How long do other parents of looked after children get

[Pebbster]

Hiya, my children were taken into care April 2025 I was allocated 90 minutes every Saturday to me this doesn't seem enough after some heated discussion with social and the iro they won't change it said its sufficient amount of time. What do other parents get and has anyone had any success on making a court order change etc.
Thanks

Say that’s true, and shit social workers make arbitrary decisions to remove children based on poor reasoning.
Does that mean that the team managers are also shit, the legal representatives who say threshold has been met, the service managers, the IRO, the head of service, solicitors all of who review and monitor the cases and barristers too prior to even reaching court? Nevermind the Children’s Guardian and their legal representatives.The threshold is so high, you have to have so many meetings about this and justify the decision making process. There is so much oversight to prevent it being a shit decision- no one, least of all the LA, wants children in care.

Whilst I agree with you in terms of this occurring for decisions around taking kids into care. I don't necessarily agree when it comes to many other decisions social workers make, we know with less staff they have more cases and also less supervision these days. Social workers and team managers etc often do make poor decisions which negatively affect children, sometimes prioritising a parents view over what would benefit children. When deciding to put children in care, I'd agree with you the thresholds are incredibly high, in some cases, often to the detriment of some children, particularly teens, though not always. Whilst SS, like other public services are under lots of pressure, they do often rid themselves of cases early, dump it back on school safeguarding and don't intervene or help as much as they should, and these poor decisions aren't corrected by other officials responsible for oversight. Though with court proceedings, the ability to have a representative for everyone and the increased oversight normally stops it here, it's a shame it doesn't happen elsewhere.

I don’t disagree with what you’ve said as have seen examples of that happening too, we could talk forever about the failings of the system. I think I get cross though when people when people say it’s shit social workers that remove kids for no reason- because the process renders that impossible

Of course it's not impossible, that's absurd. For example, here's a recent article in The Times about a rise in false accusations of fabricated or induced illness against parents of disabled children. Many of these children were taken into care and not returned to their
families for months. "While social services and the family courts investigated the allegations, Chapple was forced to live apart from her daughter for eight months. “Going to ask for help turned into our worst nightmare,” Chapple said. “We were forcibly split as a family.” Last year Ella won a civil case that found the council had acted unlawfully and breached her human rights."

"Experts believe the number of families accused of FII is rising as a result of guidelines issued by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health which give 20 “alerting signs to possible FII” that include understandable behaviour from concerned parents.
The guidelines were expanded in 2021 to include seeking numerous medical opinions, making complaints and not accepting reassurance while demanding more tests. Researchers say this is resulting in hundreds of anxious parents who question their children’s treatment being subjected to child protection investigations."

www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/we-demanded-help-for-our-sick-children-we-were-accused-of-abuse-3kls8tm5h

Ex CP/CLA social worker here, I also speak from experience of having been a short term ‘family foster carer’ for a family member as well. So I know the process from both sides, and how heartbreaking it is. Truthfully - even though you’ll get people like @mumofsixfluffssaying they ‘hate social’, it is bloody awful removing children and it isn’t a decision taken lightly at all. Not denying there will be situations in which children have been wrongly removed but no, they aren’t common, just widely spoken about because they are shocking.

There will be so much more to this, and it’s going to be really hard for anyone to give you an answer here without much more context (which I wouldn’t recommend you to provide, as it may be outing).

Thresholds for removal are very high, rightly so, and very rare for children to be suddenly removed unless extreme circumstances. You’re saying you’ve had years of CSC input, it’s important now to review all the CP plans and pre proceedings paperwork and really look at what is needed.

I agree with the foster carer above who said it’s very hard to stop teens from seeing their parent if they are determined and travel aware. Unless of course they’re absolutely hundreds of miles away (and even then I’ve seen kids find ways to get back home even when it’s been very unsafe for them).

90 mins for each contact sounds standard.

Social workers will always have to look at twin tracking planning for children in care, that should include the potential for children (especially of that age) to go home and what would actually need to happen for that to be safe. Sometimes, it isn’t a viable option due to the harm and risks faced, only you know the full info.

To answer your question OP, it very much depends situation by situation. If the plan is long term care then weekly family time is much more than usual in my experience Also if its on Saturdays where is this happening as this might have a impact on hours etc. You need to work with the SW re the best plan for the children, what will help them progress and develop rather than what is right for you. I hope things work out for the best for the children.

I'm not claiming social workers and managers never make mistakes of course but you have to understand the reasons that cases are closed 'early' and pushed back to schools/early help etc - we ARE understaffed and we have high risk situations coming through the front door every day. We can't hold the high risk work and all the lower end at the same time. It's dangerous and unsustainable and children are harmed when that happens. So we have to push the lower end work back to other agencies.

I'm not claiming social workers and managers never make mistakes of course but you have to understand the reasons that cases are closed 'early' and pushed back to schools/early help etc - we ARE understaffed and we have high risk situations coming through the front door every day. We can't hold the high risk work and all the lower end at the same time. It's dangerous and unsustainable and children are harmed when that happens. So we have to push the lower end work back to other agencies.

Well it doesn't mean it's okay, and if you read what I said, I acknowledged the understaffing and high caseloads, some in fact many social workers just get to the point where they give poor care due to burnout (understandable but not okay), many aren't culturally competent and harm children and families that way. I'm not even just talking about low risk situations (which often due to poor intervention become high risk later on) but also high risk situations which are ignlred or undeexaggerated in order to push onto other services that cannot refer to all the same resources which damages the child. I've seen teens told that they should able reported when they were children (even when it's still ongoing) and that now they're 4 years away from uni, so tough luck, call 999 if you're at risk of death and fight back. They push onto CAHMS for therapy, CAHMS says its SS. Then they go back and forth and the decision is made the young person has high attendance so who cares about therapy, school can do check in (which is obviously the same as therapy and they'll be fine even if they're suicidal and too dangerous to be in school because SS didn't intervene and now their situation at home is worse and they regret ever reporting). The amount of children I know who say reporting was there biggest mistake is horrible. All whilst they lose independence and autonomy over anything, are watched and everything they say is written down but nothing is actually done. The children are harmed when you take the low and medium and high risk cases all on at the same time yes but they're definitely harmed when you push them off, and that's a fact, so many SS workers aren't culturally competent, have poor skills and harm children (some due to the system but many would even with a better system). Some don't cause harm but many do and I was just acknowledging that.

Am I reading this correctly and you’re advocating for the children to abscond?

@NoMoreHotHols
Don't be ridiculous, of course not.

The op is insisting that the children want to be returned to his care.
My point is that as foster carer I am unable to prevent a child leaving my home. So if they really wanted to to see him, they would be more than likely to take matters into their own hands.
And to be clear if a child absconds from my home I have to inform the social workers, report them missing to the police, spend hours explaining what's happened, write reports, deal with follow up visits.
I have recently had a child who absconded multiple times, there were patrol cars, drones, helicopters out on city wide searches and social media appeals.
The child in question had no phone and no money. Didn't stop them getting about 10 miles away.
So no Im not advocating they abscond.

How did you possibly read that from what she said?

Ok, I must have misread your post. Apologies.