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 agree that social workers sometimes do whatever they can so the local authority does not have to pay for adult care. They are under a lot of pressure to get family to look after people.

In my authority all visits are lone visits (unless there’s high risk towards SW). However, if a parent made a complaint and were persistent with it, and also that were a lack of evidence from others areas to support what the SW was saying - for example school, health professionals, etc did not see the same things as the SW reported, it’s likely the SW would eventually be changed, as the professional relationship had broken down. This doesn’t happen very often, but would if a parent was consistently making the same complaints.

Also, as has been mentioned before, managers are involved in decision making and they would investigate complaints and it’s highly likely joint visits would then be made to protect both the SW and the parent.

An interesting article about people who focus on one small thing and ignore the other issues on issendai.com - it’s called ‘the fallacy of proximal cigarette-bumming’. It’s in the context of family estrangement but the example given seems to be a classic demonstration of what some people have mentioned on this thread.

issendai.com/wp/estrangement/the-fallacy-of-proximal-cigarette-bumming/

@Sapphire387 the points you raise were unfortunately in line with why I decided at the last minute to go into children's social care rather than adults.

While there are some excellent and empathic adult social workers, the entire system - the law and statutory guidance - is based around the idea that adult social care should only step in if family don't exist, and if there is any family they should do the care not the state. That services should only be provided if the worker exhausts all avenues. That responsibility for care lies with the family.

It is really old fashioned and really dates from the era that all adults were cared for within the family (typically by women, who wouldnt be in employment) unless they were deemed suitable for institutional care.

I know many SWs who left adults because the whole system is designed for them to try and find reasons to say no instead of finding ways to help. And that's before we get into the mess that is the funding pressure (and the scarcity of suitable resources/services even if the funding is agreed)

It is totally different to the philosophy the NHS is built on which is 'if there is a clinical need and evidenced treatment, treat'.

I agree adult social care is built on the assumption the family do the caring. This has changed slightly from the past and slightly softened. I remember being present at an assessment of a friend who was badly disabled over 40 years ago. The worker asked her who did her shopping, got her food, did basic housework, etc. And because various people were doing it, they would not fund visiting carers.

Social workers do sometimes mess up and unfairly discriminate against and/ or fail to support families that could stay together to stay together. That doesn't mean that every person in groups like that have been treated unfairly, but some will have been. It's a difficult balance between wanting to trust people who are genuine victims of social work malpractice and/ or discrimination and not trust people who are being dishonest about their experience (and blinkered as regards their own part). There is certainly a lot of victim blaming and parent blaming in this area, and social workers have a lot of power over others which can appeal to a certain kind of person who wants to abuse that power. There is also a desperate skills gap when it comes to managing families who are neurodivergent or who have both invisible and visible disabilities, as well as mental health conditions.

@Brieandme
Posters need to be careful re generalisations. What might be best practice doesn't always result in actual.

In my own, nor the 4 I've subsequently helped with, none had 2 sw'ers sent initially. All thus had claims of basically misrepresentation/bullying by sw'ers. All 5 complained officially and got nowhere.

Just because it's best practice in your office doesn't mean it happens everywhere.

A thought provoking research report from Cerebra in respect of SEND families Institutionalising Parent Carer Blame

As PP says, it's complicated.

Sorry it won't let me put an enter in at the end but this was really great and nuanced. I'm struggling to type on mobile so will come back later on desktop.

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.

This is a very similar situation to the one we faced with adult social services. Needs of children involved and other family members were ignored they just wanted to send a family member home regardless of safety and what was better for the person. The lies and scare tactics used were horrendous. They didn’t care about anything other than getting them out of the care home.

I always thought SS had child's best interests at heart. Sadly I've seen a few mother's with mild learning disabilities not being given reasonable adjustments , not being given placement in m&b unit. They sometimes seem to be biased ,
www.learningdisabilitytoday.co.uk/children-of-parents-with-a-learning-disability-54-times-more-likely-to-be-taken-into-care

If you are home educating your children with this kind of language and dreadful spelling, why are you surprised that social services are watching you like a hawk?

@BooksAndHooks I am sorry this was your experience too. People deserve better than this.

@Brieandme Thank you for your message, I found that very illuminating in terms of hearing what adult social services can be like 'from the inside'. Awful, really.

Whilst the idea that Social Workers will be marking for spelling mistakes raised a smile, sneering at women who have had difficult life experiences is unkind and speaks volumes.

It’s a difficult, nuanced, complicated and emotionally draining job.

I worked as a Child Protection Social Worker for 10 years and then had my children and never went back. Looking back when I started I was very young, naive and did not have children. I did not fully comprehend the pressures the families I worked with were under. I also was probably too gullible when someone told me they wanted to change.

I always tried to treat people with honesty and respect but it’s not easy to sit across from someone who’s knowingly choosing a sexually abusive partner over her own children. I continually took advantage of education and training and in time my practice improved.

Later I found the contrast between what the conditions the children I worked with and my own children heart breaking. I went into Social Work because I care about people and justice and like working with children. However the system is so broken you can’t predict if the intervention will improve things. I have a much less stressful role now but still miss working with families.

Like all professions they are excellent, average and crap Social Workers. That’s life.

"The stories" can very often be exactly that. Stories. Other versions of events may be available.

To be honest, I think this applies to children too, in some cases.

I have literally been there with a teenager who's mum had refused to have him home, couldn't go to his dad's for very valid reasons, didn't have anywhere to stay, and school staff couldn't get a social worker to help - they wanted us/him to find a family member or friend to stay with and the school to try to help him resolve the situation with mum.
I will admit I was pretty shocked by that.

Not saying there isn't bias but isn't part of the problem that there is a lack of funding for mother and baby units (and therefore a lack of places).

I've heard that if, for example, there's only one space available and say, 3 possible candidates for the space, they will prioritize whoever they think is most likely to benefit and be able to parent independently later on. Which doesn't mean that the other person couldn't succeed and become a successful parent.

But I can see how it would lead to parents with learning disabilities not being prioritised for spaces.

I think the answer in a lot of cases is more funding.

That is my story, I'm glad I left that job.
It might not be comfortable to believe that this sort of thing happens but they sure as hell do

They always say funding is the issue but so much money is wasted in these environments. They've been saying for years it's about funding. It's also about preventative care, skillset & retaining good staff. Low morale is often rampant in these jobs certainly was when I was a social worker & worked for the local authority

Actually, a question to @Brieandme and to the other social workers on here who would refuse to be recorded when interviewing parents ?

You accept the police cannot even interview a suspect r.e shoplifting ( when the penalty would likely be a caution or some other low level punishment), without being recorded ?

Yet social workers can conduct parenting assessments, interview extremely vulnerable people , ( parents who may have learning disabilities, mental illness, be under 18 etc) , to decide whether to take them court to seek the permanent removal of their children / unborn children, ( a lot more serious than any of the outcomes likely for your low level shoplifter above ) , and it is considered outrageous for the social worker to be expected to record what is said in these interviews to prevent circular he said/ she said arguments at court ?

Why is this considered okay ?

Why do you assume the parents being visited would consent to being recorded? Social workers often visit alone, not in pairs like the police, and if someone becomes aggressive because they’re being recorded it puts social workers, mainly women, at risk.

But on the other hand @LilLilLi , many parents ask for interviews to be recorded because the soical worker has previously been untruthful. Of course parents should have the right to decline filming on their property, but is it right that SS refuse even the option of recording interviews etc if that's what they'd like ? How does it inspire trust if SS insist they have the right to interview parents, but unlike a police interview, patents have no right to even request a recorded copy ?

It's not that straightforward @bluelollipop99 though. Police are trained and equipped to manage violence. Social Workers are not. Cameras often up the ante and can make things ten times worse rather than improve them.

I do agree though that audio recording of these kinds of discussions is important, but again that's not straightforward - the availability of electronic equipment, inability to use power sources at the homes of many clients (cost, safety), how not changes the way the conversation runs and leading to it being much more stilted and parents being less forthcoming, making it into a formulated interview where it's just chit-chat. It affects all levels of the intervention from the low level support through to children being removed. Add in storage and retention of all that data and equipment.

I agree with the principle but I'm not sure the practicalities are that straightforward.