AIBU to keep reporting my sister over concerns for her children?

[Pipiscoming2023]

I live the other side of the country to my brother and sister, but keep in touch regularly with my brother and his family. My sister, however, doesn’t reply to any of my texts, won’t see me whenever I’m that way visiting etc.

The issue is she’s an alcoholic and she’s constantly in trouble. Shes 28 and has 4 kids, one of which is a new baby, and she’s back on the drink (and my brother thinks drugs too).

I get screenshots sent to me by one of my cousins who also lives near them, of things my sister is saying, videos of her drunk and fighting, just all the worst things.

My biggest worry is for those children. Both our parents were addicts and ended up dead before we were teenagers. I know how this goes. But my sister is refusing any kind of support from me (I’ve offered to take her to meetings, drs, just sit and have a cup of tea and a chat, everything).

It all came to a head earlier this year when I’d heard she was blind drunk the day after taking her new baby home and I decided to anonymously report her via crime stoppers. I felt awful but social services came over and by the sounds of it nothing was done.

She has since been out almost every weekend, keeps dropping the baby off at random peoples houses (according to my brother - she won’t let him have her because he’s so judgy she said), and last weekend ended up in a fight in front of her kids that led to a split lip and black eye.

Would IBU to keep reporting her? I know I’m not the only one that has but nothing seems to be happening. There must be a huge case spanning years, so why aren’t social protecting those children? And what can I do?

Cutbacks unfortunately op. All you can do is keep reporting. It's bloody awful i know.

Is anyone in Rl actually saying you’re unreasonable?

Can you take the children?? That’s the obvious but very very big decision. If you contact Social Services and offer a solution at the same time it might prompt a different response??

People don’t report for all sorts of reasons.

You see it on here all the time, posters being advised to mind their own business, don’t get involved. Or being afraid of what will happen if they do, or assuming that SS won’t do anything so they don’t.

They also rarely seem to remove children as the priority is keeping families together with support. But who knows what that actually looks like.

Definitely not unreasonable of you to keep reporting OP, I would do the same.

If you actually have footage of the violence infront of the kids I would also be reporting that to the police, get everything formally noted. Continue to report to the Contact & Referral team, I would also as other PP’s have said make the school aware. In theory, all of the systems should talk to each other but in practice they often don’t, in theory if police are attending that frequently it should tick the “this person and family need support” box. The tricky thing is, if she is sober and presenting as okay when they attend to do a check it is far too easy for them to just close the box and move on, budget cuts, lack of fostering support, lack of social workers, nobody is keen to add extra work where they can justify not doing it but if everything you have heard is true then I’d be truly worried for these kids.

This is really helpful, thank you!

I think you’re right, she’s very good at presenting as okay when they do visit (my parents were good at this too!) and so they probably move on.

Ok, keep reporting directly to SS but also to school and tell them you've told SS too.

It's likely school already have concerns given the circumstances and may already have reported it themselves but SS are stretched and it becomes less easy to ignore the more people there are reporting - especially when other professionals are involved because it leads to greater accountability.

Also, I know that we had concerns about one family (I'm a teacher). There were things we knew of but not enough for SS involvement until, one day, a member of the public witnessed an incident, recognised the child's school uniform and reported it to school. That was the missing piece that enabled it to he progressed to SS which, in turn, meant the family got appropriate support.

Keep reporting.

I think you’re right, she’s very good at presenting as okay when they do visit (my parents were good at this too!) and so they probably move on.

And she could be the same with school. We have parents stay on my hospital ward who are alcoholic and druggies. They rarely present off their faces.

@Pipiscoming2023 Social services etc do not normally say who has made the report in my experience.

I would write a very full and factual history and sent it to social services and the school. I would also consider writing to her GP, if you know who it is likely to be, as he may be able to offer some support on this. GP cannot communicate with you on the issue but he can take it into consideration. But I would most certainly officially raise it as a safeguarding concern to Social Services.

Hopefully she will run out of the enablers looking after her children, or hit rock bottom in some way and have to get help before these children are damaged any further. Sad, but unfortunately this is what normally has to happen
SS all over there world are so stretched on resources and can be slow to action.

You can also contact the health visitor.

Report it but don't report anonymously. Social services need to be able to contact you to get all the details. They won't tell your sister who called them as they aren't allowed to but the authorities having your details allows them to treat this as a serious concern and follow up with you.
So sorry for you having to do this. You are doing the correct thing. Priority has to be for those children.

OP you are doing the right thing. Keep reporting until something changes. I know a mother whose children were taken away and it was the reason she needed to completely turn her life around

She must be very good at putting on a front if managed to pull wool of multiple social workers; the police and schools

Carry on reporting and definitely contact the school

has anyone said you should not report?

God. It’s one of those stories you read about where SS and the police could and should have acted before a tragedy took place but didn’t then we point to lots of failures, slap some wrists and move on.

I hope nothing dreadful happens here but it’s shocking to me with a baby and toddler she must have HV involvement, she’s also been reported to SS numerous times and keeps getting arrested to boot but nobody takes the children away.

I wish people wouldn't give such wrong advice. NSPCC just pass concerns on to social services via the means of confusing forms - just report to social services please! And the LADO is nothing to do with reporting concerns about children.

Are you certain nothing is being done, you won't get feedback as an anonymous referrer, there could be professional involvement but she may not be telling you and not sharing your details with professionals. All police referrals will be sent to school, health and social care. Also if police are attending they can use their powers to remove children so they must believe it's safe enough?

However if it is the case that no one is intervening, keep sending referrals. You can share your name and they won't share it with her if you stress you want to remain anonymous.

I was in exactly this situation with my sister. Awful as your sisters parenting sounds, what has emerged since about my sisters care of her children is actually too bad for me to write. I reported and reported. The children were removed then returned, again and again. The damage is lifelong and continues to affect their children, but I do know that I did everything I could. Please use your name, it really doesn’t matter what she thinks of you. Those children are suffering serious harm and at risk of worse.And don’t just phone, send emails so your actual allegations are recorded in their files, otherwise they record it as malicious or too vague or whatever.
Be very clear, include video evidence if you have it. I’m so glad you have made a better life for yourself.💐

I agree with PP’s reporting anonymously via Crime Stoppers is not the way to go about this, nor really is you reporting second hand information. It needs to be people who have actually witnessed the behaviour reporting it to child / family SW team and not anonymously, if SW get such an anonymous report they will waste time trying to establish if it is a real or a malicious report ( you would be surprised at how many malicious reports they get) they should seek corroboration by checking to see if there have been other concerns reported about this family.
By someone giving their name and reporting what they have witnessed much time could be saved.
Reports from schools or other professionals will be given more weight and they have a direct system to report concerns that the general public don’t have access to.
Why is your family reporting to you instead of taking action themselves do they want to try and help these children or not?
Sad to say children’s SW are met with such a wall of need that things have to be pretty bad before a case will meet the threshold for SW involvement, so even if they investigate nothing may happen. She may be offered advice or parenting classes or group work but would she actually bother to engage?

Please keep reporting to the police or anyone. .

Could they live with a family member?

These are exactly the type of situations when children end up being abused by people.

Tell them you want to stay anonymous but please speak to them directly in your own name and share what you know. Anonymous referrals are very difficult to act on. People often say they are malicious and without being able to get more information, guage the motivation/honesty/plausibility of the referrer by speaking to them we often have no option but to accept what the parent is saying especially where there is no corroborating evidence. That doesn't sound like the case here if the police have been involved. Have you googled children's services in the area? What's the Ofsted rating? Any special measures? Some areas are really not doing well and if she's living somewhere like that you might have to make a bit of noise to get them to respond - raise a complaint if they don't act on your concerns.

True. You may not see the involvement. Are you expecting the children to be removed immediately? That's really unlikely. If there is a child protection plan for example you wouldn't necessarily know that?

Keep reporting, it builds a picture and evidence. Unfortunately people can make malicious reports and this stops genuine reports from the public, especially anonymous ones, from being seen as concrete evidence. The more that come through, particularly if they include names and are from different people, the better. It would be best if the person who is telling you she is drunk when caring for her children or leaving them in unsafe places calls the police themselves at the time so there can be a professionals report which can be used as evidence.

You are definitely right to keep reporting. Do you know that nothing is happening though? I appreciate the DC are still with her, but removing them is always a last resort. Could she be having visits from CSC and the DC be on a protection plan and you not be aware of it? I would hope that is the case.

Cases like this make my heart ache for the poor children. Report, report and keep on reporting OP! Have you considered approaching the MP for her area to get them to give CSS a kick into action? And I am surprised the police are not being proactive too? How long before one of those kiddies has an accident because of her neglect? Some people do not deserve to have children 😡