More on Health Visitors

[Bisonex]

Any day now I will be a grandfather for the first time - my daughter-in-law was due yesterday but no signs of labour yet.

I have noticed a dew discussions on here about health visitors. Having attended child abuse case conferences in a professional capacity I would advise anyone strongly against admitting a HV to their homes. My eldest daughter, now a doctor in paediatrics, shares my view on this.

HVs are far more concerned with carrying out surveillance on mothers and babies than giving any practical help or advice. They keep detailed records not just about the child, but they make assessments of the mother and father - their perceived competence as parents etc, the cleanliness of the home and anything else that catches their interest. If you try to see these records, they will obstruct you every step of the way. My son and D-i-L are clear that they will not be admitting the HV, or allowing her to see the baby - only the GP will be allowed to perform any checks.

I have seen suggestions that admitting HVs is compulsory. That's absolute nonsense - it isn't. A refusal to admit a HV will be noted - obviously - but that's all. Without plenty of other evidence, denied access would not be anywhere near enough to warrant interest from social services, let alone give them any powers. We had three children of our own and no HV ever crossed the threshold, nor were they allowed any access to our children. Once they realised we weren't going to change our minds, they left us lone.

Basically, if you let them in, they will open a file on you and it will contain a whole lot of stuff you will never see, yet which could be used against you should they ever wish to do so.

cat64

Another semi-literate poster resorting to personal insults. I didn't mention a "conspiracy" - I don't think it was any such thing originally, although the previous government, with its ID cards and massive extension of such things as ANPR and the Children's Database had no qualms about state organised and intrusive public surveillance.

I did 30-years in the police and retired nearly 3-years ago, and I now teach at a university (linguistics, before you ask, because that's what I studied when researching for my PhD).

When I was involved in child protection, it wasn't computerised at all. The HVs had blue forms for boys and pink ones for girls, and everything was on paper - no doubt it's all on computer now and much speedier.

We're not talking about surveilling the entire population either, merely a substantial proportion of those who have an infant under a year old. The level of this surveillance also does not appear to be uniform around the UK - it depends where you live. The funding isn't an issue - it was done long before there were computers and their introduction would no doubt have made it easier, quicker and probably cheaper.

I'm not suggesting that these are surveillance files with the kind of detail one would expect the police to collate on a target criminal for every family. Yes, that would be unfeasible. But you don't need any such thing - just a couple of paragraphs on a form following each visit and you have soon gathered a fair amount of private intelligence on your "clients".

Much as I have enjoyed chatting to you all, it is half past midnight here in Sweden, so I'm off to bed.

Cheerie bye.

The health visitor i was originally allocated for my 3rd daughter was aware of the situation and i refused the same HV i had for my 2nd daughter. It was just unfortunate she left. My point is i am not against HV's but if they get things wrong it has consequences. My daughter was subjected to excessive medical procedures on the word of the HV who seen me once in a blue moon over mine. In my opinion she took a dislike to me and used it against me. Its not just me there are other mothers who wont have her as she is very critical. One mother was repeatedly telling her that her baby was sick. She told her not to take her to hospital and try different milks. She was only 18 and took her advice. The baby was underweight and when she took her to hospital she has a milk intolerence.

I don't think that computerisation would have made this network of spies HVs' role in collecting information quicker. They would have to make notes and then return to their office to type them up.

Before I go, don't forget to take a look at this:

headlines-today.co.uk/2010/06/17/health-visitors-or-health-police/

My concerns are not unique to me, and they are not new, either.

You have been warned.

OK - so we have been warned. But we (many of us on this thread) have survived HV visits without anything untoward happening.

You, OP, on the other hand, are in another country, and are about to become a grandparent, not a parent (congrats btw). So, I'm wondering why you are feeling so paranoid about this?

I'm not convinced that most HVs have the resources to be writing the kind of notes you are describing, Bisonex.
But anyway there is a flip side to their observations. A few years ago I had some malicious allegations made against me. My HV had been a regular visitor to my home as my DC has some ongoing health issues. SS obviously got involved and the HV was great, her notes proved that my DC are well cared for and that she had never had any concerns. She also met with SS to discuss the allegations and largely due to her input SS realised that there was nothing suspicious going on. Her objective and well respected POV were very important in this instance.
Your daughter is almost 27? Oh that makes all the difference to her experience then I'm a teacher, doesn't mean I don't need outside advice on my children's education sometimes.
Anyway I don't care if you are 20 or 40, a high flying career woman or someone on minimum wage, whatever, first time motherhood can be a crazy time and HVs have a very important role in helping women get to grips with it. If you don't want them in your life fine but stop the scaremongering.

What a load of bullshit from the OP. I asked my mum a few days ago (she is an ex social worker) and she says Health Visitors, in her experience, are reluctant to get involved in cases and will only report parents if there are serious and obvious issues.

Oh and your link doesn't work

OP. i actually agree with you

(stands back and prepares to be flamed....)

HVs are there to assist mothers but also carry out checks on the home and home environment to be noted (and possibly used later).

I was told about by an ex-police man (know his son and daughter) when i was pregnant. He told me to let them in but ensure my home was pristine and ditto for baby and I. because refusing to let them in was a red flag.

Thankfully we live in a great house and am very house proud so it all looked immaculate as did DD and I.

She was clearly impressed and kept gushing that I was doing such a wonderful job and what a beautiful home I had.

At the end she said there was no need or obligation to see any HV again but I was always welcome at their local clinic anytime.

Needless to say I have given them a very wide berth!!

I did ask her how she came to be an HV and she told me she was newly qualified and that she had done an 18 month course straight after completing her degree in social studies.

So she had no real working experience and certainly no medical training or qualifications which i found a worry tbh.

Appreciate that other HVs are actually nurses who do have some medical knowledge but clearly its not always the case.

Bisonex,

Thanks for posting this very interesting thread and for opening a very vivid debate...

Amusing as well that most of the documented evidence / practical examples came from the anti Big Brother Group, while they was a fair amount of unnecessary personal attack from your opponents.

Please do let me pick your brain on an associated debate.

I've started volunteering with home-start, a national charity providing home-based support to families with at least a child under the age of 5.

Some of our referals come from HV and in rarer cases Social Services.

During the training we were very much told that homestart is not a statutory agency and "that we only visit a family with their express invitation and to work with the family to address their perceived issue".

However, we also covered the infamous health aand Safety and then received a slighly different message: that we were also expected to report, document and always keep an eye on ANY possible child abuse or neglect.

I have a fair understanding of child abuse and my heart goes to women who are unfortunate enough to let their kids jump on their bed / climb on trees or simply be kids.

Child neglect is another grey area and we (other trainees and experienced volunteers) had lenghty discussion about it ...

Is it child neglect to have a very messy / bordeline dirty house / possibly unsafe (small objects lying on the floor that could be swallowed by infant) or is it just providing a playful relaxed environment where DM is obviously more focused on the kids than on the house?

Is it child neglect not to take DC out to the park, because it's cold / because DM can not be bothered / because DC want to watch TV (Horrid Henri again!)?

Is it child neglect to have easy fun eating crisps chocolate and pizza in front of the TV, instead of having a "proper healthy family meal, with good Victorian table manners and PC conversation"?

Is it child neglect not to spend hours every night doing schoolwork, plus competitive / team sports , plus music lessons?

Or it child neglect to be a neurotic over pushy mother transfering her own failed ambitions to her poor pawns / sorry DC?

Now at the homestart training, we were especially told to write detailed reports about our activities with the family as well as the "families progress".

Now, please understand that our "brief", when we start volunteering for a family is to "help DM play more with her kids / learn to enjoy positive parenthood time" (???????) or "manage better the house cleanliness and to set-up routines generally"...

So, we are supposed to report that "Mum loves her kids but Mum finds it hard to keep the house tidy / clean safe"
"Mum does not have the self-confidence (???) to take her kids to social outings, park, swimming-pool, library"

"After breaking-up with DH number 3 and father of 1 of the 4 children, DM could not afford (!!!!!!) to pay for DD's transport to school and therefore decided to home-school both herself and her DD as she had herself left school at 16"

(the last example is made-up and exagerated- that is just not the way we are told to word our reports, but it's based on real facts).

Now I'm getting very confused as to my role as a volunteer....

Because I'm totally anti-totalitarian state (if that makes any sense), I like to believe that we live in a free democratic state, where our family life / education ethos is in the private domain and we should not spy on other with the unsaid but profound underlying assumption that our own choice is better, that we are universally right, that somebody having different concepts should be re-educated...

Because also there are many roads to Rome; ie there are lots of different ways of bringing up kids, of abusing or neglecting them (over pushing them, only feeding them macrobiologique vegan food, letting them raise themselves; taking a career that never was-break and becoming a burden on society, simply not being able to afford the now horrendous university costs; being a work-holic and sending them boarding after 2 different au-pairs / private nannies). But one universal thing I have found is that mothers (sorry, fathers as well, I'm sexist now) normally love their kids, they do not always know how to become a positive force towards the successful development of a young human being; we do not even all agree on what "successfull" entails.

And my big concern regarding homestart is that we were first told to "befriend the family", work with them towards their own goal" but at the same time to log a lot of private information.

So, to make a quick disgression, I should maybe look for a job with MI5 as I've all the training to befriend but spy! (does MI5 take on volunteers????)

Our reports are paper-based, but I know there's a new centralised IT system (for all schemes- UK wide) where the information within our reports is entered.

Now I also know that Homestart is sometimes involved with social services (CAF) when a child is being monitored by social services. And i'm very concerned about giving any information to homestart about my family because this information could be misused obviously "for the better interest of the child and family"?

Really?

Alternatively, I would prefer not to say anything about the family I'm visiting to homestart. I would prefer homestart to simply match volunteers and famiies and let them get on with it.

But when I suggested this workflow in another thread, and consequently questioned why homestart is so heavily funded by the taxpayer, I got even more abuse and personal attacks than you!

Anyway, sorry for the rather lenghty rant!

atomicdust - have no idea what you mean by the bit about climbing trees but, leaving that aside ...

Why do you think the government fund Homestart? It's not to stop SAHMs being lonely, it's to stop abuse and neglect before it starts. That's why those families have been referred. It would be insane to let a volunteer acting in the State's name to interact with a family with no oversight. The checking is to protect the family from any fuck ups you might make as much as it is to keep on eye on the family.

Perhaps you should look for something else to do.

Atomic what you describe rings v true from my experiences with a few hv, funny how fathers gets off so lightly in all this isnt it.....

Actually I can't let this sentence go:

'I have a fair understanding of child abuse and my heart goes to women who are unfortunate enough to let their kids jump on their bed / climb on trees or simply be kids.'

What on earth do you mean??

I imagine there are, as in most professions, good and bad HV's. The HV for my ds actively prevented a referral to a paediatrician for my ds by assuring the GP that I was imagining his difficulties and deciding I was depressed instead.
When I finally saw paed after a referral through SALT because again HV and GP refused to refer him themselves the paed's first words were "so your GP thinks this is normal. I am worried to think just how bad it's got to be before they refer on"
At the Multi Disciplinary Assessment meeting the HV tried to argue the findings of the Paed, a psychologist,SALT, Ed psych, OT dismissing it all by saying "the mother is depressed" The paed eventually asked her forcefully to leave as "she wasn't being helpful"
Fortunately for me my ds wouldn't die from autism but the HV was forced to resign after a baby almost died when she advised a mother that she didn't need to see a GP before the weekend, the baby had colic. The baby actually had a twisted bowel and ended up in ICU through dehydration.
Funnily enough I refused a HV with dd and didn't go to the Surestart centre either despite being repeatedly invited and them threatening to turn up on my doorstep.They changed their mind when I informed them of my formal complaint against the first HV and her reprimand
I wouldn't ever condemn all HV's my concern would be that all concerns about a child's health or development should be referred to a GP at the very least and I think sometimes mothers are reassured by the advice of a HV when they really ought to see a GP. Just my thoughts

What an extraordinary thread. I think this is possibly the most patronising OP I have ever come across.

I do worry that new / first time mothers will read this and be frightened of their health visitors. Don't forget the OP worked in child protection and so naturally dealt with HVs who were doing something which is part of their job, but only happens in a minority of cases. They had concerns. And so therefore they stepped it up a gear, they came round more frequently, their notes became more detailed. He will have had a very skewed image of the day-to-day work of a health visitor.

Added to this, his writing style comes across as borderline paranoid, and certainly he seems under the impression his world view is unalterable. I think this individual has a - shall we say - fairly robust sense of self-esteem. He almost certainly believes himself to be more intelligent than any of us and I'm not sure that's necessarily correct.

I saw my HV notes as they were written in front of me. A typical entry was "Baby gained xxxg and is now on 80th centile. Breastfeeding still going well. Mum still concerned about episiotomy - still very painful. We agreed I'd check it after the weekend and if no improvement go to Doctor". That's it. No "MI5", no "CCTV" - any more than your GP is "spying" when you tell him / her personal information.

Health visitors do not require you to have a pristine home (you've just had a baby!) but a serious lack of hygiene (mouldering food) will of course ring bells, as indeed it should! They are very useful for the thousand little questions you have which your parents can't remember the answer to. Mine were fantastic, and I look forward to seeing them again if I'm lucky enough to have a second.

LadiBiscuit; I was refering to a previous post where a lady described some very intrusive and over-paranoid involvment from HV and social services after she took her kids to hospital because of bruises due to falling off the bed...

Thank you atomicdust - I haven't read the whole thread because I got bored by the hysterical tone of the OP.

I think there are good and bad HVs. I saw mine once at home and then never saw her again. I never took my DS to be weighed past 8 weeks and don't really want anyone interfering in my life but that didn't happen.

LadyBiscuit Good to know that you do not like interference but I do not quite agree that the tone of this OP is hysterical, conflictual maybe.

Longtalljosie ...if you're were talking about my previous thread, thank you for the compliments but pleae do note that I was talking about homestart, a charity providing help to families and getting referrals from DV, not just DV....maybe a bit subtle?

atomicdust - mothers unfortunate enough to let their kids jump on beds, climb trees. Kids are kids. When i was little me and my brother used to slide down the stairs on a cardboard box. I dont thik my mother was unfortunate she was letting us be kids. I would be very worried if you were 'assessing' me.

I didnt take my kids, i have 3 kids, i took one.

Fifi25; that's exactly my point (and BTW my kids also use to slide down the stairs when small)...I was being sarcastic; all in favour of diverse parenting choice and aginst the one fits all / immediate referral to social service for case abuse.

Atomicdust I agree with every word and that is why I decided not to complete the HS training. I as an unqualified layman was expected to report on peoples parenting, homelife and ability cope and report.
I'm pretty sure some would be coping better than I do but they would be under scrutiny because they dared to ask for help.
I also agree about climbing tree's and jumping on beds, my children have never been to A&E because I don't allow those things, at the back of my mind I am terrified of going to hospital with the children with an injury.

Thanks for your comments Bisonex. I'm not sure I was ever concerned with the HVs niceness(?) either rather that you lacked a basis for your extreme view. BTW I have my HV notes - I asked for all the notes after dd was misdiagnosed by 2 paeds and my GP. They weren't difficult to obtain. The paed notes were however. Why was that? IME the HCP I was least worried about was my HV.

You'll proabbaly be back to tell me that they weren't the proper notes, that my real file is locked away somewhere ready to be used against me such is gthe level of your paranoia

I have read you thread again and now understand it. At our sure start group the majority of the mothers are from the wealthier families. I wasnt aware sure start got referrals from SS/HV's. I have only been 3 times as i had nothing in common with any of the mothers. I was referred to go i went to see what it was like. I prefer the church and community centre playgroup. What i found interesting is the original HV i got with 3rd daughter had worked for 18 years in one of the most deprived areas. I got the impression that anything you told her would not shock and she had a wealth of experience. I dont think anyone new to the job should have the power to refer people to SS's. I must admitt SS's were brilliant and i got the impression that the HV who referred me was known.