Social worker power

[Babyonboardinthesticks]

...needs to be curbed. Also if cases in the press there should be more rights for social workers to publicise their own evidence to some extent too. Openness is more important than confidentiality sometimes. Justice needing to be seen to be done as much as done.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7052599.ece

It feels at times like the book 1984. You suspect if the state really wants to take your children they could come into any of our homes and find anything that every average parent has done and claim that's "abuse" and remove the child and that once you're in their clutches that's that.

We should let parents waive anonymity and set up web sites with access to all correspondence and reports.

I absolutely agree that there needs to be more openness and wish to point out that they can and do abuse their powers to remove elderly parents.

yes, there is far too little publicity about the elderly. Both my parents got very ill and both died at home in the end, my father having used his life savings to pay for 24/7 at home care which was lovely he could afford to do so. I love it that they both died at home, the home I was brought to aged 2 days old in 1961. But when he had dementia you can just imagine the power others then can have over you.

In the example here it seems the child could stay at home but subject to unannounced visits. I suppose all of us at any point could be subject to an unnannounced visit. They are very difficult issues. At one extreme you'd say if you've nothing to hide have live web cam beamed into miss bossy boots social worker's PC at all times then - see us any time you like, naked in tooth and claw, 1984 style total state control of your home life; at the other - we can enter our compound and up to us what we do with our children.

Somewhere in the middle the state has to draw a line but I just don't believe there are enough checks and balances even if you are well educated and well off enough to afford your own independent reports. And some of the things they seem to think are abuse are ludicrous. We need a much much more limited list which is principally physical abuse.

I know it's horrible for children to be shouted at or told they are rubbish (and probably most mothers on mumsnet have said things to their children over the years they regret and we might not want the child to record on web cam and put on youtube) but I think the line should be drawn at bad physical abuse and I'd rather some chidlren were damaged by verbal abuse but left at home to ensure those against whom untrue allegations or emotional/verbal abuse had been made were not then subject to investigations. Surely that would be a simple measure.

So that parents know they can tell children they were brought by the stork, or that God made them o r they will die in Hell if they do XYZ or be shown the video of the C section ( I have a photo of one of my sons emerging from me at home at his home birth - I bet some social worker with hangups would say to show a child a photo of that is abusive for example but it should be within the range of what is allowed) that women are subsidary to men or women rule the world or whatever other stuff you want to indoctrinate your child with.

But they are not easy issues if allegations of physical abuse are made. On balance I'd rather more children died at the hands of their parents then innocent parents had children removed from their care. Have we had that debate in the UK? It will always be a balance. It's dead easy to get parents all up in arms over children who die because social workers do not intervene but you need to decide where the line is drawn and whether some risks are worth running for the greater good of not interfering in families.

The Englishman's home is his castle. We want to buy property. We want to pull up the draw bridge. We want total privacy. It's our English nature. We are eccentric and we want the right to exercise our eccentricity.

its very very difficult to remove children from abusive situation.

And that very useless charity organisation the nspcc wants them to have more powers;

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8553085.stm

The whole family court system needs to be turned on it's head and opening it up to scrutiny is just the start.

The article in your OP is scary xenia.

As ever though we don't know the SW side as they aren't allowed to say. Which is where the problem arises. SS would have us believe that the woman is not telling the whole truth, as obviously they would never do something like that. But we have to trust them on that, as they can't tell us what their actual concerns are. It's all cockeyed and no surprise that people are scared and suspicious of SS.

People always come on and say it is very hard to take children. I would like to believe that is true and on teh whole I do, although I am sure that mistakes have been made.

The thing that gets me is that being involved with SS in any capacity, even just having an initial check, is deeply traumatic. People seem to be quite trigger happy reporting people, and saying "no harm done". Well there is harm done, a lot of harm, even in cases which are dropped.

As for the CS thing - I told my 2yo how her sister was born and whoed her the scar - I needed to explain to her why I couldn't carry her for a while and telling her the truth and showing her "the hurt" made sense to her.

I cannot believe that SS would seriously think that was concerning.

I also agree that a balance needs to be found. Between protecting the abused, and protecting innocent people from having tehir lives damaged. At the moment it seems that SS depts take their eye off the ball, there is a high profile death, then they go bananas trying to show how efficient and effective they are by going too far in the other direction, and scaring the crap out of lots of normal people. Just look at the way the numbers of SS investigations shoot up after a high profile case. That never seems to stop the deaths though, it just seems to put loads more innocent people on their radars.

that article is truly truly scary

so do SS think that it would be better for my DDs to be lied to about how they were born, or to know they were all born by CS? And how was I supposed to hide the fact that I was recovering from major surgery from the older one(s)?

There's two explanations - either there's a lot more to this than is being reported, or Birmingham (?) SS have gone totally loopy.

And they reckon they need more powers??

Bloody hell!!! my dc all know they were c section babies in fact eldest ds who was 7 at the time kept his class upto date with the growth and development of ds3 whilst he was in the womb - knowing that I would be having an elective section the teacher told the class and at around 9.30 am when my op was scheduled they all prayed for me and the baby .....less than 4 days old and he was in the class whilst the children looked at 'their' project !!!

Lock me up and throw away the key!!!

sorry the article sounds like there is alot more going on, once again we can only hear one side of the story.

Riven - I fear that they say this so that you don't ask for respite which they just can not give... I truely beleive they wouldn't take your dc away as they just don't have the resources to look after them - just scare mongering incase you want expensive respite care. I have become far more cynical as I have got older.

As for people being allowed to die at home it just doesn't seems to happen so much anymore and hospice car is so limited due to lack of funds as they are just not given the funds to be able to operate to full capacity - even though most funds are donated through charity - charity keeps the NHS going

it sounds as if the mother didn't play the game, so it escalated. Had she engaged with them at the beginning and toed the line the case would probably have been dropped. Unfortunately whenever you deal with social services you have to play a game. It's the only way to deal with them.

I do think individual SW can have too much power. Have come across a few cases now where a SW approach a disability case with a child protection head on. It's not appropriate and I know of more than one case where it has ended up with the family in agony and in a very difficult situation. In all cases that I know of it seems to have started with one social worker galloping off in the wrong direction.

There are some good social workers (we had an excellent one last year) but there are truly some dreadful ones (like any profession). The problem is if you are assigned a dreadful one you can end up with no support/in very hot water.

"it sounds as if the mother didn't play the game, so it escalated. Had she engaged with them at the beginning and toed the line the case would probably have been dropped. Unfortunately whenever you deal with social services you have to play a game. It's the only way to deal with them."

Yes, I totally agree, but it should not be that way.

Most parents like the one in the article have done nothing wrong when they are thrust into this nightmare, the first reaction is complete shock, the next reaction is anger and then you go through the 'oh don't be so stupid go away and leave us alone' phase, finishing with the disbelief and panic era.

I am also disgusted that the husband had to discharge himself from hospital and spent time in a cell, which really does show how much 'power' social services have.

Oh feck me - not again - yeah - lets leave children in abusive situations unless they are physically abused eh?
Has anyone here seen the comparisons in brain development which occur with neglected and non-neglected children?

This gives an idea of what occurs to a child with neglect. Hence the need for neglect to be taken so seriously. It's sadly not enough to say - if a child is not being abused physically then they should remain in the home. Tbh - proving neglect takes years and by then the damage is done - hence the call to identify these children much sooner and put in support where it's needed.

SS are often called in when both person and carer are at a low ebb, therefore very vulnerable and this is often overlooked. It is simply not good enough to be bullied or coerced when help is required. I feel so sad and angry for you Riven.

Carers often feel powerless and even secondary once SS become involved.

There is a general fear of SS now which is not helped by the covert and negative nature of the SS nor by the initials used.

Agree that it shouldn't be like that atlantis. It sounds as if there should never have been a question raised in this case at all - unfortunately by running away and refusing to meet with SS the powerful might kicked in. I'm not saying it is right at all, just that it you do have to play the game with them if you want to do your best to avoid this sort of situation (although of course had she played ball she could still have ended up in a mess if her SW happened to be one of the dodgy ones).

Message withdrawn

Having a child subject to a child protection plan for emotional abuse requires considerable more evidence of concern than is reported here, although reporting is usually pretty bad in these sorts of circumstances.

It's hard to know what to say. As an insider, I know most of the crap directed at Social Workers and their 'powers' is pure paranoid fantasy from adult focussed abuse deniers, but I am also aware of poor practice and experiences of other mumsnetters like Riven, which I completely accept.

I hope you all get the system you want, after over 10 years of giving it my best shot I am totally fucked off with being thrown to the lions and the most rational people I come across being the parents of the children who are our clients. I am out of it and I hope those who come after me don't get further dragged down by the sheer vitriol. I am incredibly proud of the job I did and I hope more quality people get involved in this incredibly complex and worthwhile work.

But why should the mother have to play the game and kow tow to them anyway and bow and scrape to people interfering in her family life, and I bet in this case there is nothing else to go on at all. I would rather SAS and the parents had the right to publicise the details so if for example they have photographs of the child's body covered in scars of beatings then better that is shown that we just think an injustice has gone on. In other words I think the privacy rights should largely go out the window in the interests of justice being seen to be done. Perhaps the parents shoudl have a right to waive privacy on all sides in these cases.

I would certainly abolisyh any right to interfere for emotional abuse of any kind. It's too riven with difficulties of proof. Let's just have physical abuse even if more children are emotionally abused by their parents. I'd draw my line there.

Personally I think it would be helpful if people were given someone to be "on their side" in their dealings with SS, from the off.

The problem with playing the game, is that people who have never been in trouble before do not know how the game works or how to play it, and end up in the shit.

The Family Rights Group can be very helpful to people caught up in contact with Social Services and I've never heard anything negative from parents or professionals about their activities. They don't seem to have an axe to grind, just to make sure advocacy and rights are in place.

Xenia, your assumption that there is a game to be played here is just that. I understand your point about physical abuse, but many survivors of emotional abuse point to the particular damages of this and sometimes say it is worse. I understand that in terms of 'proof' scars and bruises and broken limbs and fractured skulls are far more straightforward, but the worst damaged children I have seen have all been horribly emotionally abused as a central part of their abuse.

Your understanding of 'Social Worker Power' might be enhanced by reading some of the threads on here- Nananina has written good explanations on this.

I am very much in favour of being able to reply to some of the utter crap I see in the media and would like to see a more frank exchange of information, but children's right to privacy protected adequately.

The journalist in this case had a copy of the child protection conference assessment.