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!

Pan, re-read points 58 and 59. Quite clearly the judge said there wasn't evidence of significant risk to the child, it wasn't exceptional circumstances, and no consideration was given to helping the family take the child to Birmingham.

maja00 - there's quite a difference between "wasn't evidence of significant risk" (you) and risks were "not as immediate as were being presented" (judge). We are sliding into risk management lingo, I know, but these terms have a 'forensic' meaning and the judge will know this, obv.

Overall it's really sad, as lilka said, ultimately for the little one, and the finer filigree of who said what to whom, when and why will still be left unspoken.

Good grief. Thanks for posting that link to the full judgement, Lilka. Horrifying stuff.

Not only was the whole farrago built on gossip, rumour, spite, and stupidity, but the witnesses who were critical of the parents were liars - who 'when confronted with the contemporaneous records had to revise the contents of their written statements' according to the judge. 'Repeatedly.'

...but probably kept their jobs

I am sorry but Pan is just identifying with the SW she is either one her self or one of these people who think that 'professionals' don't lie or get things wrong and that parents and carers are there to do what they are told and shouldn't upset the nice "authority figures'

Well, neither MrsD, just someone who reads this stuff critically rather than jumping on an easy bandwagon.

The easy bandwagon is actually to just assume that the 'professionals' are always right. You don't seem to have taken on board what a JUDGE said
in her own court, now until I hear that the Judge has been sanctioned
for her comments or has been proved wrong by another Judge I am going to have the opinion that the Judge was correct and I for one am glad that our Judges are now no longer taking the side of the 'Authorities' and will come down on the side of loving parents, parents who have had their lives taken apart and are treated with disdain and suspicion and utter contempt by the people supposed to be supporting them

My sister's a nurse and sadly has many tales of the negative, patronising and sometimes hostile attitudes some health and social care professionals display towards families of people with learning disabilities - especially once those people move into adult services from children's.

I am an NHS professional. This year, I have also been an NHS service user for postnatal depression.

In both contexts, I have met gossipy so-called 'professionals' who spend more time discussing what is happening with someone behind their backs than they do establishing actual facts. Of course there are many dedicated and thorough professionals but I would say the notion of a 'feeding frenzy' is not that outrageous.

I missed ONE appointment with a psychiatrist when I was about six weeks postpartum and repeatedly this came up as 'evidence' I didn't want to help myself, I was disengaged etc. This was one of 45 appointments I had related to my depression across services from 28 weeks of pregnancy through to a year postpartum, 44 of which I was on time and prepared for and engaged with.

I asserted this and was shouted down, told this wasn't the case, I was fooling myself etc, etc.. until the CBT therapist confirmed my account and with this validation I got an apology. Without a professional to advocate for me, my own word would have counted for nothing.

This is but one small and relatively trivial example of monumental levels of miscommunication among one team of professionals who clearly spent more time talking about me than to me. I've been on multidisciplinary teams. I KNOW there are people who become intoxicated with the clever tale they can spin about a family to the extent they lose all sight of the facts. Most of my colleagues (some in social work) will have seen this happen too. It can become the emperor's new clothes. Let's not assume that some professionals don't need to be bashed. It's in no one's interest to defend what was clearly a total cock up with far-reaching consequences for this girl and her family.

Fascinating to hear from someone who has seen both sides of the experience, working. I do hope you are recovered now.

The judge added that social workers' "negative attitude to the parents" had been fostered by the suggestion that they had 'induced' or 'fabricated' some of their daughter's problems - a claim which had never been properly investigated.

This says that social workers accepted the medical professionals' dislike of the parents, and what ensued was a snowballing (or feeding frenzy, as the judge did say) of unquestioned misinformation.

The council accepted in court that the steps taken that evening "cannot be justified" and the judge described them as 'wholly inappropriate'.

This says the council takes the blame for its employees' - the social workers - unjustifiable action. It also says the judge saw no mitigating excuses for their unjustifiable action, as she used the word "wholly".

I agree with edam, social work is a profession and its practitioners are obliged to act professionally. It is not professional to bugger up clients' lives on the basis of hearsay. Can you imagine a surgeon basing his decision to operate on gossip, or a civil engineer not bothering to check whether the materials she specified were up to the job?

(Actually, I can think of examples of both, but there was mass outrage and loss of licences!)

Oops, just seen it was Sunday when you last posted, Edam. For some reason, I thought it was today.

Who'd be a social worker these days? Dealing with difficult people, under resourced, and an army of armchair critics to crap on you if you get it wrong every so often.

Theis J was highly critical of the management of the case by the Local Authority. She noted that there was a lack of effective structure and leadership within the LA regarding the decisions made before and after E's removal from her parents care. Theis J observed that the changes from one social work team to another as between three different teams (Children with Disabilities, Duty and Assessment team and Child Protection and Proceedings team) over a relatively short period of time added to the confusion and poor decision making. Further, there was little evidence of effective and consistent management or supervision of the social workers who were operating on the ground.

This is what concerns me the most. A direct result of over stretched, under trained, under supported, under paid public service employees in a back drop of further cuts to be expected? I absolutely take my hat off to the good guys still working in this shambles of a field, of which I know there are many.

Surrey has been a deeply and historically troubled council www.standard.co.uk/news/bullying-and-obsession-with-red-tape-to-blame-for-conservative-council-hell-6799777.html

I believe this government improvement notice issued to Surrey County Council in 2008 was lifted in 2010, but you have to wonder if anything really improved given the concerns raised by the Judge.

Having skimmed through the judgement it's fairly obvious that something very serious happened.

Her tubes were cut, apparently deliberately, with a very sharp instrument.

Someone needed to do something that's for sure.

Anyone else suspicious of CK ?

i see a pattern here as well of medical professionals blaming the parents, and insinuating they exaggerate or make up symptoms, when dealing with children with complex health needs, who they cant 'cure'.
i have seen this first hand, usually with articulate, engaged oarents who are not afraid to challenge health professionals on substandard care.

I work in the NHS. Agree with working's post.

What we can be sure of Cumfy, is a scathing review by a High Court Judge of the steps taken in ascertaining what actually happened. How often these steps are taken, in the way ANY parent should rightfully expect, is certainly something to be concerned about.

And YY Merci, one has to wonder what happens to children from families without significant ability to challenge ?authority? figures single handedly.

And I disagree with the notion elsewhere on this thread that social workers are damned if they do and damned if they don?t, with respect to removing a child. They are rightly damned if they don?t act properly, and more importantly, they are potentially damaging children, whether at risk or otherwise, if they don?t follow due procedure and set out their cases in the correct way.

FWIW all those involved with intervention, NHS, Social Services and Vol sector, should get far more public recognition for their successes in being an essential source of support for children and families, which happens very well in many areas, we just don?t hear about it as often. But, when things get this lackadaisical at the top (when staff aren?t trained, supported or monitored effectively and communication between agencies is poor, competition is high and funding cuts continue to be drastic) vulnerable children end up suffering.

But yes, clearly we need to find that extra £40 billion from fuckknowswhere to overspend on a high speed railway, that'll help (sorry, just heard about it and it makes me so when we are penny pinching so much from vital services which affect the frontline)

Agree with you there, Sleep, amazing how the government can find funds for the stuff it wants to do, while blaming lack of funds for dangerous cuts in services that are crucial to the survival of the most vulnerable.

(But it's not just about cuts, the judge pointed out several witnesses were lying - or changed their tune when faced with actual contemporaneous statements/evidence.)

The question is:

Who cut the tubes ?

I believe the police should have been involved from an early stage, investigating the possibility of attempted murder.

The ambit of the court in this matter is clearly circumscribed, but I still feel it looks like a whitewash, distracting from the primary issue that there should have been a parallel criminal investigation from the earliest stage.