Warning to anyone with a child at nursery

[Heffalumpspots]

Hi - I haven't posted on here before. I had a difficult pregnancy a couple of years ago, and lurked a lot and got a lot of reassurance from hearing what other people were going through but never got up the courage to post. However, we are in a terrible situation at the moment and I just need to try to let other parents know what can happen.

My daughter is now 27 months, and has been at a local day nursery two days a work for nearly a year. The nursery lost a manager through no fault of its own last summmer, and since then there has been no stable management. This had obviously been a matter of concern for us, but as it takes a long time to settle our daughter into a new environment and the staff seemed interested and caring we decided to leave her there. I wish, with every bone in my body, I could go back and change that decision.

Last week, a temporary nursery manager reported us to police and social services because our daughter had bruising on her body. They were small bruises, around her hips. The previous evening she had attempted to climb out of the bath, and I had grabbed her to stop her falling on the bathroom floor, and although I am not sure I remember seeing any marks at the time, the bruises are a fingerprint pattern where I caught her. The bruises were never anything other than brown/green/yellow and after less than 5 days had largely faded away.

The nursery manager made the decision to report this without so much as asking us how the bruising had been caused. She did not even wait to speak to me when I collected my daughter, despite knowing that the police would have contacted me. There is no deputy manager, and so far as I could gather in my very distressed state the member of staff who was left to meet me had had no involvement in the report.

As a result of this, we had police and social services turn up on our doorstep and demand that we take our daughter, immediately (at 6.30 in the evening), to a children's hospital which is over half an hour's drive from our home. There was noone there to examine her, and we had to return for well over an hour of examination and cross-examination the following day. We had been lead to believe, by police and social services, that this would be the end of the matter, but once we were in the examination it became apparent that once this process is triggered, it will inevitably take a number of weeks. We have no guarantee that our daughter will not be taken away from us, and even if it is concluded that no action needs to be taken against us this will remain on police and social services files for ever.

The effect of this on our little family is all just devastating. We are finding it very hard to keep going. I had very bad depression 5 or 6 years ago, which had not been a problem at all in the past few years, but I'm now constantly fighting a sense of absolute panic. I'd also worked hard to start to rebuild a career, and am left with no childcare and no idea how I am meant to trust my child to any kind of childcare again.

However, the things I wanted to let other people know - and which I wish to God I had known, are:

• I have no idea how much 'spin' there has been in what we have been told, but there certainly seems to be a view that in any case where a child has bruises on their torso then all of this is justified. If that is the case, please, please don't send your child to nursery if they have any bruises on their torso - or if they could develop them. I didn't actually see my daughter's bruises in the morning before she went to nursery: I was dressing her half in the dark, and they could have developed later anyway.

• If you have any concerns at all about nursery management, please, please get your child away from that setting. It doesn't matter how good the staff are, this kind of thing is always something which is decided by the manager. And it doesn't matter how they reached their judgement, because they are a 'nursery manager' the police are automatically involved when they make a report to social services.

• If you find yourself in this awful situation, don't let yourself be strung along by police and social services giving the impression that all you need to do is let your child be examined. That is only the start of a process which will inevitably be hanging over you for weeks. From some of the information online, it seems as if we actually had a right to have a lawyer in the examination with us - we are going to take legal advice in the next few days.

Had we known the nature of the process we were engaged in, we would have insisted on doing that upfront. I am just hoping we don't live to regret, for all eternity, not having done so.

Also it seems that at present, if a report is received from a nursery manager (this may be any childcare professional, but certainly a nursery manager), it is automatically escalated to the very top level and an investigation under s.47 of the Childrens Act 1989 is launched immediately. Neither the police nor social services has any discretion in how it is handled.

I know doctors have an obligation to report (I had said as much at some point in the middle of the night). I have no idea whether that is escalated in the same way. However, I would feel far better having been present at the examination of my child on which a report was based rather than what happened last week.

[Sorry, still can't get the board mechanics right to amend a previous post]

OP anyone who has contact with your child has a duty to report child protection concerns.
That means nurseries, child minders, sports coaches, lollypop ladies, vicars and your next door neighbours.

Your neighbours may not be held to account if they dont but the professionals could be.

There are safeguarding policies everywhere. They are not optional.

I understand you feel betrayed but you cannot entirely avoid the risk of this happening. Nobody can. That is the point really.

S.47 can be stepped down at anytime too OP
If the child is not seen to be at risk of harm.

OP I'm sure this must be very distressing, but the point you don't seem to accept is that child protection procedures are essentially the same everywhere. People involved in CP have said on this thread that they would discuss with the parents unless they feared grave and immediate harm, well in that case perhaps the nyrserys designated person genuinely feared grave and immediate harm. I doubt anyone decided they'd enjoy the drama of triggering a full scale SS investigation.

I agree with MrsD schools, playgroups, gp's etc all have a duty of care. Im sure that social services will soon see your case for what it really is, I know thats not much good for you at the moment but just go along with the process and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Their policy should be clear and easy for parents to understand. Do you feel able to talk to any of the staff at the nursery? You could provide feedback that could prompt them to review the way they convey information to parents.

Hope it works out OK OP.

The nursery sounds like it did the correct thing. Shouldn't have been asked to go to the hospital with nobody there to examine her.

Keep children with bruises off nursery? A lot of people who abuse children home school. Less chance for the child to tell a teacher or for bruises to be seen.

I can understand going to a new nursery but they would do the same thing.

but the family essentially has a gun pointed at its head that it probably doesn't even know is there until it's all too late.
yes, and that will be there throughout pre school, primary, and secondary.

I had an urgent referral to ss from primary school because dd and ds were seen having a scrap, seen leaving the school two up on a scooter, ds had a can of fizz, and they were not doing their homework.....never get on the wrong side of a spiteful senco!

I agree that it has been badly handled, but I do think that the nursery were right to report this.

I don't think that you or anyone could know from the instable management situation that this kind of thing could happen - one issue has nothing to do with the other issue.

The communication has been bad, and this is something that certainly needs addressed, but the intention is to protect children from harm.

As a trainess social worker, I think you have been treated appaulingly OP, Not to say that what the manager reported should not have triggered a responce along these lines, however how this has been managed is absolutly disagracefull. I really do feel for you and your family. that is also coming from the mother of a 6 year ols who bruises quite regularly and inoccently.

her latest is a massive bruise on her hip which is black and a massive green bruise down her spine. The hip bruised when she had a colision with three children all running in the school hall and she fell with the two of them on top of her and her hip hit the hard floor. the spine happened apparently when she swan off the climbing frame and school and hit one of the wooden rungs.

I would very much expect someonje who had concerns about this to talk with me, if they felt unable to for what ever reason, I would then expect the investigating officer to talk to me and explain the proccedure. I most certainly would not expect to be sent with my dd that late at night for a medical examination IF there was no one availible to examine her once I arrived.

The communication in gthis case has been absolutly disgrafefull and a huge let down to your family.

TheEnthusiasticTroll have you had your daughters bruising checked out? My DD is six and has ITP, which is a clotting disorder requiring monitoring by specialist and sometimes treatment too.

I have not because I bruise easily aswell and have always as a child. The bruise to her hip I fully expected as she hit hard on the hard floor. In all cases I have witnessed her injure herself I have thought the bruising was in proportion to the accident, I dont think any of it is abnormal, but she is also a very physical and active child and if these is something to climb and fall off she will fall off it or something trip over she will trip over it.

Seems sensible. Mine was bruising for no apparent reason and looked like a giraffe. They thought it was leukaemia at first which was terrifying. Hopefully OPs daughters bloods will come back ok.

gosh that must have been terrifying valium. I hope she is ok and is not affected too adversly by this condition.

It was a bit but she is fine. Counts all rising and bruising appropriately. Thank you for asking.

if you have doubts about a nursery you move your child.
I suspect much of this centres around op guilt that she didn't move her child before when she first thought nursery management wasn't up to the job.

I think you've been an unfortunate victim of the new staffing methods. Sounds like there's a new boss who wants to make an impression of being tough on child abuse.

I've only been studying childcare for a few weeks, so I'm no expert, but I'm surprised this has escalated so quickly after one incident. Do you have a relationship with your child's keyworker? Regular chats with the staff should be able to help them see what was going on.

This is an awful story and I'm sure it will all be sorted out soon. Try to remain calm. If you seem panicked, that COULD reflect badly on you unintentionally.

I am absolutely astounded at the number of people on here that naively think that if you are innocent you have nothing to fear! Our DS suffered a fractured skull in a fall at his then childminder's, which she didn't admit to. (She told him he'd fallen from a chair, but that he couldn't have hit his head and it was on a cushioned floor - neither of those things being true, as it turned out.) We then found ourselves at hospital 24 hrs later with a 10 month old with a fractured skull and no explanation.

In this instance, the authorities had no choice but to start CP proceedings - what else could they do with such a serious injury and no explanation forthcoming from us? It was the right thing to happen.

However, someone on here said that it isn't "guilty until proven innocent" but in our experience that is absolutely not the case. The senior SW who dealt with us was an absolute bitch, treating us as if it was already case closed. This isn't me being over sensitive or anything - the younger SW who actually did our Core assessment was unfailingly polite and lovely.

Our son was removed from our care (fortunately to family members - if they couldn't have had him it would have been foster carers in another county and three visits per week of 1 or 2 hrs.

In the end, the truth emerged from our CM, that he'd been in a dodgy booster seat in a dining chair, had kicked back from the table and fallen backwards onto a vinyl covered concrete floor. There was no way he couldn't have hit his head.

Despite all this, the senior SW insisted the core assessment had to be completed and there will always be something on my CRB - I am a primary school teacher.

I cannot tell you how traumatic this was. Even now, 15 months on, I get cold sweats when I think about it.I lost my beloved Dad 3 months before all this and the trauma and upset of this made that almost pale into insignificance. Everyone, including solicitors are very wary of SS and the power they have.

Once SW and CP are involved, you are part of a huge machine with no power to do anything - after all, how do you prove a negative? As we were told, while the police have to prove something beyond reasonable doubt, SS simply have to go with the balance of probabilities.

I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes these processes do have to be followed, with very good reason - even in the middle of it all, I knew that - but don't underestimate the "inconvenience' of it or blithely tell anyone that innocence means there is no need to worry. You have my utmost sympathy, OP - I hope it all gets resolved as quickly as possible.

as upsetting as your experience was bsmirched, was the childminder not to blame for this due to her lies and not social services for knowing that something was a miss and having a duty under law to investigate. The powers social workers have is the power to investigate. The power to remove a child comes from a judge in a court and not the social worker.

Sorry about your experience bsmirched, particularly with the senior SW. I agree with what you said. I am hardly naive about the power that the child protection services wield. The fact that even lawyers are wary is telling.

TheEnthusiasticTroll I think I made it pretty clear that I had no quarrel with the fact that the process had to happen in the circumstances. The absolute power may lie with the courts but we were left in no doubt that if we didn't sign over our son 'voluntarily' that the courts would, on SS advice, take him off us anyway. You misunderstood my post if you think I blame SS for what happened (incidentally nothing at all was done by either police or SS to the CM) They acted in the only way they could have in the circumstances but my comments re their power regarding what they do or don't have to prove in court stand.

We have a close friend who recently left CP who, when I said I felt I was in the middle of a nightmare replied "That's because you are"

Maples - glad it got sorted.