Hi all, I'm desperate for some advice and would appreciate feedback from anybody who works in social work, has experience in law or has had personal experience with dealing with social services in subsequent pregnancies after having a child removed.
Im 24 yrs old. When I was 18 I was in an abusive relationship with a man who had an extensive criminal past of DV. He was known to social services due to his first born child being taken from him and an ex at approx 1 years old and the child was subsequently adopted.
I was young, naive and didn't know all the facts - he hadn't yet hurt me by the time I fell pregnant and I underestimated the risk he posed to me. I had no family in the area and was very isolated.
When I fell pregnant he became abusive, emotionally and verbally. I confided in a midwife at my first antenatal appointment with my concerns about his past and how he was acting with me now and i was referred to social services. They were involved with me from being 13 weeks pregnant, visiting the home and asking me to attend sure start centre classes which I did.
When I began to worry about removal I asked my SW whether I could move to another city closer to my family to help my case away from the father and I was specifically told not to because it would 'disrupt' the assessment process.
I found my sw to be very unhelpful and at 36 weeks pregnant they told me would go to court and remove my baby at birth without offering any alternative intervention despite me doing everything they'd asked. Prior to the PLO meeting which I was prevented from attending (my then solicitor was not acting in my favour) I again asked if they would support me leaving the town with my baby and I was told no, stay, no final decisions had not been made yet.
I don't feel as though I was given any support or encouragement to leave this man throughout my assessments and I accept I could have upped and left but I was young vulnerable isolated and very much under his control.
When baby was born at 38 weeks it was a Saturday, out of hours social services arrived at the hospital and told me they'd apply to court on Monday to remove my son. Foolishly, out of panic, I left the hospital with my son and took him home against their instructions. They told the hospital to call the police who came and got us, returning us to the ward where we had to stay until the social worker came to remove him on the Monday.
I didn't attend court as my solicitor said I was too emotional and it was best she go on my behalf. She said it would look better if I didn't oppose the order as it showed me accepting there was risk. I trusted her and agreed for her to go and speak on my behalf, again, and tell the court I don't oppose the interim care order being made temporarily. She didn't make me aware of any other options such as mother and baby units or mother and baby foster placements.
Order was granted on the grounds of my son being "at risk of emotional harm" and he was then taken from the hospital.
Back at home the physical abuse started where he would attack me and shortly after so did the sexual abuse. My ex coerced me into prostitution, which I am painfully ashamed to admit. I was in my own admission smoking cannabis as I struggled to cope with what was happening.
Social services had included in their mitigation that I had mental health problems which isn't the case, I've never been known to mental health services although I did have a very short period where I felt low, aged 16, where I was on antidepressants following the death of my grandparents.
While this was going on I continued to fight for my son in court, I sacked my solicitor who wasn't helping me whatsoever and began to represent myself for a period before I hired another. In my admissions I put my side across and the magistrates ruled that social services had not supported me properly prior to removal and they believed I should be given a chance to show I can look after my son. They ordered a mother and baby unit be found and me and my son taken there to be assessed properly, They wanted this done within a matter of weeks. I left the court feeling positive but scared as I knew babies dad would do something to sabotage this process and there was no orders put in place to stop him coming to my house (he had moved out and in with his mother by this point - at my request - albeit unwillingly)
Babies father didn't want this to happen as it would mean him losing control of me and me being away from him, so in the following week after the magistrates ordering social services to source a placement - he made my life hell. There was police logs from him attending my home and he sent to the social workers and court multiple indecent photographs of me telling them I'm a prostitute and unfit to be a mother.
Social services used this new information to appeal against the magistrates ruling and 'stay' the process of reuniting me with my baby in a mother and baby placement. My case was then transferred to another court in a nearby town as a result and as my son was over 6 months old by this point they wanted to conclude the case, they wanted adoption.
In one final bid to prevent the adoption I gave up my home and fled to a women's refuge where he later found me (it was a very small town and I believe somebody told him). He continued to make my life hell and I confided in the social worker about the extent of the abuse, begged them for support and was given none. My son's case concluded as adoption shortly after and there was nothing more I could do.
My ex continued to trouble me for several years. I had pressed charges for a number of assaults throughout the years, and also two counts of rape, he went on the run but unfortunately there was insufficient evidence and the CPS dropped the charges. Throughout everything I only ever managed to have him convicted of a public order offence due to a neighbour seeing him chase me down the street on an occasion shouting threats.
By the time I was 22 i was still getting grief from him and i finally found the strength to leave town. I moved to a city where my few family members were and began to rebuild my life. I was no longer smoking cannabis and suffice to say the prostitution was a thing of the past, that was only ever a factor when he was in my life- it's not something I enjoyed doing or wanted to do of my own accord.
I moved in with a relative, got a full time job and built up a good relationship with my son's adopters via our letterbox contact. I was happier and healthier than I had been in years. I missed my son painfully but accepted that adoption was the best thing for him at the time, it took me a long time to accept that.
At 23 Whilst working I met an amazing man who was a colleague, he was accepting of my past and very supportive - he had fathered two children himself and although separated from their mother he was an exemplary example of a father. You couldn't fault him. We fell pregnant but sadly lost the baby early on. Much to our delight we conceived again shortly after (this baby was very much wanted)
There was no doubt in my mind we could parent the baby well, I had a good support network around me now and he is a great man. He has no criminal record, a decent sturdy job and most importantly he is a kind man. I had turned my life around completely
I began to become frightened. Due to my past experiences with my old social workers I developed an irrational fear that our baby would be taken, so at my first antenatal appointment when the midwife asked if I had any previous social services involvement I told her no - I can't believe how stupid I was but I can't stress enough how scared I was. The fact i had miscarried not too long ago contributed to my decision, I wanted a stress free pregnancy and didn't feel as though I was ready to deal with social workers again after having such bad experiences with them before. I told them I had an older child just not that he had been adopted.
No referral was made and my pregnancy progressed well. Me and my partner saved up for a lovely little flat, a perfect place to bring our baby home to, and began preparing for his arrival.
As my due date approaches (I'm almost 31 weeks) I've been getting increasingly scared about giving birth and social services turning up to the hospital when I have our baby. My partner has never dealt with these authorities and believes they won't, but I'm frightened that something will come up on my file that will trigger them to come and remove him straight away as I've not been assessed since losing my son.
I accept that I will have to deal with social services at some point as I can't hide the past forever but naively I believed I could conceal it long enough to bring him home and evidence that I, that we, can be a loving and adequate family.
Can anybody tell me where I stand? Please no judgement. I'm already being very hard on myself losing sleep. I've contemplated referring myself to social services this week but am absolutely petrified of doing that. I'm equally as scared of them turning up at the hospital. Will this be the case despite me being in a different city hundreds of miles away?
The ex is very much out of my life and non existent these days. There's no police involvement or multi agency involvement for anything at all.
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Legal matters
Pregnant after having child removed at birth
Hannah1x · 17/11/2017 09:09
You have been though hell 
. I really hope that things work out for you, I honest don’t see why they wouldn’t if you are truthful but I completely understand why you haven’t been so far.
I’m a social worker, and I wouldn’t hold your previous circumstances against you 
You will need to prepare yourself for them to become involved though, to ensure that circumstances are different this time x
Agree you need to tell ss as soon as possible... though perhaps you can talk to a specialist solicitor first if you can do that on mon/tues then on wed contact ss?
It’s important that you go into this with the right advice and knowing how to handle the assessments and meetings. I think getting good, specialist legal advice is absolutely essential. But so is coming clean to social services so don’t delay more than a few days (not weeks) before you speak to social services.
When you’ve talked to ss, I’d advise you to ask for an appointment with the midwife ASAP too, to tell her what has happened and your reasons for lying, and that you realise it was a mistake. I’d do this rather than waiting for ss to tel the midwife, as it always comes over better if it comes from you. It means they are more likely to want to support you and see you in a good light, rather than being told out of the blue by ss that you lied to them.
You have much more positive factors going for you this time, but the lying can be seen as a very bad sign, and the running away last time. So you need to get on top of this quickly.
They probably will take all the notes from last time at face value. You need advice about exactly what your response is. I think you can say that there wasn’t enough support for you to get away or keep the baby etc, and you were too young to understand what you should have been doing / pushing them to do. But what you should NOT say is that you think your solicitor was working against you, or anything that sounds like a conspiracy theory. This will work against you, even if what you say has some truth in it, I’m afraid.
it will make you sound like you are incapable of learning from your mistakes, because you are choosing to blame everyone else around you for the fact that you couldn’t keep your baby safe.
Acknowledge the mistakes and the problems you had last time, and the reality of your situation. That way, you can then say you’ve learnt from the past and you are extremely unlikely to repeat the past.
If you sound like your into all the conspiracy theories around adoption, then it could prejudice a new ss team against you from the start, so you need to be very careful about the way you talk about last time (even if that’s very unfair).
This isn’t about fairness, it’s about keeping your baby, so keep your eyes on that, no matter what.
You don’t have to agree with downright wrong things, particularly if they could harm your case this time, but I’d be very careful in the way you address them eg call them ‘mistakes’ and say things like ‘the ss team seem to have got some incorrect information here’, rather than saying ‘ss lied’ and avoid any overtly blaming language, or accusations. If anything seems to be becoming an issue for the new team, ask to see any evidence they had for certain conclusions eg your mental health at the time. If there’s no actual evidence, that speaks for itself far more than you saying it’s not true directly.
Ask if the ss team this time can make a fresh decision based on your situation now (rather than apply ‘facts’ from the last case to this one now), but obviously they will go through what happened last time very thoroughly, which you’ll have to try and be strong about.
Don’t slide into fighting for the truth to be heard, or see it as useful to ‘clear your name’ or get a fresh judgement on the last set of decisions.
Make sure you are focused on the current situation and don’t get sucked up into the hurt of the last time (which sounds absolutely horrendous I’m so sorry ).
Go prepared into any meeting or conversation with the social workers:
Before hand, think carefully about what you’ve learnt from the last time, and work with a legal expert to make a list of the things you need to say to give ss the evidence to see you’ll be able to look after this baby really well. The solicitor will be able to tell you what ss will be looking for, but here are my thoughts on the kind of things you’ll need to show:
Make sure you communicate clearly and consistently that:
- you’ve accepted your role in what happened last time (& others roles, especially the abusive partner)
- you are realistic in seeing the factors that made you unable to look after a baby safely
You need to show insight into the risks to the baby last time & not give a load of excuses, as that will show no insight and therefore no reason to believe you can keep a baby safe from harm this time.
And then you need to show:
- what measures you’ll put in place now to ensure these risks to the baby don’t happen this time
- and how you and your circumstances have changed so many of the concerns last time simply aren’t relevant.
Focus on how you’ve changed and matured, as well as how your partner is so much better.
Don’t let them think you’re just the same and the only thing different is your partner. If they think the only thing that’s better is your partner they might be worried about what happens when he goes to work and you’re alone with the baby. Also they might be worried about the baby if you and your partner broke up... it’s not a long relationship so they might not feel that it’s strong proof you’ve changed and the situation has changed, as there’s not much evidence it’s going to stay this way.
By the way, I’m just trying to think of all the ways a doubting social worker may view the situation, it probably sounds really harsh but I’m not trying to be mean!
And lastly, the two most difficult bits of what’s happened.... the running away last time, and the lying this time...
-you must show awareness that it was very wrong to have fled with your baby... this is possibly the most difficult thing for you to overcome, as ss will judge that very harshly, so, you need to concentrate on showing you are not a flight risk this time... get legal advice on this urgently! Your solicitor needs to be able to come up with a way to show the baby is safe in your care, or another family members care so they don’t take the baby straight away to guard against you fleeing with the baby again...
And you must must must show that you are sorry you lied and hid the pregnancy this time.
It’s super important that this admission comes from you and you take full responsibility for doing this.
You need to show that you’ve changed from the scared young girl who ran in desperation, and that the lying this time was an error in judgement and you are not like that anymore.
The worst thing would be for them to use your lying this time as proof that you won’t engage with authorities properly and that you cannot be trusted. Again, you need solicitor advice about this specifically.
Please get a good and experienced solicitor as soon as possible, if you can pay for it. A good solicitor now will be a good investment as you need to know exactly how to handle all this. Trying to correct mistakes or bad advice further down the line is always going to be more difficult (if not impossible) than just getting it right from the beginning.
Good luck. I really hope it works out for you.
Well done Hannah, sounds like you’ve got a good plan and are going into this in the right way.
Glad you found my loooooong post helpful! I have had dealings with social services and although mine weren’t for the same reasons, I did see enough to realize that engaging with them am be really hard and fraught with difficulty. This isn’t necessarily a comment about all social workers, but a comment about the system and the reality of dealing with people who are being squeezed by the government, are drowning in work load, and aren’t able to give their perspective in the media. So, although there are great social workers, and overall people are trying to do what’s in the best interests of the child, things can go wrong.
So, I wouldn’t say trust the sw team completely to do the right things, in the right way... but don’t go in expecting them to be the enemy either. A balance between having your eyes open but also knowing how important it is to be able to engage with the process constructively.
When you get into the assessment process, keep informed and make sure you know what should be happening ie the processes and detailed legislation, and that your solicitor is closely following it all.
That way, some problems can be headed off as soon as they start to happen, and your solicitor can politely and professionally pull things back on track.
And that leaves you to be able to engage positively with ss and have confidence that you are in a very positive situation now and have the skills to care for a vulnerable infant.
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