Child protection plan - Devastated

[SENSummer]

Posting for traffic as SEN board is quiet.

We have a high needs AUADHD non verbal DS. Specialist school, learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. Lovely but hard work and disregulates in school holidays. His home carer recently quit due to his violence and not feeling safe which they put in writing and I shared with SS.

I gave up work (both professionals) and became DS carer (also has a younger sibling) and have absolutely advocated for him every step of the way.
We kept asking for additional support and being denied at panel. DS is almost 6 but huge, 9-10 clothes. We reached breaking point this Christmas. We felt we couldn’t keep him or ourselves safe in the home and were really at the end of our tether. I rang social services and recounted how uncomfortable we were with the events of Christmas, said we wanted to consider section 20 or residential school if they wouldn’t help us further. They had a meeting this week and put both kids on child protection plans. Said DS is staying with us as we are what’s best for him.

Im just completely devastated. Barely stopped crying for 24 hours.

There were quite a few inaccuracies told in the meeting that compiled made us look really negative. There’s also things like DS having a safety gate over his room which everyone (including SS and OT) has known about all along and never raised issue with but now it’s a massive issue.
I can evidence most of these things but I’m terrified to even try. They have all clearly decided we are now the problem. Apparently the police who were in the meeting (never had police involvement in our lives) heard all of this and were very unhappy.

No one has ever had an issue with our parenting if anything I’ve always been commended for my perseverance with DS. I honestly wish I’d never said anything, we just really needed help.

I have seen this. We had ss involvement in the past. When I made a SAR, I found a written log of a call a social worker made to me.

The log was supposed to be a true and accurate record of the call to the point that the SW put down how many call attempts she made and on which attempt I picked up the call.

But she left out a crucial point of information that I gave her on the phone. By leaving this out, it made me look really bad. She then wrote why she was concerned.

I didn't believe that SW could be dishonest until it happened to myself.

I am sorry you are going through this.

Make sure your legal advisers are specialists in holding LAs to account.

Damien Dobson and Ridley & Hall do this sort of thing for adoptive families in this situation, and may also work for biological families?

Sadly this is all too common for families with children with SN. LAs do everything they can to avoid their responsibilities and blame parents.

In her other thread, the OP is literally begging SS to take her child, she’s getting divorced and neither her or DH want custody of their child.

SS are absolutely awful OP, as other posters have said, this seems to be their tactic.

We asked for help with our autistic DS and instead I was accused of FII (despite diagnosis and various assessments as part of EHCP) and they even accused me of making up my other son dying, putting it down to me being off my medication (which I was off because I no longer needed it for my anxiety)

They used my history of anxiety as a weapon against me. And rather than viewing it as maybe we do need help, they viewed it as why I should not be believed. They put pressure on my husband to leave me and take the children.

What I found telling was as soon as I stopped asking for help or engaging with them, they went away and closed the case. If they really had concerns they surely would have kept pursuing?

I've always found it surprising that they can just access your medical records.

When we had our involvement I was 35.

When I made a SAR I found a note about mental health support I needed when I was 25. It included information about my childhood, which I had disclosed 10 years earlier to a mental health team. The conclusion was that because of what I experienced in my childhood I must be vulnerable.

We didn't end up on a child protection plan, not even a child in need plan and our case was closed.

But they will use anything from your past to throw it at you.

It sounds like OP is at the end of her rope. She has my sympathy. I have been there.

They should not be allowed to view it when they aren’t medically trained to understand what they’re reading. They cherry picked the parts they wanted to.

This

@SENSummer as PPs have said, you are now in a process which might well result in more support or respite. Try to see this from the other side. You have told SS that you can't cope with your very young child because of his profound needs and have asked for residential school or care. That is quite extreme so they have to investigate the whole situation, including your other child. That investigation will have an outcome which hopefully will better support the whole family. Get good advice/representation. work with the services (obviously challenging anything misrepresented), but accept that it is the needs of the children that are paramount in situations like this.

A child protection conference is meant to include the parents! I should know I was in one last year

Me too.

DD1 went back.into care as a teen. Not because I didn't/don't love her and want to be her mother, but because her behaviour was off the scale and I couldn't cope any more. And it was affecting DD2.

And there was no support available with her behaviour. So we reached the point of breakdown.

And I see the same with friends who have a (biological) daughter with learning and physical disabilities, who needs 24/7 care. They are coping - just. But no respite except for a SN youth club for 2 hours per week.

DLA funding for a certain number of hours care per week - but they have to find carers who can cope with behavioural and physical needs.

You poor things. The one thing I have to offer is that sometimes as a professional in SEND, you have to make things sound awful to then initiate any help and support from other agencies. If they thought your children were in immediate danger from your parenting, then they would remove them. It maybe that because you are in the throes of coping and very obviously struggling, that you are doing things to manage in the immediate moments rather than best practice (whatever that is). I hope this does get you some support.

People can be so disingenuous on here; it is unpleasant to read.

The OP has a child with significant disabilities and he is also taller and perhaps broader than most five year olds. As he’s got older it’s become increasingly difficult to physically prevent him doing some things. And anyone with a disabled child knows that as they age the gap gets wider: everyone expects toddlers to have tantrums and be in nappies for instance. As your child gets older the gap between them and their peers gets bigger and wider.

The OPs husband works long hours in an unpredictable environment. The care falls on her. And there is another child and there’s a small age gap - and that age gap was always going to be challenging.

It has obviously put pressure on the whole family.

In her other thread, the OP is literally begging SS to take her child, she’s getting divorced and neither her or DH want custody of their child.

This would be a great little gotcha if they’d taken the child, they haven’t.

What they have done or what the OP thinks they’ve done is put the children on an at risk register which means they won’t do much - no actual support - but the OP and her husband will have to report for the duration of their children’s childhood that there has been SS involvement, and this could have implications for the DHs role at work as well. It means that the schools will be notified and that even routine visits to an and e for things like say a broken arm or a bumped head will have extra scrutiny. It isn’t providing respite or support in a practical sense, it’s just monitoring. And it’s to intimidate.

The OP isn’t posting about her marriage.

I recently watched a documentary on I player about families living with children who were neurodivergent and violent. It was heartbreaking and I do not know how the parents coped at all. Unless you have been in that situation , you shouldn’t judge.
OP- things sound so tough for you. I’m sorry o have no practical solutions or help but just wanted to offer sympathy for your situation.

Please head over to daily fail... you can post nasty comments there and youll be right at home!!

Imagine it was your elderly mum or dad. They live with you and your young children. You know it isn’t their fault; let’s say they have dementia, they attack you, your children and urinate / soil everywhere, you’re barely sleeping and it’s Christmas so their daycare support is gone.

You ring up social services and beg for some respite over the holiday.

SS reply by saying you and your husband are neglecting your children.

Would you all say ‘well YOU rang SS’?

These things are happening and when they happen, do we think there is no impact on the children?

In fact do we say there is no impact on the elderly person who goes into care?

There is emotional harm to both the children and the parents and elderly person and there is physical harm and distress for the person moving into care, whether child or adult

All these things are a factor in an unhappy home. Just because everyone is trying their best it doesnt mean the children are not suffering harm.

If OPs son is accommodated, he cant sit under s20 for the next 13 years, it would need to go to proceedings. If a care order is applied for, the threshold would be emotional harm and/or neglect by way of his needs not being met and being removed from the family home by his family. There may be no other way of managing his needs but that is still distressing and harmful to him and the threshold recognises this, same as any CP processes. It doesnt represent intent by any or some of the adults in his life, but it simply represents the impact on him.

If he and the children are subject to plans, what comes out of that could be much higher levels of respite, or wrap around care to take some of the risk out of the home which would reduce the need for him to come into care

An unhappy home is not the leveller for social services involvement and you know it isn’t.

put both kids on child protection plans.

Don't panic.
Putting both DC on protection plans may be routine - I don't know. But there is no way that they will want to take your non-disabled DC away. They haven't got the funds to be taking children unnecessarily out of spite or vindictiveness.
Don't let the threat of losing your other DC scare you.

Keep pushing for your son to get the residential place he needs.

As others have said, you need a lawyer or specialist private SW, and you need to get clued up about procedures and jargon so that you understand what is happening.

This 100%. The care plan enables them to intervene should things escalate. You have already said you cant cope. This is a positive, I think.

1. The LA have to have a child protection conference/ maybe a plan before they accommodate your child. Sadly, there is unlikely to be a suitable foster carer for your child and so they would need residential care, classified as a High Cost Placement (ironic, I know). The cost of this would be enormous so everything must be tried before then, including a cp plan.
2. Go to the child protection conference. You shouldn't need a legal rep (which will cost you) but take a friend who can take notes or an sen advocate. Read all the reports beforehand so you're not blindsided by false/ over egged information. If reports aren't shared with you before hand raise this as an issue with the conference chair.
3. Are you open to a childrens disability team. If not use the conference/ contact with social workers to push for this. The social workers on that team will be more understanding.
4. It may be the section 47 enquiry (sounds like what it is) and lead to a child in need plan. The ICPC may also lead to a child in need plan. What do you need to make things work: council funded house adaptation through a dfg, residential school (which would be a s.20 placement if funded by the LA). Are there outstanding health tests - the social worker needs to push for this.
5. Asking the state to take on the care of your child is an enormous step. The people working with you around this aren't necessarily your enemy, they have to try alternative solutions before the "nuclear option."
6. If you are at the end of things that could be a dangerous situation and there is risk of harm - they should be looking at the "meaning of the child" to you.
7. When you talk to the social worker try to paint a picture of your life. Do a "day in the life" schedule - how many times are you up in the night, how long does it take to change a pad/ does your child accept this or do they attack you while you do it, how long does a meal time take, how long to put on shoes, coats, does your child wear clothes? How do you thing your child is feeling in these moment, how are you feeling? Try to bring things alive.

They haven't had the ICPC yet, they had a Strat meeting which parents wouldn't be invited to as that's normal practice. They had a Strat and decided that the threshold for S47 enquiry was met, OP misunderstood.