Sigh... hatgirl, you are a social worker. I take it you don't work in Surrey. Or Rotherham. Or Rochdale. Or Telford. Or Oxford. Or Kensington & Chelsea. Or any other local authorities that are dodgy and wholly unaccountable.
And believe me, they really really are that linked up. It's actually quite admirable in a way - in a wartime situation it would be brilliant. Careless talk saves lives - and costs money.
Social workers just love holding meetings. They get paid for it, and can make out they're doing work. Meetings serve a myriad of purposes aside from that. Anything they say in the meeting can and will be doctored in the Minutes, while anything the family says can be embellished and put in writing, whereupon according to mad logic it 'becomes true'. Nothing that exonerates them goes in writing or on the Minutes. So it never happened.
Families are asked to sign a 'confidentiality agreement' beforehand, barring them from telling anyone anything about what took place. At first they'll feel great about this - it's like signing the Official Secrets Act, you're sitting with the big boys now! Later you realise that the purpose of the Act is to protect the Officials, not the Secrets, to recycle an old Yes Minister joke. You've been had. It's the equivalent of a non-disclosure agreement. Only you got nothing in return!
Social workers hate emails and will discourage you from sending them. Why? Because they cannot contain you that way, and you are putting stuff in writing rather than them. Again, when they put it in writing, they can write it up how they like. A meeting offers a controlled environment.
So in the meeting they'll do the Surrey County Council time-honoured ruse: would you like to get your parent back to the family home (if they are in a care home you're unhappy with, that is). Feeling exonerated and going along with their suggestion, you'll say yes. Ooops! It's a trick! They can then make out that the suggestion came from you, and that you may abscond with your parent from the care home. This is a big big deal, and it allows them to do all sorts of things, from carrying out a fishing expedition on you via the care home, to even getting RIPA surveillance going on your emails and phone, supposedly because you're a 'danger' to your parent but actually so they can gather dirt on you. It's surveillance, and that's the other purpose of the meeting - you happily tell them everything, while they tell you nothing.
When you find out you've been stitched up, who can you tell? No one, aside from them. You signed a confidentiality agreement remember.
Should you lose your rag in the meeting, they can do you for abuse and intimidation, and even call the police out. So it didn't happen that way, or at all? So what, who are you going to tell? You signed a confidentiality agreement, remember.
Maybe you'll take their word on it when they say you can move your parent from the home. My friends, get it in writing or it never happened. Their 'kind' offer won't go on the Minutes, and they can do you for 'absconding'. (Usually it won't get to that point, to be fair, as when the new prospective care home phones up the current care home for an assessment, current care home can tip them off that social services have the family in their sights and they will back off.) Anyway, if you abscond that means getting a Court Order barring you from the care home, or at least restricting your visits. Of course, if you are paying frequent visits because for some mysterious reason the care home isn't giving your parent enough to drink (cough... Liverpool Care Pathway) then that works great for them! Your parent will be dead, that saves the State money, job done! You won't be able to prove a thing.
In any conflict between the family and the care home - and the local authority ie social workers will always side with the care home on this - the first port of call is: did they get Lasting Power of Attorney in Health and Welfare? What's that, they didn't? Great - we can go to work on them!
If you ask for the Minutes, they won't send them for months.
If they smear you on your parent's medical notes, you won't find out for months, even if you suspect, cos you don't have LPA. Any SAR will meet with obfuscation. It's all well thought out, they hold all the aces.
The smears are held to be 'true' unless you refute them. So if you can't find out, you can't refute them. They remain 'true'.
Social workers in adult social care love this because it's 'fictional work' of the same kind the police and CPS carried out re Sir Cliff and Paul Gambaccuni. It's more fun than real work and it's a fact based on my own experience that Surrey CC adult social care turns a blind eye to all allegations made against their dodgy care homes. But they have to be pretending to some work somehow - this is where concerned families come in, and get regularly turned over!
I like you hatgirl, I assume you know full well how corrupt and dodgy your chosen field is, and by making these posts you aim to get me to reveal all the tricks and tactics of your profession while shying away from whistleblowing yourself.
But doesn't anyone email you to have a quiet word? You're playing with fire, my dear.