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?

Can I ask the SWs here if they feel that body cams would be a useful tool in helping them do their work, by reducing margins of error or inaccuracies caused by false perceptions on both sides?

It could also be argued it might lessen the admin load, as a recorded meeting could be transcribed alongside any subjective analysis required.

If you don't like the idea, could you explain why not?

This was my experience in the pandemic, especially when it came to neglectful parents. They simply didn't/couldn't accept that their parenting was poor enough to justify their kids being better off in school.

I agree with this.
And I have come across people whose idea of a messy house is a total health hazard. I have been in a place for example where the woman said she had tidied up for me coming. She still had to clear a space on the sofa for me to sit down and the kitchen looked filthy. Some people have no idea of what is normal.

Through my hobby I knew someone who complained social services were trying to take her children because their bedding wasn't clean she omitted to mention that social services had supplied beds that she had sold to buy booze and fags. That there was days old dog shit in every room that her toddler and just crawling baby were playing in. That all her children had foetal alcohol syndrome. That she used to disappear for days on a bender leaving all 6 children in the care of a 14yo with severe learning difficulties caused by foetal alcohol syndrome. That she used to get the 14yo to drive to the pub to pick her and the latest boyfriend up leaving the 5 kids in the care of a 12 yo with severe learning difficulties. And that's just the stuff I knew about. God knows what else went on.
She disappeared suddenly. It was her habit to move to a different county as soon as care looked imminent. She'd been in our county 9 months.

@bluelollipop99 in our authority, midwives will offer enhanced support to pregnant care leavers and will offer a referral to our early help service, recognising that many care leavers are vulnerable due to lack of support.

If our safeguarding hub receives a referral where the only 'concern' is that the mum to be was a care leaver we give advice but we don't necessarily take the referral.

It used to be policy that any mum to be who was a care leaver was automatically referred for an assessment, and even expected to be part of a pre birth child protection conference, but we changed our policy as it was discriminatory. We have to look at the whole picture and not assume risk.

To the poster who asked if any SWs would be comfortable with body cams, I wouldn't. Many of the families and especially children I go and see would be put off if I took out a notebook. They wouldn't speak to me at all if it was being filmed. I also don't think there would be any practical way of storing and reviewing video given the volume of data it would produce, and I f don't think the narrow focus of a bodycam would give a clear picture to a reviewer - a lot of things we see are subtle.
Lastly, if we wore bodycams I would imagine a lot of families would want to film us - only fair, right? You film me I'll film you... It's bad enough when people find our pictures online and put them on anti social work sites, the last thing Id want is recordings of me on social media. A good friend of mine had to move areas because of a campaign of abuse by one parent who repeatedly posted online that he was a peadophile.

I once worked with a client who maintained her child had been taken into care because her house was messy.

It wasn't the mess that bothered them as much as the fact that the mess included used syringes.

My mum was a children and families' social worker and we had to go ex-directory (this was in the 80s/90s) due to a client who tried to wage a war against her and used to phone up shouting terrible abuse at whoever answered the phone in our house.

Ugh.

When I was growing up my dad worked briefly for a couple (the grandson of a very famous/aristocratic man and his gf) who allowed their very young kids to chew on used condoms and eat frozen fishfingers (because no other food was available) while the parents were in a smack induced coma.

My dad reported them. Kids were taken off the mum. They had split up at this point and the man decided (and freely told everyone) to never see two of his two kids ever again because they were 'too dark'. The youngest two were 'passing white' so he happily continued to look after them.

Some parents are horrendous yet seem to have no recognition of it.

@Bamboux that's awful. Though I would stress that in my case my biggest fear would be parents using it to justify filming us, but giving away theirs & their children's confidentiality by sharing it. Eg I'm aware of parents livestreaming on Facebook when social workers have gone to remove children after court. Absolutely horrendous. I can sympathise with the parents and that perhaps they're using what means they feel are open to them, but it's so damaging to the children.

That and getting into tit for tat debates about what filming 'proves'. If it's a serious neglect case then filming would be useful, but in those the police would take photos or videos, eg a scenes of crime officer - I've had them attend when we've had some very very serious situations, eg where children had to be moved to a place of safety.

What an absolute load of tosh.

The judge goes off what they are told by the SW though. The judge does not personally go to the house, meet the children etc. And judges are well off, middle class, well educated, with all the usual prejudice against badly educated, young, female, possibly ethnic minority etc parents.

A judge is a lot more likely to believe a well spoken social worker who is after all a trusted professional, than someone who can barely speak English properly. It's easy to see how miscarriages of justice can happen.

Most social workers have better things to do than get involved in a slightly messy cluttered house.

But of course, parents who are not tidying it up are saying that the social workers are being picky. I had a colleague who I told not to go round to a house many more because of the trip hazards etc meanign she was not safe. Yet a social worker wanted to put a child in that house to 'keep them with a family member' 🙄

Well if body cams aren't the answer, we'll be forever stuck with a system compromised by endless he said / she said conflicts.

Parents are already legally bound not to disclose details of family court cases on pain of penalty, which could be extended to filming and recording. Obviously SWs should be protected doing their jobs, but if it works for the police, I can't really understand why SWs are that different.

If a case doesn't meet the threshold for police involvement then there won't be recorded evidence of the scene as it were.

The argument that parents would be less likely to engage if being recorded is a strange one to me. I'd rather have an exchange recorded than read a report down the line that bore little resemblance to my recollection of events, and was tipped in the favour of SW good, parent bad.

The assumption that parents are simultaneously too thick to understand things and also clever enough to be devious and manipulative is rather strange.

Some of these objections smack of stonewalling potential progress in ironing out the common complaints that crop up over and over again in CP. No system can be perfect, but it is in the best interests of the child for their futures to be decided on accurately reported information.

If you have to be recorded by most major corporations dealing with financial matters for example, due to FSA regulations, surely something as precious and important as a child future is deserving of the same scrutiny and investment?

Not a social worker but an allied professional and I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing a cam.

Not because I've got anything to hide but because I think it would be really damaging to the relationship between service user and worker. It's another barrier.

As others have said, most would clam up and wouldn't speak to professionals. A child would find it intimidating, overly official and intrusive.

How do we protect that footage, how do we store it?

I also agree that service users would then want to film workers and there are security risks with this.
These Facebook groups often post pictures and personal details of professionals. They're removed of course but the damage is often already done.

Social workers are at risk at times and are often threatened, followed, addresses shared etc.

I don't think a body cam would necessarily make them safer either because often the risk is in the moment and not a planned thing.

Its never the full story, only their version of events, looking for sympathy and support usually I'm afraid.

I'm a member of an Army Parenting Facebook group and some of the posts in there make me roll my eyes. If you take it at face value, every single person has been screwed over by the system, the Army is to blame, they have done nothing wrong etc.

While the Army is far from perfect, in 30+ years I have seen a handful of cases where people have been genuinely screwed over, but I have seen people who have caused all their own problems claim they are being screwed over pretty much at least once a week.

Take what you read in that group with a heavy pinch of salt, its probably 80% fiction.

I agree. Don’t really have a problem wearing a bod cam, per se, as I genuinely have nothing to hide and don’t really mind being recorded as quite a few parents do when you visit (although they only let that slip later)

I can imagine it would cause some issues though as mentioned above. Women who disclose abuse from partners would be less likely if they thought there would be video evidence of it - they often make an impulsive decision through fear to share and this may cause them to hold back. I appreciate accountability, but the police and banks don’t have the same emotional conversations with people that social workers do, sometimes for hours.

In my experience, I’ve had very few disagreement with families about what they have said to me. It’s more they disagree with what I interpret that to mean. I.e., they accept they have bought drugs, but do not accept they have chosen to spend their money on heroin, which meant that they were unable to feed their child, therefore they were prioritising their needs over their
child’s.

There are other less risky ways of protecting parents as well. Eg when I've had anxious parents I've offered at the end to write a summary of what we've discussed, signed it and given it to them. I've never had any issues from doing so.

There are already penalties for parents sharing confidential information but it is too late. I know of a video that was livestreamed that had 30,000 views. Many of those would have known the family - shared in local Facebook groups. It was awful, and that record is out there. It can't be undone.

Re court, in my experience many judges are anti social worker, not anti parent... But the majority of the time, it is the parents counsel (middle/upper class barrister or solicitor) who prepares and presents the information to the judge. The only time the parent speaks is if on the stand. The judge also hears from the guardian and their solicitor who are independent and there to independently serve the best interests of the children. Those systems are in place to reduce the likelihood of a judge 'siding' with a social worker.

There is also a pilot in place for information from family court hearings to be shared. Not sure if it's started yet.

I think many people of average or above average intelligence will fail to recognise that there will be a similar number of people who are below average intelligence. That group of people will by definition have more limited ability to express themselves, identify risks, plan ahead, analyse situations in the past, present and future and generally have far more trouble in creating safe, nurturing environments for children.

That is not to say that many can’t do so but a lot will struggle. That isn’t spiteful or unkind as an observation, it’s true. Have a look at the figures below ( quick Google search) and it’s obvious. Not actually learning disabled necessarily but borderline.

In my professional experience some of this group can be quite skilled at verbally masking this because there is shame attached to not understanding things others grasp more easily. So someone might post quite convincingly about how wronged they have been but have failed to grasp the relevance of the concerns or how they could be addressed.

A Breakdown of IQ Scores
1 to 24: Profound mental disability.
25 to 39: Severe mental disability.
40 to 54: Moderate mental disability.
55 to 69: Mild mental disability.
70 to 84: Borderline mental disability.
85 to 114: Average intelligence.
115 to 129: Above average or bright.
130 to 144: Moderately gifted.

IQ scores aren't a good indication of intelligence, at least in relation to parenting. They're culturally biased and fail to recognise different types of intelligence - emotional intelligence for example.

It is the responsibility of social workers to work at a level that the parent understands. There are many parents with learning disabilities who make excellent parents, if given the right support. PAMS assessments (parenting assessments for parents with learning disabilities) are used for a reason!

I'm a DSL in a secondary school so I liaise with social workers constantly. I think most people have no idea how unsafe a situation has to be, and how many chances parents are given to turn things around, before a child is even placed on a Child Protection plan, let alone removed. The threshold for removal is extremely high and a huge amount of evidence is needed. It is simply not true that a single Social Worker can decide to take someone's child away on a whim or because they have some sort of personal grudge.

IME families have usually been referred to Children's Services many times by different agencies, numerous assessments completed, and months or even years spent trying to work with them voluntarily at Early Help or Child in Need level before it gets to the point where the parents can be compelled to engage. Even when multiple professionals from Children's Services, Education, Health and the Police all agree that the threshold for Section 47 is met (as the children have suffered significant harm and there is immediate risk of further harm) this is still no guarantee that the case will proceed to a Child Protection plan. Even then, parents are still frequently given the opportunity to engage at Child in Need level, which is entirely voluntary.

We have children in school who have disclosed sexual abuse, physical assault or witnessing high level domestic violence at home, children who are carrying knives, dealing drugs and whose parents use drugs in their presence, children who are out roaming the streets at 2am at 11 or 12 years old...none of them on a Child Protection plan, or even a Child in Need plan despite all concerns being reported. So you can imagine how desperate things are for the kids who do end up with ongoing involvement from Children's services. The idea that social workers swoop in place kids on CP plans or even take them away because their houses are messy is just daft.

@MistressoftheDarkSide ultimately re wearing bodycams - I don't think having footage would change the 'he said she said' debates.
Eg you might get audio but how good quality? How do you manage with multiple people in the room? What about what happens off camera? What about the things cameras don't pick up - the smell of alcohol, the sound of someone running out the back door, the nuanced body language of a scared child?

Bodycams only work in close up situations like undertaking an arrest, and even then they are limited.

Ultimately if I thought they would benefit families I'd support them, but as others have mentioned above they'd be damaging without being likely to produce much benefit, if any.

A genuine question for the social workers posting in this thread.

What safeguards are in place to prevent personal vendettas by social workers? If a social worker were to lie about the home conditions that exist or events they've witnessed, how would that be uncovered/corrected? I doubt the system believes parental claims of "He/she's lying. That never happened."

@DONTMESSWITHMEDARNA made various accusations regarding threats made by the social worker and a personal vendetta conducted by the social worker.

I think it is easy to dismiss outcomes as 'not possible due to 'multi-agency input', but that wouldn't be relevant to being threatened by a rogue worker. If you were being threatened by a case worker with the loss of your kids, that would be a very scary situation if you didn't know the laws/system.

Thinking about things, I'm now concerned about the potential for sexual exploitation of vulnerable mothers by people in a position of power - 'Perhaps we can make this all go away... How much do you love your kids?'

My experience was with adult social services, when my first DH was terminally ill.

He had a social worker who accused me of having him put in a home because I was unable to deal with him and my two toddlers.

Note: of course I couldn't. He was seriously ill with a brain tumour, was having delusions, suffered from mania, etc. His doctors made the decision and he was assessed and put under a deprivation of liberty order. Social worker suggested this was incorrect and the order needed to be lifted because he managed to hold a short conversation with her. The psychiatrist did the review the following week and kept the order in place.

This social worker was arrogant, made assumptions, presumed she knew better than medical staff, and made my life difficult at a time when it was difficult enough.

She insisted that she would have to call child social services as he would definitely be allowed home as he shouldn't be in the care home... and yet he was a risk to the children so we needed child SS, apparently. I refused this and said let's wait until the psychiatrist reassesses, which she grudgingly accepted. Note, she had never seen my children nor visited my home, and this was the first (and only) time I had met her.

The staff from his care home were in the meeting and afterwards told me how shocked they were at how aggressive she had been.

Sadly, this type of social worker does exist. I wish I was making this up. I'm really not sure why she did this - possibly something to do with funding? As he had a funded place in a particular home that met his particular needs.

Truly horrible.

So while I appreciate a lot of people are probably in denial, there are likely to be others who for whatever spurious reason end up dealing with one like this.

@ThisGirlNever there are a few things:

Initial visits are conducted by two workers

Child in need/child protection meetings have multiple agencies in attendance who would give their view

Supervisor (manager) would be asking probing questions in supervision

Parent would be encouraged to make a complaint, these are investigated usually by a senior manager but not part of the line management

For CP there is a conference chair the parent could speak to also

I can only speak for where I work, but if any of these sort of concerns were raised by a parent id expect a team manager to unpick the discrepancy in the accounts, the social worker to be grilled on what evidence they saw/heard to take that view, other agencies and family members would be asked their view, and although a change of social worker isn't guaranteed, another worker would go out so there was another perspective also.

We provide all the details about routes for complaints/feedback from informal to formal on the first visit. We also encourage parents where possible to have their own support eg in meetings, eg whether it's another family member, friend, or a professional eg an IDVA. Unfortunately the only official advocacy service is limited to parents with diagnosed learning disabilities. But we do try and be transparent while balancing parents/childs right to privacy.