Working class women and DV = kids removed. Celebrities and people with money - no involvement

[Redfoxs]

I've known of multiple women to lose their children to adoption after failing to stay away from an abusive partner. It happens up and down the country all of the time. We all know that.

So why is it when somebody with money is involved, the services don't seem to care?

Case in point.

Dappy from Ndubz. He has a long history of abusing partners going way back to the mother of his eldest children. Multiple arrests, her posting images of her injuries online.

Fast forward to 2017 he's put in prison for attacking a more recent partner. The mother of his youngest children. In the home they share with their then baby daughter. A knife is involved and he needs to be restrainted by 4 members of the public before threatening to stab the police.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4499994/amp/Dappy-remanded-custody-attacked-partner.html

The girlfriend was all over social media calling him a narcissistic psychopath, drug abuser, violent, a danger..

As soon as Ndubz make a comeback she's moved him back in with her and the kids, is accompanying him on the tours, having spats with another woman who he was seeing in the interim and singing his praises as though he's the best thing since sliced bread.

Who is safeguarding those children then?

If this all happened before the fame then those children would have likely been removed long before the incident for which he was imprisoned.

Social services don't always get it right. There have been times I've completely disagreed with them, I am most definitely not advocating for mass forced adoption but come on.. what's with the disparity?

Risk is risk, isn't it?

Does having money in the bank make it less likely that children will suffer emotional (at the very least) harm?

Why is it OK for people with money to abuse drugs and behave in a domestically violent way and their lives go on uninterrupted but your run of the mill working class couple down the road get hauled into court and their children removed.

AIBU?

According to DWP there is an in between. Having a partner means someone you share bills and a house with. A Google search brings up the criteria. When you apply for benefits it asks you about your partner, not someone you are dating. It's perfectly allowable to date slowly whilst you are on benefits (I'm a long term benefits user BTW).

This is absolutely not true.
We are advised to offer safe co-sleeping advice to all families.

Regardless of their wealth or background.

Well, easy sex with the woman and possibly her children?

Seriously it makes your hair grey with how naive women are these days.

As do I and the people here who worked in social services, school safe guarding and other professionals who work closely with children's social services.

Don't forget we've heard from the children of middle class families themselves who were horridly abused growing up and left to suffer, even in cases where social services became involved they were quickly gotten rid of, because they were "nice" families with money.

You can patronise me all you like, I've been around the boards for years and people like you are water off a ducks back, but don't you dare minimise what those people went through or imply that they're lying.

Here's another reference for you if the SW's you've already heard from aren't credible enough. Why don't you bother your arse to have a read?

https://www.socialworktoday.co.uk/News/Class-and-classism%3A-How-it-affects-social-workers-and-the-people-with-which-they-work

Here you are, a snippet from the link if you haven't bothered to read it.

Written by a social worker who can see the bigger and actually gives a toss.

Is he not credible either?

Everybody is wrong and you are right, sure 🙄

I forgot to link the picture

Katie price is a very good example of this.

She is yes.

It was reported that her daughter was with her at the boyfriends house the day of the assault.

How many times has she committed offences under the influence of drugs and alcohol, admitted herself to the priory and done it all again?

Now her ex husband Kieran (who had full custody of the children) has been accused of neglect and or abuse, she appears to have full custody again.

Meanwhile in the real world children don't get passed from pillow to post like that based on which parent is less dangerous at the time.

If both parents fuck up then those children are headed for adoption (if small) or long term foster care (if older).

Well, easy sex with the woman and possibly her children?

Seriously it makes your hair grey with how naive women are these days.

I asked what was in it for the women, not the predatory men.

@MagentaMoon - yes sorry I posted too soon!

OP, I think we're at cross purposes. I read your post and posts by subsequent posters to be focusing on the unfairness towards working class women who have their children taken away when middle class mothers wouldn't, rather than a concern that middle class children were left in DV situations where they wouldn't if they were from poorer families.

I do however disagree that if a family stays together it must mean that SS have not been involved.

Thank you!
@JenniferBooth has done a runner as I see it.
Not that this is the point of the thread anyway... sorry OP... but people choosing to move their men is is just that. A choice. Of course, psychological reasons, cycle of trauma and all that is separate but it's not the benefits system that forces them to do so.

In the case of woman I know who was blatantly being used as somewhere to live, a big part of it was help with the children (dad of kid 1 unknown, dad of kid 2 in prison for DV against her, her family uninterested in supporting her).

He wasn't violent to her, but was a habitual offender and a cheating asshole, and tried to get with her cousin of all people, because she was "more his type". But he was good with the kids, and would stay in with them sometimes so she could go out with friends.

He also boasted that if her violent ex ever came knocking, he'd beat the shit out of him. AFAIK, this was never tested, but if I were home with my two kids and worried that the man who did to me what he did to her would come knocking, having a man at home who had been in a good few fights himself would probably make me feel a lot better tbh.

Just to add, this guy wasn't a predator, just someone looking to leech. But he could have been.

Cock lodgers I believe the term is.

I'm sad to say I fell victim to one of the fuckers when I was in my late teens.

Why did I move him in? Loneliness, not having anybody around, wanting companionship, low self esteem, poor boundaries as I was never taught about self worth or what a normal loving relationship looked like, vulnerability which was exploited.

I imagine the above would go for some of the hypothetical women taking a bashing by proxy for moving men in with them.

I guess if you have money ,you have money for nannies etc
Look.at peaches geldof,she wss a heroin addict and had very small.children
Had she lived in a council.flat and wss using her benefits and prostituting,herself to fund her habit I imagine social.services would very quickly have become involved,but she had money to throw at the problem

That's true, and a problem, but again, nothing to do with the incentives of the benefits system.
Anyway, I digress.
I agree with you, sort of (I mean, I am brown and all these governmenty people always make assumptions and treat my snow white H differently). I'm an immigrant so no idea about class.

But as @x2boys said money can create a buffer.
Of course people have different experiences. And maybe it even depends on the area. But going into care screws kids up and costs the state money. So SW's actually try their best NOT to remove them. Yes, people judge poor (not gonna use class, not quite sure what that's about) people doing the same thing differently from rich people, just as they judge differently based on race.

But sometimes it's a question of... their home life is screwed up but care is worse. So which bad situation should we choose??

Other than that I think like GP provision action taken varies widely depending on the wealth of the council admin region and individual SW. In my old, affluent one I had an actual GP do my pap smear. Where I live now has significantly more deprived areas and while my GP surgery is great at answering questions on the app (from a variety of HCP, including the odd GP) it's so hard to get an actual appointment I highly doubt that they'd waste GP time on preventative medicine.

@EldenRing4 No i have not done a runner I have been doing other things. Unlike some i dont live breathe eat shit and sleep Mumsnet

You and some of here have a HELL of a lot of faith in the benefits system and its attitudes to women.

We have posts on here asking why they would want to move these kinds of men into their home. The whole point is that if they could date for LONGER the red flags would be spotted a lot sooner.

And all it takes is for some nosy neighbour (and there is PLENTY of that sort on here) to tell the DWP that so and so has moved a man in (when he is only staying for one or two nights a week) and that starts an investigation.

But sometimes it's a question of... their home life is screwed up but care is worse. So which bad situation should we choose??

We should choose to fund the care system properly with small children's homes with long-term staff in a nurturing environment like in Denmark, where children in care have comparable outcomes to those who live with their families. Remove children who are abused or neglected, no second chances. There is absolutely no excuse for letting vulnerable and voiceless children down, and it absolutely is a choice that people allow our politicians to make.

In the case of woman I know who was blatantly being used as somewhere to live, a big part of it was help with the children (dad of kid 1 unknown, dad of kid 2 in prison for DV against her, her family uninterested in supporting her).

Sorry, but this is a pathetic excuse.

I think a big piece of the picture here is missing in the posts on this thread.

I agree with PP @Walkingtheplank that when SS don’t remove MC children from their families, that this lets down MC children. I also agree that the way the system is structured means that WC mothers are more likely to have their DC removed.

One of the main reasons for this relates to the fact that if children are well-presented, their parents are interested in them, well-spoken, functioning to the extent that they are in school on time, holding down jobs, take children to health appointments etc etc, it is very hard to actually evidence harm to children which is so significant that the child cannot remain within their family. This isn’t to say it’s not possible, but if a child isn’t coming to the attention of services, and there isn’t a disclosure of abuse - with evidence (a child’s single disclosure of abuse is rarely enough to secure a removal, without significant evidence) - then they will not be noticed by services in the first place. And even if they are noticed it would be difficult to prove in court, which is the standard that is required, that children are so at risk that they need to be removed from their parents’ care. Emotional harm is a very hard thing for social workers to evidence. Even if you can evidence it, MC parents can usually say the right things to allay professional concerns.

Furthermore, the system is on its knees. There are children from such dysfunctional families, who are witnessing DV, who are also dirty, living in filthy homes, never taken to health appointments, appalling behaviour, no boundaries, they are scared, neglected, at risk. The parents are usually highly traumatised by the upbringing they had, where services completely failed them as well. Compared to an MC child who is also experiencing DV (absolutely unacceptable) but who is much more likely to be clean, in a warm, appropriate home, has clothes, goes to appointments, goes to school, has some reasonable parenting… you can see which child there is a) more likely to come to the attention of services, b) more likely to be removed, and, arguably, c) more in need of being removed.

I think the part that is being missed here is that whilst the DV or abuse is unacceptable in any context, there are factors in some families that makes the family situation as a whole safer.

There simply aren’t the resources to remove all the children who might be removed. And, to be honest, the evidence shows that they would be worse off if we did! The whole system is broken, and it is very disheartening to work in it.

That would be ideal but I'm not talking about long-term 'ooh what should we do' but the thinking behind SW decisions now, at this point in time, as to whether or not children should be removed

This is what I was trying to get across - you put it much more eloquently!
The act of removing a child from its parents itself is traumatising... everything has to be evidenced.

You're just repeating what PP have already discussed - your whole problem stems from the premise of 'letting a man stay over'.
You don't have to do that. In fact, if you've been seeing a guy for a short time he shouldn't be in your family home anywhere near your children. Plenty of women with children, NOT on benefits don't have their partner stay over anyway because they put the children first. There are loads of threads over here regarding this.

If a woman has no children then what's stopping her from staying over at the man's? Why does he have to be in her home, ASSUMING your premise of DWP reports blah2 is true?

Having said that I have family on benefits who have had their partners etc over. A couple of them have been reported (long story) but nothing came of it. Again, this may be the same SW/caseworker distinction... it depends on how over-zealous they are. But if you're scared of that then he doesn't have to stay over.

Have a good day...

Of course you shouldnt let men you dont know stay over when you have kids.

That goes without saying

But child free women on low incomes claim benefits too so are subject to the same DWP risk. (although this thread is about those with kids)