Social services in bedrooms

[Ythough]

I have two children from my first marriage who are late teens/adults and one child from a subsequent relationship.

Youngest child’s dad lives at the opposite side of the country and my child spends time there in the school holidays. The ready of the time they live with me.

There has been an issue at dad’s house that may or may not affect my DC, as such social services want to be involved and make an assessment regarding wether or not DC should be having contact at Dad’s.

I have agreed that they can come and speak with DC here, at school, speak with their doctor, whatever they need. To have these meetings I am having to take time of work but it’s important so I am just doing what they ask.

Now on their first visit they explained all the issues, then said, right we need to look around the house and see the children’s bedrooms.

I allowed this but I am wondering why they needed to look around my home considering this investigation has nothing what so ever to do with me other than being DCs mum and more so, why they needed to check my older children’s rooms when they have absolutely nothing to do with youngest DCs dad.

Teen DD was horrified as she is a messy teen, older DC was away at uni so they just went in to look around and came back out.

so AIBU to think this wasn’t at all necessary?

That.

I am not sure why it bothers you? If it is because DD is messy…didn’t she know Ss were coming?in the unknown, she should have cleaned a bit…

If it is because they entered rooms to « check » you…well, that is weird too. Would you not want them to check all is ok everywhere?

If it is because it isn’t a nice feeling to be checked up upon. You have my sympathy but now you know how it is. They did their job.

I completely understand your feelings OP.
My children's Father (we are seperated) was accused by my eldest child of physical abuse. He disclosed it to school, and as the children live with me I had police and social services visit my home. Social services went on to fo a full investigation, it was me that had all of the visits. They didn't even bother to speak face to face to their Dad! Police and social services called him. It felt very unfair, as my parenting was never in question! It turned out the kids Dad had intact done what he was accused of.

It’s not that it bothers me, I just failed to understand what it achieves in the context of their investigation into an incident at the other parents home.

Lots of posters have given useful perspectives that I hadn’t considered.

But the child is already placed there for all, but a few visits to his dad in the school holidays🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

But the are no other 'children' living in the home.

I can fully believe it!

I just had to answer questions about Exs family tree, his medical history, his support network. We have been separated over ten years!

What I would also say is be prepared for the possibility of social services just dropping the case and recommending contact resumes. They appear to go in hard once an aligation is made but the threshold for them to do anything is flipping high! So even when abuse has taken place, if the perpetrator has insight and recognises their wrong doing, this appears to be enough (in some cases)

We can’t win. We look in bedrooms, we’re invasive. We don’t look in bedrooms, we’re neglectful. Regardless of if the safeguarding is about you, how can the social worker write a report if they have no idea what their home life looks life, including their time with you.

There's some kind of rule that SWs have to see the child's bedroom on every visit. I've had SW visits where there's no concern at all about our parenting or care of the child (we were adopting him) and they had previously done a comprehensive home assessment but they still looked at his room every time.

His family tree and medical history?Weird. They shouldn't be asking about your DH either IMO

That's not the point, they checked the bedroom of children unrelated to the case. Why would you do that?

Surely they’re not unrelated to the case if they’re half siblings or live in the same house?

I'm a foster carer and our foster children's SW's often go into child's bedroom. I've got one foster DC who keeps his bedroom immaculate and the other who's room is rarely tidy. The cleaner goes in once a week and spends ages tidying things before she can hoover and dust. Once she's tidied and cleaned I change the sheets and bedding. 2 or 3 days later it's in a terrible mess again. It used to worry me at first and I used to take photos when it was clean and tidy on a Thursday then another photo over the weekend just so I could show we do have it tidy and cleaned each week. SW has told me she is not concerned about an untidy bedroom. She has told me in the past she has inspected bedrooms and found no bed for a child even. Or DC in filthy and stinking bedding. That's the sort of thing they are looking for.

Yeah exactly . I don’t get this and not sure how it’s relevant . It feels really invasive . SS aren’t going to care that a child’s room is messy but still its not nice .

OP this doesn’t make sense to me and I’ve just text my friend who is a social worker - I agree why is the investigation being done at your house if the problem is not at your house. I kinda get your youngest room being checked just for tick boxing but not sure about the eldest kids . You’ve got nothing to hide so I don’t suppose it matters and mostly social services are there to help but I can see why you feel a bit violated .

The reasons have been explained over and again by different posters. They are sound reasons. Of course it feels invasive. But that is the responsibility that Social Care has for children's safety and it would be negligent of them not to do it. All the hand-wringing and saying 'it makes no sense to me' is absolutely pointless. It's about keeping the safety of children who are at risk in clear focus and from all angles.

It's not up to you to decide what is relevant or not

She can refuse them access to the property if she likes, they don't have a right of entry.

Lots of people have given teasons why it happened, lots have given reasons why it should not have happened, nobody knows for certain why it did happen. The only people that know are the social workers the rest of us can guess all we want but I doubt very much checking a step sisters room had any bearing on the problems with someone unrelated to her. I.e., the youngests dad. Questions around candour and accountability remain as part of the code of ethics of social work. Would be interesting to know why they didn't say exactly what they wanted to do and why when in the house and before seeing any rooms. They should have. Social workers sometimes do excellent work, but sometimes it can be done in the wrong way. They don't have a right to do anything they want, it has to be proportionate and justified.

And that wont raise any red flags

If there's nothing wrong, there aren't any red flags. They will already have checked any concerns in school, public health records if necessary and OE markers on the address or history with police involvement. They will have done a lot of work before they get to the front door so should have an inclination around what they're dealing with.

Even though the investigation was regarding what went on at dads house they need to assess everywhere the child stays for any time including yours. They firstly want to make sure they have somewhere safe, a bed to sleep and other things but also whatever they may have been exposed to could have overlapped into your home and your relationship with them. Kids bottle things up they could have potentially looked in your DCs room at your house and found evidence that whatever they were exposed too had been brought through. One example is drugs. A kid may be exposed to these in dad's house not mums but then may have taken something from dad's house to be curious and brought it to mums. Checking illuminates any risk. Graphic or sexual images that they may have been exposed too at dads could have surfaced at mums due to them sharing them themselves not understanding what they're doing etc. Social Worker may see signs of stuff like this in their rooms. There's also cases where dad has been suspected of one thing then it's turned out that actually it's been a sibling at mums house or my themselves. Hence why they check all the rooms. I'm not saying that's this has happened but there's many reasons they check and they'll always check both places It's just standard.

They weren't even children, they were over 18yrs old. They shouldn't be in adults bedrooms in this case.

But one of the bedrooms they inspected was of an ADULT 'child'. SS have no remit over them and shouldn't have been in their bedroom. It doesn't 'feel invasive' it IS bloody invasive.

I totally understand how you feel OP. It doesn't feel like your home should be relevant at all.

However, it is entirely possible that the dad will claim in the future that he provides a good home and that you don't. There may be claims made by him about your treatment of the older children etc...

Social services are making their own assessment which may be of benefit to you in the future should.your child's dad decide to turn nasty and switch things around on you. Even if you think thats v unlikely, it's better to be protected.

It does because they can compare and contrast in their report. Not all children have a bedroom, not all children have a bed.

Children that do have beds and rooms don't always have things like carpet.

Your ex cannot make claims about you and your home when SS have been and assessed.

@ReadingSoManyThreads Adult children sometimes abuse their younger siblings. They may do other things that impact on the younger sibling as someone has mentioned up thread drugs is one, there are others.