Social workers wrongly took seriously ill little girl from her parents in a 'feeding frenzy' of 'misrepresented and incomplete information'

[edam]

The judge's words, not mine. They called in uniformed police to snatch an ill little girl from her home, FFS. Smacks of arrogance and a severe lack of critical thinking on the part of these social workers and the other professionals involved.

I know social workers have a difficult job yadda yadda yadda but they still need to behave properly and avoid actually harming children. Much like the doctors' pledge to 'first do no harm'. It took SIX MONTHS for SWs to figure up they'd made up a load of crap about the family!

I seem to recall that Surrey County Council have been criticised by judges before for being heavy-handed, but may be mistaken...

So basically SW are damned if they do, damned if they don't

I'm not trying to be goady btw and I do appreciate there will be SW out there who do not act in the best interest of the child or who misread information, but it seems they are represented as either ignoring vital signs (Baby P) or being over zealous & trigger happy as in this case.

Horrible, horrible thing to have happened though, the poor parents & poor little girl, it must have been a terrifying experience

No, no more than doctors are damned if they operate and damned if they don't. The point is SWs should take the right action in the right cases - that's the job. Just as it's a surgeon's job to remove the tumour if you have cancer (and surgery is the best option) and leave you alone if you don't.

Indeed re. terrifying - the trauma inflicted on that little girl and her family will leave a long-term mark, I should imagine.

"their attempts to have a say were viewed as meddling. "

This is something that does happen and it needs to change

Me and my husband both worked in the care sector for a number of years and my husband actually worked for social services at one point and while I must first stress that there are a lot of truly dedicated people out there who really care and ime they seriously outnumber the arseholes - there are also people who think that they must be in charge and who actually get snotty if they are disagreed with and act like if a parent has any knowledge at all, that's a bad thing.

It does no good to pretend that everyone in the field is a saint. That isn't true. As with every profession, there are wankers. There are bullies and there are those on power trips. And they can affect people's lives! When you've got someone working in burger king who is an arrogant arsewipe, there's little damage they can do. But get one in a profession where they have control over people's lives and there need to be bloody good systems in place to stop them wreaking havoc!

There needs to be a shake up and certainly more training. And more funding! And the good ones need to be able to report their concerns without fear and know that their concerns will be properly looked into.

It's a really really difficult job. And we only hear about the cases when they didn't remove a child and the child was later killed and the cases where they removed a child wrongly, but we don't hear about all the cases where they've removed a child in danger and kept a family together by supporting them and closed cases because there's no problem at all because that's what they're supposed to do. Job Performed In Accordance With Guidelines And Appropriate Outcome Achieved does not a good headline make!

But when the job you do is so important, there's no room for mistakes and everything possible should be done to make sure they don't happen. And when they do, they don't happen again!

It's important to continually look at the profession and see where it is letting people down/being let down and work to change it.

agree entirely, hecsy.

There needs to be some critical thinking - a level of checking whether any concerns are important, true and justified.

They were protecting the child from further harm. There is no room for mistakes, you're right; and so they did not want that child left to be harmed more. It appeared as though they had cut part of her breathing equipment - just HOW else should they have reacted other than to immediately protect the child?

If they hadn't have done this, the papers would be screaming 'Baby P' all over again. Social workers are either baby snatchers who love removing children, or paper shufflers who can't see danger when it's in front of them. I don't envy them at all.

Sirboob where does it say they actually CUT the tube - this is what was actually said
The crisis came early this year after one or other of the parents were accused of putting their daughter at risk of harm by deliberately cutting a tube that formed part of her ventilation equipment.
The judge said that allegation was "wholly improbable" and any finding against the parents could only be based on a "huge degree of speculation."

Agree completely with Hecsy.

My family have experienced the best and the worst in the field when my DBro took residency of his daughters who had been abused by their mother. The first social worker spoke to ex-SIL and totally took her word that DBro had abandoned the children, despite the fact that she had also been prosecuted for assaulting my bro. He was infact living in my parents spare room 350 miles away because of work.

If it wasn't for the fact my ex-SIL is stupid and bragged in her parents pub that DBro wouldn't see his kids again and was overheard by some of his mates then the kids would be in care.

He complained, it was upheld and was assigned a fantastic worker who has supported the girls in the move. She has facilitated contact (led by the children) with their mother and is generally fantastic and dedicated to her job.

I do think some people do need to realise that there are good and bad in every field.

Also, nowhere does it say that SW were on this 'feeding frenzy', that has been assumed by the OP. There were 22 witnesses. With a child in such a precarious position medically, the drs/HVs etc would be the leading authority and advice givers, not the SW - they have the responsibility overall, and the advice given by others would have been the cue.

And also, does 'snatched an ill girl' give a clue about the OPs apparent prejudice and willingness to condemn off a newspaper account?

And also........yes, some SWers are fuckwits and shouldn't be trusted to dress themselves in the morning, but the evidence here isn't exactly conclusive, is it? But don't let facts stop anyone.

Pan did you actually READ the article - this is what it said re the 'feeding frenzy'

The judge said that allegation was "wholly improbable" and any finding against the parents could only be based on a "huge degree of speculation."
She told the High Court: "Regrettably, the evidence points to a feeding frenzy of misrepresented and incomplete information that, adopting the terminology used against the parents, escalated out of control."

so NOT an assumption by the OP

Pan 22 witnesses to WHAT exactly

again read what the Judge said

However - after hearing nine days of argument and 22 witnesses - Mrs Justice Theis said the claims against the parents were simply not borne out by the evidence and many of the issues had been "to put it at its most neutral, misunderstood" by social workers.

Yes MrsD - try reading it again and see where it says the SW appeared on a feeding frenzy. Paediatricians and whichever other medics would have the prime position to give the crucial advice. Last time I looked SW were not responsible for medical interventions and their scrutiny.

Well quite. Witnesses to what, we don't know really do we? There would have been a whole collection of professionals involved here.

Very sad

The best information about the case, you will fine in the actual court judgement

The court judgement for this case is here - Re E (A Child)

This particular judgement is very long and in depth. I'm part way through it and it's sad and sheds more light on everything than the newpaper article did.

Worth remembering that if a court case reaches the media and is reported then the court judgement is probably going to be public

Wow, thanks Lilka - it does beg a question though as to why, if the hospitals suspicion was that the parents had cut the tube, weren't the police involved at a much sooner point re enquiry on attempt murder.
It does also explain a lot re the stuff mentioned upthread. thanks again.

Pan I have read it - it is very clear that the decision to remove the child was Social services lead and that they had a negative attitude to the parents . There was NO evidence according to the Judge that the parents cut the tube.

I personally don't care how many professionals were involved, an experienced Judge has said that Social Services were WRONG.

It seems it was the community health/nursing staff, not SWs that were on a "feeding frenzy"?

There is an issue that SWs aren't medical experts - so when presented with this very alarming account by the medical professionals "portraying the parents as manipulators, fabricators, demanding, unreasonable and difficult, who had cut their daughter's essential medical equipment" - they took it on face value.

They were not critical enough of the medical staff in this situation, but I can kind of understand the SW deferring to the doctors/nurses as "experts" especially in a situation like this where the child has very serious medical needs, and the medical team are having most contact with the family.

Very interesting to read the whole court judgement.

Very serious failings in Social Services - as well as taking the community health team's allegations at face value there seemed to be a total failure of management and an organisation of social work teams that meant no continuity. Seems like SS just panicked?

MrsD - it's pretty clear from the judge's summing up (which isn't the comprehensive all-revealing word, for lots of reasons) that it was a very difficult set of circs for all concerned, and it shed light on some issues eg suspect aggressive behaviour (does he have form for this?), non-assessed learning difficulty, reasons for not doing an EPO, SW understandable reliance on 'expert' advice which is troubling to see how they could actually 'challenge' etc.
And despite your use of capitals, again the judge didn't say SWers were wrong. I think Ms Cooke SW was pretty well spot on and typifies the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' position lots of SWers find themselves in. Unlike most professionals, their decisions are often open to public scrutiny and mis-reporting. When work conditions and stresses work against them. One of the very last jobs I would want is a Child Protection SWer's job.

The judge said quite clearly that the LA was wrong to remove the child, wrong in the way they went about it, wrong in not being critical enough of the evidence, wrong in not informing the parents they should seek legal advice. Removing the child without a care plan in place and excluding her parents was damaging for the child's health. The case was poorly managed and the locum social worker's reports were riddled with errors.

Having read the Press article and then the transcript I think the judge was fully justified in throwing the book at the social workers.

These parents had their world turned upside down when this severely damaged child was born -so much so that they effectively had to become highly qualified intensive care nurses overnight - in their own home! The package of care allowed them to receive a night's sleep but for all but 4 hours each day they were fully responsible for their child - which meant continuous observation of the child's needs. What a strain on them - or as one experienced clinician observed, this is the type of case that would never have been released from hospital in earlier times.

And then you see the very long list of people involved in this child's care - the LA staff, NHS staff, Agency staff, Consultants etc etc etc. Barely any of them providing practical help but all very willing to stick their oar in, criticise, and generally harass the parents who, by this time, must have felt like goldfish swimming in a bowl in their own homes. And how do these parents - their 'slaves' (as they are doing this for the love of their daughter) get rewarded? By cumulative whispers, criticism, and power trip of these people led to them taking the child needlessly into care.

How much money was wasted on all these parasites and on this CP action - money that could have been used to benefit the child itself.

I've had dealing with an LA myself (not CP) so have some idea of how these people operate. They are a tsunami that it's impossible to swim against. They overwhelm you and they reinforce each other's misbeliefs.

If I was the parents I would say - stuff it. You can take my daughter back into hospital where it will cost you millions of £s per year caring for year and I will visit as much as I want.

I am disgusted.

There's nothing to suggest the agency staff/carers did anything but help - it was the NHS community health team (and one manager in particular) that took against the parents.

whoa! Back track. Judge didn't say anywhere all of those 'wrongs'. Removal of the child should have been under an EPO, not a Sec 20, it doesn't mean they were wrong in removing the child, given the information and the fact the family were off to Birmingham the following day. The LA were open to criticisms yes, but these were highly unusual circs and the SW on the ground had to rely on others to guide their decisions.

As the barrister indicated, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but means nothing at the time.
Imagine the alternative headline? "Despite concerns expressed by medical professionals, SW goes of on a skiing holiday and leaves an infant in her care to die."