Social workers are under direct financial and career pressure to take children away from their parents - today's Mail

[edam]

Anyone who has followed Bunglie's saga will know how frightening social services practise towards some parents can be. Hopefully not in every case, but the attitude of professionals towards mothers accused of harming their children left/leaves a lot to be desired in terms of objectivity and evidence-gathering.

Today's Mail takes this onto new ground. I'd already heard from my sister, who works in this field, examples of parents with learning difficulties being treated as 'guilty until proved innocent' in terms of their capacity to look after their own children.

In p. 8 & 9 today's Mail carries a story on social workers removing children from people with learning difficulties. They include an opinion piece by Prof Tim Booth, prof social policy at Sheffield who has some interesting things to say about discrimination by soc. services: '[this is] a form of abuse by the system whereby people are made worse off by the services that are supposed to help them. It is rampant, pervasive and destructive of family life, and far more prevalent than ... child abuse. ...system abuse, more than child abuse, is the precipitating factor behind the high rates of child removal.'

Together with the Government's policy to 'encourage' all mothers of young children back to work whether they want to or not, and proposals for massive database storing information about all our children (and sparking social services investigations if two 'red flags' are raised - like a health visitor saying a baby is 'not gaining enough weight' and a later trip to A&E because the same child falls out of a tree), I'm very worried. It seems the Government is, whether deliberately or not, undermining the private sphere of family life and turning itself into the childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

What do you think?

My own impression of SS is through watching 3 sets of friends adopting children and watching that Fly on the Wall documentary, and my own impression is that since the days when Bunglies children were taken (and remember that is a while ago), SS have actually been erring the other way, and giving dodgy parents the benefit of the doubt. Of course children who are adopted are the ones that don't have the 'parents supported to create happy home for child ' ending, but I have freinds who are struggling with children aged 14 months to 2.5 who are deeply traumatised first of all be having been born into families who sexually abuse them (and a web of other relatives), drink to violent oblivion or take drugs to the physical and mental detriment of their unborn children, THEN spend a year settling happily with foster parents, then are placed with adoptive parents, and have a really hard time adjusting (regressing to complete baby behaviour for 6 weeks, screaming uncontrollably for the foster parents while ss insist on 'no contact', etc,) and I just think 'why weren't they placed in happy adoptive homes straight away? There is SO much evidence about what happens to a child emotionally before the age of 2, a child's life can't be put on hold while someone fails to stop using heroine to a dangerous degree or continues to have contact with a sex offender....

I don't think they're saying they're under pressure to take kids away from happy homes are they? But unhappy ones are different. I agree that SS policy is bound to be wildly different depending on what part of the country you're in and the party line for at least the last 20 years is to try to keep families together at all costs. If there is a backlash going on in some SS depts, though, it wouldn't be an enormous surprise would it?

KR, are you saying that the targets don't exist and are an invention of the DM, or that they do exist and SS depts ignore them?

I don't think anyone disagrees that the happy balance is somewhere in between acting too quickly and not doing enough. I just think articles like the one edam mentions don't help the situation either way but just cause a moral panic and a Daily Mail-esque collective 'how outrageous' type of response, with no real hard evidence of what is really happening.

Calig - Originally i was asking Edam to clarify the statement "Government wants 40 per cent more kids adopted", because I can't belive that the target is to take children away from happy families. If it's 40% of the children already in care, then I think it's acceptable to have a target.

my (second hand) experience of social services is also that they keep families together when most people would say the children needed to be rescued. However I have been reading recently (not in the mail) of families where one or both parents have learning difciculties and children are removed because the parents are felt to be unable to provide the right stimulation. It is obviously a difficult situation but it does sound as if they are removing children from loving parents.

Ah. OK. (Not sure I agree with you about targets though. Of course it's much better that kids grow up in families than in care, but if targets led to adoption procedures being relaxed so that kids were placed inappropriately, I'm not sure that's any better for them than growing up in care. I read some horrendous statistic about how many adoptions break down when children are teenagers, but I can't remember the figures atm.)

I don't necessarily agree with the Mail. In my experience social services seem to do their utmost to keep families together -sometimes to the detriment of the children. IMHO the biggest problem right now is that despite the plethora of bollocks about giving families extra support (not merely financial) there is still very little in the way of decent support for families which need it.
As a HV I see this on a regular basis and it's frightening. There are times when extra support has helped keep a family going where otherwise social services would have gone down the legal route leading to adoption. Unfortunately all this extra help comes at a price and out of SS budget which is not nearly big enough to provide support for every family that needs it.

And like every other service and every other person on this planet - sometimes social workers get it wrong - and it needs shouting to the skies when they do. Only this way will people wake up and realise the current situation is totally inadequate.

Talking to friends who know the adoption process inside out I have also been told that there is pressure to turn over numbers and get children into permanent places. I know of one case where I think the best decision has not been taken (ie the child has been placed inappropriately) and the fall out is painful to watch (and unfortunately entirely predictable). Don't want to say much more than that though.

My job brings me into contact with social services and families who under investigation by social services. It is very rare for children to be taken away from there parents, I se lots of cases where the best interests of the child are clearly not being served because SS are dragging there feet prhaps haunted by the Cleveland scandal.

I would not believe a word the Daily Mail says, it is on a propaganda mission to criticise any female dominated profession.

The Telegraph ran a series about the Sally Clarke/Roy Meadows/Ss issues over recent months. Okay, the Torygraph isn't exactly unbiased but its reporting on such issues I think is generally pretty good. Apparently, Essex SS in particular has been taking a lot of children into care and then adopting very, very quickly.

I think the 'we all hate the Daily Mail' stuff is a distraction. The issue here is about social services attitude to parents with learning difficulties. Which is, according to this professor, pretty discriminatory. And according to my sister who has tons of tales of social workers seeking evidence to remove children merely because their parents have learning difficulties - not because there is any actual evidence of harm.

Hmmm. And I was thinking of moving to Essex. Might not bother then!

but Edam (and don't take this the wrong way), the point is that if you don't trust the source of the info then you don't trust the info.

Just because this man is a professor doesn't make him right and with all due respect to your sister, her experiences are just that - the experiences of one social worker.

I'm not saying that I think this is wrong, just that I would not a lot more facts to be convinced.

I can only speak for my local council and ss department, which i work very closely with. My understanding from Care Managers here is that they simply don't have the money to take children into care, this costs them more than providing support to parents who need it. Care Managers are definitely not under pressure to remove children from their parental home, i have actually been involved in several cases where i have been terrified for the children's health and wellbeing and refer them to ss expecting removal to take place pretty quick and it doesn't happen!! My colleagues and i agree children need to be beaten black and blue, so there is visible evidence, before they get taking into care. Signs of neglect and emotional abuse are not 'in your face' enough to meet SS's criteria for placing into care.

Believe me, if the council want to meet its targets of adopted children, there are plenty of children in care they could place to make up their numbers. Their problem is finding people to adopt, not finding the children!

the mail is tory shite.

i phoned ss to take mine away and they wouldnt - i mean how dare they i pay my taxes!

custardo. .

lol custardo!

sigh... I know the Mail's political agenda - dont' actually buy the paper myself, if that makes any difference. But I'm having a serious sense of humour failure over this. It's about mis-treatment of a very vulnerable group. Who already face multiple discrimination in almost every aspect of life.

The fact that social workers do some good, or are under pressure, doesn't mean we as a society can ignore evidence that there may be a discriminatory policy here. OK, so this story is in the Mail, but it doesn't mean the issue isn't real, for heaven's sake. The plane crash is in the Mail too, does that mean it didn't happen?

Well in my experience even if they are beaten black and blue, taken into care, it is possible that they can still be handed back to a mother who is clearly unable to protect them. A mother protected by a very good barrister all paid for by legal aid.

I've seen that side of it too, Lucy, although a less extreme case. Very sad. But all the more reason why social services should be focusing their attention and effort on cases where there is actual harm.

I think the daily mail story is propoganda, and ss totally confuses me. I had ss round the same day dd's teacher put in a concern with them, scared the s* out of me, even though it was all a misunderstanding. I really dont understand how they can be on my doostep in a flash but miss cases s7uch as climbies and lucy5's description.

I work with a few families in which the parents have learning difficulties and social services have bent over backwards to help them - as they should.

I only know of one case where parents with learning difficulties have had their kids taken away and this was because they were beating the child black and blue - and the child was handed back a few months later.

Exactly edam, I agree.

Only just seen this post and finding it hard to read as for those who have read my story my ds was taken away from me by ss when in hosptial suffering from severe pnd (ds never hurt or abused in any way - neither was this the reason given. I also was frightened something terrible might happen to ds and was so frightened by these fears that i voiced them as thought some bad person would take ds.)

As i understand the reasoning was that I was far to ill mentally to care for ds and was never going to recover. This was disputed by my own doctors and psychiatrists who was meant to be a witness but the gal and sw got dismissed from case and he was overheard saying the situation was barmy and therefore could not be seen as 'un-biased' whilst they had a provate meeting with the psychiatrist on whoim the case rested on who they told according to notes supplied by them that i was not to be trusted and not to belive a word i say. Apparantly the gal was friend of psychiatrist too. The sw also was in the proces of lining up my ds for adoption should my now xp not be deemed capable. He was only deemed capable when he cut all ties from me. They told him i would never recover and that it was ds or me (he chose correctly thank god or ds would have been lost). I fought heavily through courts and cleared my name although ds initially remained with xp he now lives with me but no thanks to the ss. At the time our family needed support and we sought help actively. I have to say though that the last sw my ds had throughout the court process etc had experience in mental health and agreed i had suffered from pnd but appeared well now and helped facilitate the change in attitude.

I dont believe all social workers are bad tho but i think i got a bad one who consequently moved out of area. She influeced a gal who was at th time herself havinga very diffuclt time as her own son was poorly and same age as mine so i wonder wether she was able to remain objective.

On the flip side we got through it. My ds is flourishing and extremely loving, his dad and him also get on well. His dad and I will never get back together - too much happened there. I am settled and starting final year nurse training and loving having ds back home.

Awen,your post really struck a chord with me.
I can really sympathise with you and am so glad things worked out for you .

To cut a long story short I suffered from pnd and when i moved changed health visitors and she came to introduce herself to me and my dd and ds.
My ds is just 4 and having speech therapy,we are awaiting a an appointmebt with a speciallist but verbal dyspraxia has been mentioned by the therapist.DD is 2 and saying single words but not as many as the hv think she should be saying at her age.

Upshot is i confided in her my fears and anxietys about my pnd about going out and getting my confidence back and wanting to keep my children safe.I should say i lost both my parents and never got to say goodbye so i think my over protection of my children stems from that.
From this she concluded my mental health was holding back my childrens development and referred me to ss.After a visit with ss and hv i felt very threatened and was in a state of shock for awhile.

Conclusion my social worker was changed thank god and this new sw read the report and admitted she was trying to understand the reasons for the referral herself.Ultimitlly the case has now been closed.

I still feel so angry and betrayed and i would never open myself up to any one again.I felt like i was being punished for having pnd and that if it turns out my ds has verbal dyspraxia that my mental health is to blame.

Sorry for the long rant ,I just thank god that another sw took over my case as i dread to think what may have happened if not.