'snatched' by social workers

[DuelingFanjo]

oh ffs

I know it's the Daily Mail but Social workers don't snatch children!

She looks good for 48 mind!

I'm a social worker and this is exactly the reason why we get such a bad name. I worked in child protection 3 years ago and it is not that easy to take a child into care...a lot of red tape etc...seems like there may be more to this story than meets the eye...but hey the daily mail [hmmm]. Child protection workers need a great bloody pay rise and a medal not this constant shit by jornalists who have'nt a pissin clue what they're on about. Think i was quite restained there . seriously i nearly lost my mind with the stress of it all!I work in adult mental health now...much nicer

Pennyrain, do you tell that to families you work with though? This SW basically told me if you don't do X,Y and Z by next week I can and will take your children away from you. She made it sound as though she could just decide she wanted to take them and that would be it.

I'm not saying all SW are bad, and it's a job I could never do. But there are some bad ones there.

I must say, NanaNina has done more to make me want to avoid social workers than all the articles in the DM I have ever read.

Shiny I think it depends on the reason for low weight. Ds was just ill and was throwing up a lot so not keeping any nutrients in. Eating whatever we could persuade him to eat certainly helped. He didn't have the sort of issues around food that your dd appears to have had. I would have wanted a psychologist referral too if I was in your position. Dieticians have a limited use ime. I didn't bother and simply discussed everything with our GP (whose also a paediatric registrar). Also didn't bother with the scaremongering HV.

I didn't have any SS contact although I was always worried that we would (and I reckon our GP ensured we didn't).

Yes i did. However I don't want to be misunderstood, if a child is at risk of suffering or has suffered harm, and the evidence is apparent then that child MUST be removed to a place of safety, and more often than not that is with a family member.And you are quite correct there are good SW and bad ones, as there are in all walks of life.

Have to agree Kathy12, Nananina's evangelical preaching has really put me off Social Workers and I was always broadly on their side. They have a difficult job but it is insane to pretend they do not make mistakes - everybody does - SS are people not robots.

It's so obviously not the full story is it?

Pennyrain the voice of reason from a SW for a change.

Nananina you are sounding more and more like a troll me dearie. A very cunning one at that,but the mask is slipping as an ind SW wouldnt be saying ooooh I'm scared. That is childish.

SSD cant tell us anything and in my book they should be allowed to at this stage as the child has been returned home now. The parents have went to the papers so the SSD should be allowed their side but I'll bet that it would make it a non story like I stated in my first post.

Yes there are good and bad out there, but common sense surely tells you that one social worker cant take away your child. They have to go to court for that yes they give good arguments for this but not all are granted.

I wish for the sake of my step kids it had of been granted years ago but no not even their own SW would take the mother to court of her meglect and abuse of them. They said she needed help what over 20 times they had to pick up the pieces. I dispair I do.

clearly this is not the whole story though, and there is plenty that has not been told from the parents' POV as well..

e.g. if the child was a picky eater, what did he eat? Because this is surely relevant wrt the advice given and the potential wellfare of the child. So if for instance he lived on pasta and had three meals a day then it might be more understandable for the parents to say they wouldn't want to fill him up on junk food than if he ate breakfast cereal at breakfast time and nothing else for the rest of the day, in which case the refusal to give him a high calory diet and to offer other things would be seen as potentially more damaging to a child who clearly needed to eat more in terms of calories and more regularly, iyswim.

The other thing that is telling here is the fact that only this child was taken into care, which surely implies that the concern was for the welfare of this particular child, rather than the parents' abilities.

"Yes there are good and bad out there, but common sense surely tells you that one social worker cant take away your child. They have to go to court for that yes they give good arguments for this but not all are granted."

DollyPS that is what I thought, before I had dealings with them. But this SW gave a totally different impression. The reason I was involved with them was due to the state of disrepair my landlords house was in. I had thought being involved with them, would help me get him to make the repairs to it it desperately needed. But no, they gave me a week to recarpet the whole downstairs of the house, put down new floor boards, fix the heating, buy new sofas and persuede the landlord to let me skip all his extra furniture (he seemed to use my house for storage purposes). They didn't speak to the landlord at all. Or give me any advice on how I could deal with him.

They were aware that we were living there as a stopgap solution untill our house was renovated (it was almost derelict when we bought it).

My dad even rang them and said if they gave us an extra week, he could finish all the work on our new house and help us move. The social workers exact words to him were "That is not good enough, I need the repairs done within a week. Do not underestimate the power of SS. If your daughter does not comply with us, we will remove the children from her care"

They didn't mention anything about the courts or legal advice, just that they could and would take the children. I had no internet access at the time, to be able to check any of this and didn't even think to go to a library, or cab. I just panicked.

I am however, aware that this was just one SW. I am sure that for every bad one, there are many more good ones. But I don't think they should be allowed to get away with being bad at their jobs when peoples family is at stake.

I dunno - it may be the way it's reported but it sounds all a bit to cock.

Parents go to doc because child is not gaining weight. Docs give advice. Parents not kee to take advice...

if doc then refered to SS then I guess they had to take some action.
I'd be interested to know how long the medics and SS tried to negotiate with parents.

But what happened next is unclear. SS put pressure on parents to accept a foster placement. That is unacceptable, of course.
But it then says that the parents got a lawyer and went to court. So had they agreed to a care order at some point?
Or was it contested?
If not, and it was voluntary, why court?
God, it bugs me when newspapers who bang on about being able to reprot court proceedings don't get the basics of procedure right.

This one actually made me laugh out loud because I know a social worker who's kid ate nothing but smiley faces until he was 5, literally nothing the parent did would get anything else into him so that's all they cooked in the end.

We also know an obese child in my daughters old school (9years old) who was sent home from school for feeling sick, mother collected her, took her to a local cafe where the kid ordered coke and curly fries, the schools teachers were sat at another table, witnessed this, said nothing.

How are we supposed to know what's allowed and what isn't the rules are so random.

The secrecy in the system makes it difficult for parents to know what "the rules" are. Furthermore it means there is no proper accountability for the rules.

The problem with court proceedings is that if you start going down that route you have a risk of a contempt action against the newspaper.

But there is action underway toestablish something similar to the RCN for just this purpose, and as someone who nursed albeit for as short a whileas it took me to run like Hell, I have faith in what that could achieve if done properly.

There's not going to be a rule book,ever. The rule si that a aprent cares for the basic needs of the child and that is something a SW has toassess for each case.

But at homestart we had to outline the systems we worked under, where they could get advice and who to contact if they were worried about anything about us,and absolutely SSD workers should have to adhere to the same criteria IMO.

"Actually duellingfanjo "social services don't snatch children" is demonstrably untrue. Cleveland ring any bells?"

1. That was many years ago and procedures have changed

1. They still can't 'snatch' children and they couldn't then.

What's your point?

DuelingFanjo Firstly, Childrens Services can ask the police to take children into temporary police protection. This happens often without proper evidence.

Secondly, they can threaten parents with court action if parents don't agree to a S20 action.

Thirdly, there are cases from time to time where they simply take children without proper authority. That is becoming rarer now.

Finally, however, it is court action at the initiation of Childrens Services that normally results in chidlren being taken into care. Parents have no right to an independent assessment and may be required to simply have their case considered on the basis of the assessments of the local authority.

Chesterfield Royal has a local reputation for being a bit shit, though, so wouldn't be surprised to hear there are some lousy docs or dietitians who handle parents all wrong and rush to SS when said parents don't obey every whim. Although I take Sprouting's point that she's found them fine, maybe these parents saw someone else?

My second hand experience of that hospital was to do with my sister giving birth - the midwives were horrible and threatened her with SS if she tried to discharge herself and her baby (because she was on anti-ds, that were on her records, that she'd discussed with her doctors and never tried to hide at all but the post-natal midwives got ridiculously excited about it. They should try being attacked by a man who breaks into your house in the middle of the night and see how they cope. Bitches).

What's my point?

johnhemming kind of just made my point for me. SS have, can and do take children away from perfectly competent loving parents. Fortunately they usually get them back. The fact remains they should never have been taken, or been at risk of being taken, in the first place.

Has is edam? Its not my local hospital. I ended up there due to previous bad births at Queens and Notts City and bad experience with peadiatrics at Kings Mill. People are always telling me how good Chesterfield Royal is and my experience of pregnacy, birth (emcs), scbu, pead inpatients and outpatients has all been excellent. The food is really bad and they seem to think its ok to suggest you sit in a cupboard to feed you baby but the fundamentals are good ime, much better than the other local hospitals.

I wish I could hear the other side of this story. There is something very odd about it.

I'm sorry if Nananina has put people off social workers, but I really appreciate the time she has given to explain the workings of the system. I can understand her frustration with the disinformation put about and johnhemming, you are pretty much the biggest offender.

I haven't got time now to debunk your assertions, but I shall later.

"DuelingFanjo Firstly, Childrens Services can ask the police to take children into temporary police protection."

you don't need to lecture me on this stuff JH, my mum was a social worker in child protection for many years and so I know exactly what is usually involved in child protection cases.

simply put, they don't 'snatch children'.

Your mum was a social worker, but you aren't?

Right, fairenoughsky, anyone want to ask me about oncology? My mum used to be an oncology nurse. I'm not one though....

Re johnhemming's comments:

' Firstly, Childrens Services can ask the police to take children into temporary police protection. This happens often without proper evidence'.

If you have ever worked with the Police you know they are not going to ask for their DI to ratify a decision to take a child into Police Protection because a Social Worker asked nicely. The Police are given these powers to use in an emergency situation for a maximum of 72 hours and they cannot go for a second lot on expiry, the matter has to go to court for children to be kept away from parents.

'Secondly, they can threaten parents with court action if parents don't agree to a S20 action'.

Again, you are misrepresenting how this works. Social workers have to use the least draconian measure and rather than putting parents through court proceedings immediately, will ask if they can work with them by agreement. Now I appreciate this may not seem like a real choice to parents if the consequence of not agreeing is the isuing of proceedings, but it is a choice between cooperation with a plan and not.

For some families it allows essential investigations to be completed and children returned to their care within 24 hours without the stress of getting a lawyer and going into court. However, parents should always be informed of their rights and advised of their right to legal advice (we have a letter and a leaflet of local solicitors) but some social workers regrettably are not good at getting this across.

I am happy for parents to take either path and wouldn't think badly of them either way -it's a choice.

'Thirdly, there are cases from time to time where they simply take children without proper authority. That is becoming rarer now'.

Absolutely agree.

'Finally, however, it is court action at the initiation of Childrens Services that normally results in chidlren being taken into care.'

Yes, of course it is. Sometimes judges ask for a s.37, but other than that, it's always the LA. Not sure what point you're making here.

'Parents have no right to an independent assessment and may be required to simply have their case considered on the basis of the assessments of the local authority.'

Parents do have a right to agree or disagree to assessments and their legal reps should ensure that the assessor is someone who is trusted by all parties - after all the LA wants to share the costs, so this makes sense.

georgimama is wrong on one point when she says: "SS have, can and do take children away from perfectly competent loving parents. Fortunately they usually get them back."

In England on statistics from 2006 the majority of children taken into care aged under 10 ended up getting adopted.

Getting children out of care in England back to their parents is difficult. It is harder often when the parents are "perfectly competent loving parents" as giving the children back involves in part admitting an original error.

wahwah and duelingfanjo now have the challenge of a critique of my well evidenced assertion as to how children are taken into care and how this can all be argued to be other than "snatching children" in a procedural sense.