AIBU to be angry we were subjected to Social Services Section 47 Investigation?

[Morbihanmum33]

Long post - sorry: My husband and I have 4 children, 14, 11, 7 & 2. No prior involvement with social services whatsoever. No ‘risk factors’ - criminal records / addiction issues / mental health problems / domestic violence / no issues at schools. Both of us have enhanced DBS. Professional jobs.

Our family recently had to endure the considerable distress and intrusion of a Section 47 child protection investigation.

Our 2 year old had light bruising across his thighs. Both my husband and I saw it but did not know how he’d done it. We flagged it when we took him to nursery, he is very active, trying to keep up with his bigger brothers. In the last 6 months at nursery, the nursery has filed 6 accident reports for incidents in their care, so they know what he’s like.

They rang me to tell me they had a statutory duty to report the bruises as they were unexplained and on a part of his body not normally associated with bruising. However, they assured me it was routine and nothing to worry about. They told me they made it clear on the referral that they did not believe we were responsible for the bruising.

The next morning a social worker called me and told me I had to take my son for a medical examination. This had to be done at the hospital - 45 mins away - immediately. I was due at work and had an important meeting so asked if it could be another time. I was told they could take my son into care if I did not go.

My son was given an examination by 2 doctors and I was interviewed at length. While waiting the social worker told me this was a Section 47 and that they would also have to see my other 3 children, and could go into their schools that same day if necessary to interview them! They also told me they had chosen not to involve the police at this stage!

The Drs found no evidence of non accidental injury. This was communicated to me and the SW at the time.

Despite this, the investigation still had to run its course over a number of weeks, with a visit to our home and interviews with the other 3 children, and them speaking to our GP and schools.

We all found the whole process deeply distressing and a total invasion of our privacy. I was fraught with worry the entire time. We were made to feel like criminals, with SS adopting a ‘guilty until proven innocent approach’. I’ve been left traumatised by the whole experience.

Having read up on this I understand that bruising in a non mobile infant under 6 months is always a major cause for concern, and some local authorities authorise automatic Section 47’s for referrals like this. However, government guidance is that (even with a non mobile infant) an initial enquiry or assessment should be made with the family before initiating an investigation.

Secondly, my child is fully mobile and the original referral explicitly said the bruising was not considered suspicious - so I do not understand why this was escalated in this way.

The cases (against all 4 of my children!) have been closed, but I’m so angry we were put through this. I also understand the fact an investigation was carried out will stay on file for a long time. I’m considering pursuing a judicial review on the basis an initial assessment should have been carried out and the lack of medical evidence did not warrant an investigation.

AIBU to feel like this - or should I just let it go?

@Jellyx · Today 00:45
Do people think there's 1 worker to 1 case. Information gathering and setting up appointments ,and writing notes, and waiting on information from other professionals , speaking with your senior all takes time..and when you have over 30 Children on your caseload (with frequent crisis you can't plan for) it's a miracle it only took a couple of weeks.

All that proves is that the system is well and truly broken and that it is a miracle if all or any of those involved can actually recall all of the salient details pertaining to individual cases. Actually, it explains a lot, although not why it took three social workers the best part of a day to minutely interrogate my family members about every detail of their lives and interview their children following an application for the funding of equipment needed by a profoundly disabled parent.

@Themaghag
I'd love for police, social and health services to be better resourced.
But please don't doubt the skill and dedication of those working.
Also- please stop using the word interrogation. It's inaccurate and insulting to the skill and care of workers involved.
It's like calling a surgeon a butcher - Noo- they are highly akilled and trained and care about their patient

A child with a suspicious injury MUST be seen a doctor in a hospital completing a Child Protection Medical, obviously this has to happen the same day - injuries change as times go on, surely this is common sense.

Actually a forensic medical doesn’t need to happen the same day in many cases. Most are arranged to try and cause the least distress to the child which may mean seeing them in a child friendly setting, in daytime hours, with a parent or carer present - which sometimes means a short delay. Only those involving sexual assault/rape need to be carried out immediately because physical evidence can degrade. Our CP paediatrician will happily see a child with bruising with a short (day or so) delay because they can track bruise formation over a period of time. Time sensitive doesn’t mean blue lights flashing.

And the vast majority of referrals involving bruising to a child don’t result in a forensic medical.

I also hate the ‘you’re traumatised - so what get over it, this is for the greater good’ schtick.

Hoe stay if we don’t allow trained social workers to use common sense and personal judgement, we only allow them to tick box, then it can be a job done by AI. What’s the point of training them if things like stepping down, convening a strategy meeting and speaking to children is only done of the basis of tick boxing rather than an individual professional judgment?

@Jellycatspyjamas
Good practice is same day medical. Thankfully they could offer it in this instance - rather than delay and extend things further.

Gosh people complaining it's same day alongside complaining it all wasn't done soon enough.. same old damned if you do..

i am a CP worker, albeit not in the UK. I think this is the point that the OP is getting at. She is unsure WHY the strat meeting progressed to a medical… purely on the basis (from her perspective) of unexplained bruising on upper thighs of an otherwise healthy and apparently well cared for (according to the OP) 2 year old. Now it may be due to the stress of the situation that this was explained, but the OP couldn’t recall, although OP seems to suggest that it wasn’t. In our practice when asking for a child to attend for a medical, we are REQUIRED to explain why, beyond just that a referral has been made. Verbal understanding then has to be made by the parent and documented. I am with @Jellycatspyjamas it appears that there was a lack of positive engagement and communication with these service users and if that had been improved, her experience with social work services may have improved overall. Just because we are required to investigate thorough (and rightly so) there is no reason why we can’t keep service users fully appraised of what we are doing and why we are doing it throughout. And if we can’t because of resources, that is not the service users issue and will continue to cause this bad feeling towards social work services if we use this as a justification.

Well it's helped the 80,000 children in care in england not live in neglectful and abusive households.

I have never understood the thinking of blaming the SW when things go wrong instead of the person abusing the child. It's probably the only job in the world apart from a football coach where a person is held to that type of accountability by service users and the public.

People cry out about the system being broken but it appears that they want SWs to magically know who to investigate and who to not. If you believe you have this magic power then please train to be a SW and get on to a child protection team ASAP. You're needed!

Gosh people complaining it's same day alongside complaining it all wasn't done soon enough.. same old damned if you do..

No the OP was complaining that she was told her child would be removed if she didn’t attend on the same day. Surely you can understand her distress about that.

@ILJ28

It's clear the parent leant understand the risks associated with unexplained bruising - they've been somewhat covered in the thread.

There may have been a better start to the working relationship and less distress had the nursery not spoken so unprofessionally

Likewise the CP practitioner who had the initial contact. IF it was presented as starkly as ‘take your child to the medical exam today or we can remove your child’ that is not the most appropriate way to develop a therapeutic alliance.

Yes in cases where you're worried about physical abuse of a toddler you don't send them straight home!!

Imagine that happened and the kid was killed or injured further,

Completely sensible thing to do and thank god a medical could be arranged same day.

Please also note it's likely extended family would be considered for caring before foster care.

We also need to remember that the 80,000 children in care are not now happy flourishing children leading happy lives. It isn’t the movies - their life chances and outcomes are not much poorer, as SWs would know. I’m not entirely sure it’s something to celebrate

I wonder was it initially presented like that? Or maybe op claiming she couldn't possibly prioritise her child over her important meeting raised some red flags?

@ILJ28

It's unlikely the social worker phrased it that way but the potential action would be true?

Are you telling me you'd send a toddler, with unexplained bruising on thigh, home to parents without any investigation???

Also please note this decision would have been made by all agencies but just communicated via the social worker.

Better then dead as to be so blunt. Unless it was section 20 than they would have had to be at risk of serious harm and/or death.

And actually it's their parents responsibility to not have abused them or neglected them to end up in foster care in the first place. Not the SW.

But foster care is a different debate to CP processes.

People cry out about the system being broken but it appears that they want SWs to magically know who to investigate and who to not. If you believe you have this magic power then please train to be a SW and get on to a child protection team ASAP. You're needed!

I have no issue with the investigation being undertaken, communication with the parents seems to have been very lacking and I’d wonder what was in the nursery referral to go straight to a CP investigation. I can’t see that a report of bruising in a small, mobile child who is well cared for (as far as the OPs description) with three older children where there have been no concerns, would result in a full multi-agency CP response, so in the OPs shoes I’d want a clear explanation of what the strategy meeting threw up that merited full investigation.

I do take issue with the idea by some that the decision was made and therefore must have been the right one. That social workers don’t misuse their power (perceived or otherwise), that bias never plays a part and that the ends justify the means. Even if everything was right from a process point of view social workers need to hear about the impact on the family and consider not just what they did but how they did it, while CP is inherently stressful, a lot of distress could have been saved through communication and relationship based practice.

And I’ve more than served my time in CP social work so I’ll decline your kind offer, thanks.

@Jellycatspyjamas
So all 3disciplinrs decided to misuse their power - for fun? Whilst being extremely busy.. unlikely to say the least.

*It's unlikely the social worker phrased it that way but the potential action would be true?

Are you telling me you'd send a toddler, with unexplained bruising on thigh, home to parents without any investigation???*

Are you telling me you’d accommodate every toddler with an unexplained bruise? In the absence of any other concern? Good luck getting that past a Sherriff.

Its not an either/or - the reality is we don’t medical every child with a bruise, we don’t accommodate every child who doesn’t attend a same day medical, we don’t start a full CP investigation for every referral made.

We do use professional judgement, we do visit, observe and speak to parents and assess the home to be safe, we do check in with nursery and get their sense of the family, we do return home with safe care plans and continue our investigations in the background.

The choice isn’t full CP investigation or nothing at all, as those defending this practice claiming to be social workers well know.

It’s OK for the OP to want to know why, in her case, the decision was a full investigation.

@Jellycatspyjamas
So all 3disciplinrs decided to misuse their power - for fun? Whilst being extremely busy.. unlikely to say the least.

Where did I say in this case anyone misused their power?

Yes. Lots of toddler bruises are in other places and parents can explain them. Do not all are reported or investigate.
Certain facts were present. And sure parents have a right to know - but I think potential reasons have been shared all over the thread.

The point is no parent should need to get potential reasons from an online forum, from people speculating on what might have happened.

They should know why in their particular situation those decisions were made from the person leading that process, ie their social worker.

I certainly found the ‘computer says no’/jaded attitude of SWs very problematic. When our SW told us she assumed we were lying about everything and I said that’s ridiculous, she replied “But in this job people constantly lie to us”. In other words - we were being punished by the actions of others. All I asked is that she looked at our case - no previous intervention, no concerns whatsoever from nurseries, schools etc and a doctor who says there are no concerns and no NAI - as us as a family, not with the jaded view passed down from other families.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable but me even voicing that was a concern to them.

I have had multiple circular discussions with CP workers of all stripes, and HCPs.

They went like this:

”Why am I being asked to do X?”

”It’s part of the investigation process”

“I understand that, but can you explain the reasoning behind it?”

”It will help us understand what might have lead to your son’s injuries”

Case in point - after I had to do contact at the Family Centre because I got on too well with the foster mother, I had to follow a strict routine, including bathing, bottle preparing, appropriate handling, play etc.

I was told that the bottle preparation was obviously partly because baby needs feeding, but also it was to see how I dealt with the pressure of preparing feed for a hungry screaming baby. Perhaps that was why I’d randomly started torturing my tiny baby very carefully, leaving no bruises….

Thing is I was EBF when he was taken from me. If he was hungry nature took its course.

I could understand that going forward my capability to do these things would be important, but it was absolutely not relevant to the situation prior to his removal.

They made a massive deal of any nervousness around my handling of my son, but who wouldn’t be nervous after being told that despite passing the six week check with flying colours, somehow the child you knew had not been abused had developed 21, or 15, or 12 occult fractures, according to three different reports, only two of which showed a symptom and for which I sought appropriate medical attention. It’s a lot to process.

I could go on and on about the processes and illogical things I experienced. Always there was an implication that I was a very clever devious monster desperate to get one over on the professionals, when actually all I wanted was my baby to be safe and ok and to find out WTF is happening here.

Theres a strong chance that there was a combination of nutritional and genetic factors at play, but because metaphyseal fractures are )or were) considered pathognomic of child abuse, investigation was blocked.

When I first sought attention for one of the symptomatic fractures, the hospital did blood tests. I found out 6 months later that a type of anaemia had been detected. It was sometimes associated with bone fragility. This was because I saw the foster mother dosing him with Vitamin D and multi-vitamins - Abidec I think it was. She had been told it was to help his bones heal. That information was actively withheld from me. The SW shrugged it off as irrelevant.

Thats the sort of thing that needs addressing.