This fear that social services will come and take your children...

[willsurvivethis]

...it worries me!

There seem to be so many women out there who are afraid to seek help for depression and other problems out of fear that they will lose their children.

I have just asked MNHQ if they would consider doing something with this. Because surely if so many of us fear to lose our children something is going wrong somewhere! Surely we should all be albe to seek help with confidence?

What are your thoughts on this? I struggle with PTSD and even told my doctor that I tended to keep emotional distance from my ds when he's ill without even considering the possibility of that having repercussions.

legalmums, I'm shocked
I dont think you should be spouting such stuff

www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol20No1/childProtection.htm

Please read the link!!!!

Im also involved fighting serious injustice.

I havent read all the posts as just thinking about it upsets me.

Are you medically trained legalmums?

PND is an illness. Baby blues is the term you are describing with the hormone shifts and lack of sleep etc. That goes away v quickly.

YOu are one of those people who thinks depression can be cured with a good ole laugh with mates aren't you? And those with it just need a kick up the arse?

As for "future emotional harm" ...wtf?? Next time you look in that crystal ball can you tell me the lottery numbers please?

In 10 years as a HV (the past 5 in a very deprived area) I can count on ONE hand the number of families I have been into where a child/children were removed.

IME it seems that there is no end of effort to keep families together - in some cases well beyond the benefit to the children,

Fear is one thing - wether those fears are grounded in fact is another issue - and given the irresponsible reporting by the media it is not surprising people worry.

oh for goodness sake talk about scare mongering!!!

i had severe depression when i was younger and was even sectioned under the mental health act after suicide attempts!
i was also anorexic. i now have various medical problems (some severe) so if ss are so happy to remove your children tell me why i have been able to keep all 3 of mine and.. AND been allowed to foster countless others???

this is all pure scaremongering and i am absolutely appalled that any of you would hide your illnesses out of fear of losing your children. i have never heard anything so utterly silly.
get a grip for goodness sakes.
social services only ever remove children where there is a need to.
they dont take children because you have dust on your tv they dont take children because you didnt breastfeed they dont take children to meet targets.
they only remove children after a report has been made to them and evidence has been found to back up concerns.
social services have no say at all in whether a child is adopted or not that is down to the childs court appointed guardian and the judge.

i am speechless that you would all fall these lies!
i am living proof that they dont remove your children if you are ill or depressed or whatever.
if this were the case i would not have been allowed to foster for the years that i have been.

and legalmums for gods sake will you crawl back under your stone.
you seem to think yourself a qualified social worker, doctor, judge and various other proffesions.

you are upsetting countless numbers of people and are helping nobody.
i think you yourself should see a doctor for mental health issues given that you thik a movie is real life!!!!!!!!!

i am so angry with the things you are posting.

But scare mongering does come into it, it has now become a fact to people that if you are mentally ill then they will take your children away. I was not suffering from PMI, however I can still remember my mum telling me to make sure my house looked tidy and everything was fine ready for the HV first visit because I didnt want her to think there were any problems!

legalmums..... what a load of absolute tosh. PND is a real illness, that psychiatrists diagnose,as do doctors and other trained health professionals... spreading such utter garbage makes women less likely to seek help for their real illness

if it is now a fact that mental illness means you lose your children how come my next door neighbour still has hers?
she has tried repeatedly in the last 18 months to commit suicide. she still has her children and she has never been visited by ss once!!!

Glad to hear the voices of reason

Well posted fostermum

I have a friend who fosters and judging by the state of the little ones she gets delivered to her doorstep children are kept with their parents for long, too long

news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8928000/8928337.stm www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511333/Baby-snatched-mother-minutes-birth-ordered-BACK-foster-care.html

Shall i go on!

fostermummytomany I'm am go glad you have had such a positive experience. But please please don't rubbish what is for many a genuine justified fear. I can assure you it is not scaremongering. Its a real issue that really needs addressing.

I am so glad

theratpack

there's a few problems with that article:

It's the Mail so the truth/fact bit is doubtful

John Hemming is involved

The very fact it makes headlines is proof how rare it is....

ok, so the mail can be questionable.

Forgive my naivety, but what is the issue with John Hemming?

Also, i think the issue is larger than just ss taking children into care. Its about discrimination, judgments and assuming mothers are guilty until proven innocent. Its about our culture becoming obsessed with box ticking and back covering in the extreme. Perhaps not everyone is affected but the fact the alot are is enough for me.

There is enough on MN alone about John Hemming, just search..

Thankyou. I have just briefly skimmed some of the posts re John Hemming.
Tbh i am glad that vulnerable families and victims of this injustice have a powerful advocate.

I am glad that i have found this thread, apologies for long post but i need advice. I am worried about stories i have read of babies being taken away cause mother has mental health problems. I have history of depression and self harm nothing recent. i am currently seeing psychologist after disclosing childhood abuse to cpn 2 years ago. when i got pregnant midwife expressed some concerns and refered me to perinatal mental health team, i lost the baby at 13weeks in the end. I am still seeing psychologist and finding that i am being less than honest about how bad things are, im really struggling but scared to say whats going thru head in case ss use it against me when i get to have baby, and say that i wont be able to cope etc. I have read about babies being taken cause of past depression let alone current, my dh says i should not believe all i read,but im so scared and so sad.

I thought this thread had died a long time ago but see it has been revived. I was a sw and team mgr for a LA for 25 years and have worked independently as a sw for 5 years, though am now retired.

All this business about SSD "snatching babies" to meet targets and placing for adoption is absolute nonsense and I am staggered at how many people believe this is the case. However it is the case that since the death of Baby Peter, applications for care orders have risen by 50% because sws are terrified that they too will have a child death on their caseload. Even so, there are numerous professionals involved in care proceedings and write reports for the judge at the final hearing and the birth parents are represented (which is quite right) and fight the birth parent's corner very hard. Any sw, psychologist, HV, GP, psychiatrist, play therapist, guardian etc who writes a statement for court can expect to be cross-examined for 3/4 hours by the lawyer for the birth parents.

Any professional who is involved in care proceedings knows that they must have evidence that the child is suffering from significant harm or is likely to suffer from significant harm. Judges are very astute in weighing up the evidence and though it is rare, if they feel that the birth parents have not been given sufficient support etc they will not make the order and the child is returned to the parents.

Most social workers would rather walk over broken glass that remove a child and start care proceedings and most prefer to support the family, but very often this support goes on too long (or the truth is being hidden as in baby P) Child protection is an incredibly stressful job and no decision is taken lightly, and it is of course the judge that makes the final decision.

In almost 30 years of social work I have never known a child be removed from a parent with mental health problems unless there was a risk of significant harm (as in the case of a parent with a psychotic illness where they are out of touch with reality) and then the parent is given support from psychiatric services in order for her to recover and take over the careof the child. I am not saying that there is never a case where a child is removed because they willnot be safe but as far as depression is concerned, it is just ludicrous to think that children are removed for this reason.

Fostermumtomany - well said you are spot on. However you say it is not the sws who decide on adoption but the guardian andthe judge. This is actually not the case. If the LA is going to court for a Care Order or a Placement Order (which allows a child to be placed for adoption) they have to have a Care plan, which states how they intend to secure the child's future if the judge agrees that rehab with the parents cannot be undertaken. Dependent upon ther age of the child and circumstances of the case, the sws must state in their careplan to the court whether they are considering adoption, permanent fostering, residence order or sometimes special guardianship order. The guardian can agree or disagree with the care plan, as can the Judge, but it is the responsibility of the sws involved in the case to say how they intend secure the child's future.

If the care plan devised by the sws is for adoption, and agreed by the guardian and the judge, then he/she will make a Placement Order which gives the LA permission to place the child for adoption, and then the prospective adoptors go to court to make their application, and the Order will be granted because it has already been agreed by the judge in the care proceedings.

Sorry for my long posts - I get a bit carried away.

Theratpack - John Hemmings is not a powerful advocate for these families. He is driven by some irrational notion based on personal experience that babies are "snatched" and has been ordered out of court in Birmingham and strongly criticised by a Senior Judge in the High Court (Wall LJ)

If anything he makes things worse for families caught up in care proceedings as they think he can help them, but actually he can't. He has posted ludicrous things on MN about social workers and many social workers and lawyers on here have given up arguing with him, as I have myself. The fact that an MMP is allowed to make such inflammatory comments whithout a shred of evidence is in my view highly irresponsible. a group of us have contacted Nick Clegg who has not even had the courtesy to respond, but we can see now what a weak minded person he is.

q2011 nothing of what you say will lead to your baby being taken away

NanaNina thank you

I think this thread needs to go back to bed - we had all these arguments and emotions first time round.

I disagree. I am not claiming to know it all, or think i am in the right. I do however believe there is a need to address what is happening and at the very least establish fact from fiction. Not have extreme view's either way. The sw, hv etc that have posted have posted on personal experience, just as the people who have posted about the other side of the discussion.

nananina you say that care proceedings have gone up 50% since baby p, you equate that to the fact that sw are terrified in case they have a baby death on their case load.

Have care procedings gone up because there is more abuse? or has the critera changed? or is it purly out of fear for there own reputation/ job? If it the latter, which in my personal experiance it is. Then surly that needs addresing? These are people's lives, peoples children ffs!

I've been admitted to mental hospital 3 times, twice since I've had kids. My dh cared for my kids for those few weeks. And yes I did meet single mums in hospital who's children were in temporary foster care (though mainly kids were with granny or whoever) but they did get the children back again.

Also if you have a baby and serious mental health problems you can often be admitted with the baby to a mother and baby unit.

"They" are not planning to take your kids away for mental health reasons. The one main concern is psychosis, but most psychosis is treatable with drugs so not a reason to take kids away.

But I share your paranoia, I was allocated extra at home health visitor visits which were meant to be helpful. But as it was because of previous mental health problems I refused to be visited and always dragged the double buggy to the surgery in the rain!

Agree madmouse that this thread needs to go back to bed. Theratpack - I think your query to me demonstrates exceptionally well how social workers can't do right for doing wrong.

All social workers have cases that are worrying but they continue to support and hope that the risk to the children will diminish because of extra support etc., which is what was happening with baby P.

So many social workers are looking differently at their "worrying" cases and are applying for care orders in case they are making the same mistake as Baby P's social worker. You ask if this is because of fear for their reputation/job - in part yes and why should this seem so unreasonable, and the other reason is to make certain that the risks to the child are
in fact put before the court and a variety of professionals can report upon the risks and their concerns about the child and at the final hearing the judge as always will make the decision. If he/she thinks that the risk is insufficient to make an order and the child is returned and later seriously injured or killed, then at least the sw can point to the fact that it was the judge that made the decision to return the child home. You say this needs "addressing" - how would you like it addressed exactly?

The trouble is that people who have no idea how the child protection system works, and the stressful it is to assess risk to children, think that they can make statements about what should or shouldn't happen. I think this is arrogant. I wouldn't dream of making categorical statements about doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, accountants, and whoever else's job
about which I had no real knowledge. BUT all and sundry feel that they know better than social workers who are doing a highly stressful job which is underfunded, and run the risk every day of making a decision that turns out to be wrong. You need the wisdom of solomon. Wish you could try it for a week and you'd see just how difficult it is and will get worse as the govt are making viscous cuts to social services and allogther public services.

I'll stop now because I'm sure you won't take anything I say on board because you'll know better of course!

The problem, in my opinion, is not what Social Services do but the manner in which they do it.

I won't go into the details of what happened when they investigated me. It was just after Baby P and all of the social work staff were quite visibly overworked, exhausted and terrified. But essentially, it took place as a result of monumental miscommunication between a GP, a well-known voluntary organisation and an administrator at the local social services office.

And so, when SS found all the allegations to be entirely groundless (and sent a detailed account of the allegations to another family, and took eight weeks to retrieve the letter) we complained to the PCT, voluntary organisation and to Social Services.

The PCT immediately accepted full responsibility for all that had happened, and apologised.

The voluntary organisation immediately identified the individual at fault, and suspended him until he'd completed further training, offering a full apology.

Social Services took three weeks to acknowledge my complaint and then demanded proof that I had not maliciously provided an incorrect name or address before replying. The reply, which took another eight weeks, was written with an NVQ entry level 3 of literacy, and basically blamed me for everything.

So I think we need to stop pretending that Social Services are saints and gods and somehow morally superior to the rest of us. The fuck up too. And, unlike other profesionals, seem very reluctant to admit it.