up, from small baby to about 15. I lived in one of those dirty, disgusting homes, and I wasn't taken. Clearly it wasn't bad enough! I was also physically and emotionally abused . SS really don't just take children!

There are bad apples in SW just like every other profession.

There are people who should have SW who don't and people who shouldn't who do.

Assessments are very subjective.

Advice I'd give to anyone involved is smile, nod, agree to everything they say and wait it out til they go.

@DONTMESSWITHMEDARNA do you honestly think anyone is going to believe what you've written?

I too am most interested to hear where it is that social workers receive their 'gaslighting training' 😂😂

What's most disturbing about your post is how poorly it is written. Please tell me you aren't the person responsible for teaching your children literacy skills at home? 😳

People imagine parents who've had their children taken off them, hate their kids and torture them in awful ways - like little Arthur and Baby P.

These are exceptional cases though. The truth though is I've seen many, many children moved into foster care over the course of my career and not one of those children were unloved. The parents love those kids as much as you or I love our kids but for a variety of reasons (poor mental health, learning difficulties, past trauma, past abuse and many other reasons) were unable to care for their children in a safe and appropriate way.

It's also worth noting that a lot of the time children are removed from the home because of an abusive partner and mum is told she can keep the kids as long as partner is not allowed near them/in the home. SS sometimes fail to understand the sheer fear these women have of abusive men. They feel that by doing what the men say, they are to some extent controlling the situation and keeping the children safe. What other people see is mum loves X more than her own kids. She's let him back in the home even though she was told not to. Like I've said it's very complex.

There’s always more to it.

I have a fb “friend” who lost custody of her children to the point where one was removed straight at birth.

She always posts about how SS are out to get her. That they only removed the children because of her abusive ex. She got lots of sympathy. How evil SS are.

I can’t quite remember the full story but it wasn’t just the ex that was the problem.

Doesn’t change the narrative for her though

My brother fosters. One of the children in his care is the child of a woman who is related to a friend of mine. The mother constantly posts on social media about how her child was taken from her because of he social workers have a vendetta against her because of her nationality.

When the child was taken into care, they had to be hospitalised to a severe flea infestation, and they were later diagnosed with foetal alcohol syndrome and have a huge amount of physical, psychological, and learning disabilities as a result.

These people aren’t in denial- they know they’re shit parents but won’t admit it. They love the drama of crying on social media about how dedicated they are to their children when the reality is often very different.

I think we romanticise parents when it comes to the care system. Films and tv shows often show someone down in their luck who lost their children through a series of unfortunate events and live for their two hour visitation every week.

The reality that I’ve seen from my brother and SIL and all the children they’ve fostered over the past 15 years is that a huge amount of parents just don’t turn up to visitation.