to be unsure if I should report friend to SS?

[custardismyhamster]

Friend is 23, has dyspraxia (and other things I think as have read up on dyspraxia and it's just difficulties with co-ordination if I'm right, so she may not run as well as others etc)

She has a DD, 8 months.

Her DD is not cared for very well and I am worried. Whenever I visit her DD is passed to me and I end up caring for her. If I don't, she gets ignored-so today she was sat on floor playing with a toy, she fell and banged her head (was fine!) and cried so I left it for a few minutes, my friend ignored her so I picked her up, cuddled her, then distracted with funny faces-her DD laughed and forgot about her fall bless her.

Anyway the little girl doesn't seem to ever be properly clean (not as in oh she has baby food on her clothes-she is a baby they get messy! but as in she stinks-literally after clean nappy on etc, her hair FEELS greasy and she smells. She also has terrible exema and cream from gp, friend doesnt put it on her as 'makes my hands feel greasy')

She is also never spoken to, or interacted with by my friend, at least not when I am there.

Friend never seems to buy her anything she needs-had no cot until about 7 months old etc, but yet can afford pauls boutique bags and mac makeup for herself...hmm.

AND friend told me today that to make money (she doesn't work, but lives at home with her mother, who does work and she isn't paying any board even) that she is sleeping with men for money-in her house, in front of her DD.

This has worried me and I feel it's the final straw-should I now as a concerned onlooker be speaking to social services or similar, as am concerned about little girls welfare?

Any advice really appreciated guys as don't know what to do for the best but don't want little girl to suffer

or someone enlighten me. what would you call it ? Gigantaur ?

"try and make people like jenbot, just to make her consider, for one second, what a referal, does to an innocent mum and what the person refering is actually trying tot achieve. i'm convincing no one. per usual. must stop."

I'm not sure why you are so upset by me. I have never argued that it would not be upsetting. I think that turning away and ignoring potential abuse or neglect could have worse consequences however.

I would assume that most people who report non-maliciously are trying to achieve safety for the child involved. I imagine that most people do think about it a lot before they make the call, thankfully I have never had to do so.

Gigantaur. help me out here. help me find a positive spin on this. your last sentence doesn't help.
i wouldn't want another woman to be refered to ss, under the acqusation of them abusing their children. i am finding it impossible to put a positive spin on this. when i feel i have been wronged. over-reaction. i think ISNT feels the same.

"Only a very stupid person would imagine for one minute that a parent of a child with a severe bleeding disorder would ever lay a hand on them sexually or physically. Never mind SS, they'd be up on a murder charge."

But people do hurt, and sometimes kill their own children.

Hold on a sec

Of the cases that I read about in the papers, the vast vast majority of the families were known to social services.

Reporting babyP to SS would not have helped him, as SS already knew about babyP. Time and time again agencies have been criticised for failing to act, for not bein fit for purpose.

The solution to stopping abuse is surely to have effective agencies who are able to act when the situaiton warrants it, and are trained to read situations correctly.

The answer is not to increase the workload of SS so that they have even less time for the people who require their attention, but reporting all and bloody sundry every 5 minutes.

Of course people musr report when they are concerned that a child is being harmed or abused. What oblomov and I are saying is that people should not be reporting anyone and everyone, which is what seems to be happening in some cases, and is a direct result of the Baby P fiasco. SS need to be effective in dealing with the people they know about, not by widening their target to take in more and more and more of the population, for utterly random reasons.

And no I didn't have my children removed, it was just one visit, that they then took about 4 months to let me know the outcome of, while I sat at home waiting to hear the worst. 4 months of crying every night, of waking up at 2am panicking that there was going to be a knock at the door. I no longer have any faith in professionals/authorities, I understand now that if I have any problems, they are not relevant, all that is of interest to anyone is the childen standing behind me. DH and I think we will probably not have any more children as a result of what happened. I worry about suffering with things like anxiety or depression in the future as I would not feel at ease teling anyone about them. I do not trust the dr or the nursery, I don't know who might have their eye on me. I used to be a confident open person, now I am paranoid and wary. What happened has changed my whole world view. And of course all of this will affect the children. They used to have a mother who was open and cheerful, now they don't. A small price to pay eh.

people are reffered because someone has considered that the behaviour they have witnessed is a cause for cvoncern.

That doesn;t necessarily mean you are abusing your child, just that your child is possibly not recieving the best care.

Sometimes it's not direct, willfull abuse.
sometimes it is a parent that is simply not coping for various reasons.

SS involvment is not always a negative thing. quite often it can be the wake up call someone needs in order to get themselves back on track rather than falling further and further.

being concerned for a childs welfare isn't always saying "i think they are being abused"

ISNT - yes i do see what you are getting at but sw are not mind readers. we aren't telepathic. uless someone makes the refferal how would we know what is going on in a home?

A SW has already said that about 50% of cases that they see are no cause for concern. That is not good enough. The targetting needs to be more effective, the referral framework needs to be sensible, external agencies need to take some responsibility and not just chuck heaps of work in SS direction on the offchance that someone is abusing their kids when they don't have any evidence or reason for suspecting that.

The logical conclusion of the "better safe than sorry" approach is that SS regularly examine every family in the country. But a visit by SS results in real long-term harm, even if the people under scrutiny are exonerated.

I gave a list of things that I think could be improved earlier. I understand Oblomov's point entirely.

milady I think that support thread is calling

Gigantaur knows my story.
you have many people here who have been refered to ss by health professionals. milady, ISNT and me. by A&E, a GP, And an advisor.
So Gignataur, how do you think that iSnt, GIVEN HER LAST POST, OF WHATS ITS DONE TO HER. HOW SHALL WE PUT A POSITIVE SPIN ON THIS.

wE BOTH ASKED FOR HELP. wERE REFERD ADN ENDING UP GETTING NO HELP AT ALL.
ACCUSSED OF ABUSE. MKAES ME FEEL FAB.

I've been polite until now but to be honest, it is a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things, and you are being very blinkered, and quite selfish, if you think that what happened to you is the worst thing that can happen to a family.

sorry for caps

o.k. Jenbot.

Sorry for not backing you up earlier Oblomov, I was out, came back, skimmed through and just responded to the one post which stood out!

I am waiting for someone to answer the question you have asked repeatedly on this thread and the one I have asked myself.

When a referral is made, according to what I have read, it has to fit criteria and they are specific eg suspected physical / sexual abuse which would fit my case except I have been told by the professional who made the referral in consultation which other professionals, the social worker himself, and another on this thread that I have been accused of nothing and it was merely procedural due to the nature of the injury.

Merely procedural or serious allegation? Which is it?

Hmm, probably shouldn't have said selfish, but I do stick with blinkered.

Gigantaur. that was a diredct quote the Gp involved, has said to me since.
"If I have concerns that a child is being abused".
When I rang SS they said that a "referal is made on the basis of abuse or negelct. or both "
Is that not correct ?

Jenbot they don't take them to hospital for a paper-cut as we do. They actively avoid the authorities and they lie to them again and again. Baby P.

Gigantaur the person who referred me had not witnessed any behaviour that was cause for concern.

Because they'd never met me, or my children, or my husband. They didn't know where I lived, or any of my circumstances. They reported me on the basis of a 5 min phone call, during which I know that I said nothing that gave cause for concern. It was all very friendly. An hour later she called me back and told me she had reported me on the basis that my children were at serious and immediate risk of harm, and that SS would be coming urgently, and that they would remove my children if they saw fit.

It turned out that she had not listened to a word I had said on teh phone, and had instead constructed some kind of awful scenario in her head, which she got herself into such a lather about that the only thing to do was call SS.

This was an organisation who apparently have a framework for reporting, and all sorts of procedures and processes. It was a bloody joke. This is the sort of thing that Oblomov and I are on about.

No-one is saying that people should not alert the authorities when they have a genuine concern.

ISNT so sad to read your post saying that your children have been deprived of an open and happy mother.

Support thread in Other Subjects needs to be started but I haven't got a clue what to call it. Nothing with SS in the title, maybe something like the Wonkers one which gives no clue as to what it's about.

I will be back later but Dd will be home soon and needs to be fed and hugged

So anyway, you think that in cases where there is serious cause for concern about the welfare of a child, the authorities should be involved? Yes?
Great, that's what I think too. So we all agree.

Riiiight.

So no point in thinking about targeting, or going through data to see if there are any organisations / people who refer far more than the average/cases that are always not a problem. No point in worrying about the cost of all this, and that money is being wasted investigating ordinary people who have been accused on spurious grounds, diverting resources from dealing with the families who have real problems. No point in pointing out that the vast majority of high profile cases involve children who are already known to authorities.

No point in thinking about any of those things, as the current system is fine (which it demonstrably isn't), and even if 50% of people who are incestigated go through all that trauma for nothing, it doesn't matter.

Why not extend it so that everyone in the country is subject to SS investigations every year? That is the logical conclusion of all of this.

Jenbot, none of said otherwise.

Have you been abused Jenbot. does that blinker your views on things ?

No I haven't been abused, nor neglected. I do know people who have been and I have seen the terrible effects it can have. I said earlier that my POV was coloured by witnessing SWs doing their honest best to help families in all the cases I knew of.

I put across the opinion here first of all that basically I thought it was worth some innocent parents being put under what turned out to be unneccesary scrutiny for a time if the same scrutiny on the next family could potentially save the life of a child.

I am still quite shocked that anybody would find that view outlandish. What is the alternative? I never said that we should all report every crying baby we come across "just in case".

It isn't ideal but things surely have to be that way until we can breed SWs who can read minds unfortunately.

I'm sure there are bad SWs and bad HVs out there, and those who make mistakes. And people who report others needlessly.

In any system we have, that's always going to be true though. No system will be perfect.

Yes many children who die at the hands of their parents are known to the authorities already. But perhaps if more people had raised their fears about those children, it would have been apparent that things were worse than they seemed.

My step dad and my mum are sw'ers. My step dad retired last week after working being a manger of oxfordshires's sw for many many years.
some sw'ers are rubbish. as are all professionals possibly. but many work very hard. no one disputes this either.
I don't have a problem with sw'ers. ISNT and I think we shouldn't have been refered in the first place. We can't accept that there was 'reasonable grounds for a referal in the first place'. I can't write it any simpler.

As someone working for SS mentioned pages ago, about 50% of all cases are nonsensical in nature, yet take 50% of SWs time, as they must follow the procedures.
Everyone loses....
Children who actually are at risk don't get the support they so desperately need despite being known to SS - Baby P et al.
Children who fall off swings/chairs/stairs etc. etc. and are taken to A&E by panicked and worrying, loving parents, are treated as potential abuse victims.
Children, toddlers especially, are curious, boisterous and investigative creatures; if they weren't, we'd be worried.
Yet, much can happen during play and children must learn to deal with and anticipate risk through experience.
Unfortunately the worry, that if DC scrapes a knee or breaks a finger, the family would end up on SS 'register' and get treated as suspects of child abuse - the MOST horrible thing that can happened to loving parents - can and is making some parents over cautious, wrapping the children in cotton wool.
Again, it's children, who lose.
If I understood correctly, GPs et al must report every accident that happened to a child they treated, to SS?
This is absurd: firstly, doctors are qualified to determine (in most cases) if the circumstances of the case are suspicious.
They don't need SWs, without any medical knowledge, to be the be-all-end-all in a medical case.
Also, no disrespect to SWs, but apart from the ones who have found their true vocation - and here's to hope that there will be many, many more like this, many are there because SS is always hiring... Not all are the brightest crayons, unfortunately, and the 'little power' they have can go to their head.
Hence the cases one reads in paper where innocent families are hounded do despair by overzealous SWs.
Pity....
What we need is plain common sense, exercised by medical professionals and SWs alike.

"but things surely have to be that way until we can breed SWs who can read minds unfortunately. "
no. its not o.k. thtas trivilaising it.
the person that makes the referal int eh first place has to be held accountabel. they have to have reasonable grounds , for refering in the first place.
you are like a politician. just avoiding the question. please answer this question.

do you think that there was reasonable grounds for malady's/ISNT/ and my referal int eh first place.

nothing to do with sw'ers here. the person who refered us TO THE SW'ers. that is who i am refring to .

do you get that ?