Helpless

[P37]

I’m very very worried.

My husband and I got into an argument because he didn’t watch my daughter enough in a children’s birthday party and another kid bumped into her causing her a black eye. I noticed the black eye when they got back home from the birthday party and an argument between my husband and I started because of this.

The argument escalated and then my husband pushed me by the neck, and I got very frightened and I panicked and called the police out of anger, because he has never laid his hands on me in almost 9 years of marriage. The police came, took him for the night and released him the next morning with no further charges. But the police went ahead and referred the case to a children services and informed them that my husband strangled me and that while he had his hands on me, my daughter sustained a black eye bruise. Please note that this bruise on my daughter was actually what led to the argument in the first place because I was soo upset that he didn’t watch her enough in the birthday party for another bigger kid to have bumped into her.

Now the whole narrative the police told the social workers is totally different. Probably because they didn’t understand our English well (as it is not our first language) , or maybe because they just didn’t believe that my daughter truly got the black eye from the birthday party. We thought about contacting the police to review the body camera recorder they had on them that day in our apartment , to verify that they probably didn’t understand our English well and they got us wrong. But the social worker said it would not matter so much to her, because they already passed on that report to her and she has to work according to that.

Now social worker has visited our home 6 different times in the last 3 months. Also the social worker visited my daughter’s former school to discuss about her wellbeing from the school, which the school really commended everything concerning our daughter as excellent.

The social service worker just informed me that her manager might be closing the case soon , since they can confirm that my mind is not in any harm’s way.

But while she said this, she also asked us for our immigration status which I tried avoiding the question. We are legal and we have our legitimate temporary documents here to stay, but do I need to give her those details ? I don’t trust people easily because something tells me this could cause a barrier for us when we want to switch to our permanent documents or citizenship. Please should give her our immigration details or not?

Also, my daughter resumed in a new school last month . Like I said, the social worker contacted her previous school, now the social worker says she wants to contact her new school to ask of her wellbeing since she started with them last month. I indirectly tried persuading her not to contact her news school, but she said it was not a big deal, because since the case was still open, her old school would have contacted her new school anyways. Is this true ? Do information like this get passed on? And will the headteacher of her new school inform my daughter new teachers too? Will my daughter’s direct teachers possibly treat my daughter differently now or start observing her closely compared to other kids, now that they want to contact her new school. Will every staff that comes in contact with my daughter in school be alerted of the case and to what extent ?

This would be very shameful for us because my daughter is already a role model child in her nursery class, and she’s doing excellently and the teachers are very pleasant to me and my husband. I’m very sad because now I wish I didn’t call the police that night, because this social worker involvements is causing me more harm than help by the constant reminder and also by planning to contact her new school and visiting our home severally.

We have found our way back to Christ, done anger management courses ( no one told us to, we went for it ourselves), we’ve involved our extended families also since it happened, so we can get marital guidance from them too. We have just been doing everything right to make this never repeats itself.

But when I hear that knock on our door or get that call from the social worker, it breaks everything in me at that moment, and it’s keeps re-opening our wound, thereby causing new frictions in my family due to tension.

This is a very trying time for my family, and I really need your advises .

Do fight against social services let them do there job

Don't try to hide stuff that just makes you look guilty.

Also, watching a child at a birthday party isn't going to stop another child bumping into them, the whole thing seems to be based on an over reaction.

You are right @NuffSaidSam , I over reacted

Hi op, I think as others have suggested it's important you work with social services.

Ultimately you had a row with your husband and it got out of hand and he laid hands on you when he shouldn't have. It scared you and you did the right thing by calling police in that moment because you were frightened and you'd just been assaulted. It sounds like you are both working hard to get things back on track and it sounds like your husband is (hopefully) taking responsibility for his actions which were unacceptable. Social services are there primarily to support you and your child. If everything is safe and good then they will close the case and it sounds from what you've said that you're taking all the right steps.

It's important that as part of their assessment social services speak to all the main people in any child's life. So it's important they contact the school to confirm things are going well. Your social worker would not be doing her job properly if she didn't do this. I work between education and safeguarding and your dd wont be treated any differently. Teachers will come across this ALL the time and will be subtle about it. In fact the teacher might not even be told all the details, some information may be held by the Head and pastoral care officer.

I'd imagine that the social worker is trying to find out your immigration status to try and work out a full picture of what's happening for your family. Waiting on a home office decision or receiving a disappointing decision from the home office is incredibly stressful for anyone and the process is hostile so it would be important for her to be aware if there's likely to be any changes so she can support your family with that. If you're worried I'd contact someone more specialised regarding this if there's a charity that supports immigrants near you?

Ultimately a social workers job is to make sure that children are safe first and foremost, but secondly its to make sure families are supported properly to stay together. So take whatever she's offering and work with her as openly as possible.

Also just to say there is never ever an argument that justifies assault... no matter how much you overreacted to the black eye that did not justify your husbands actions.

Thank you so much @Lavender14 , your reply just made me feel soo much better. I’m grateful .

But please do cases with social workers ever truly go away?

Cause now I feel like we are living everyday on egg shells now, and we now have to be extra careful because even a child’s playground nail scratch can set another uproar? To the extent that I probably will have to stop my child from playing freely in certain places, cause I don’t want her sustaining any injury that can bring up another situation with the social workers?

The thing with me, is now that I know our names and my daughter’s name is now in the system, I can’t live everyday confidently anymore. And that is really making me panic, cause everything and everyday has to be perfect, and that’s really draining me mentally. And now I’m getting very agitated knowing that my child is possibly watched closely more than every other child in her class by her teachers because they are now aware of the situation.

I just feel like returning back home or relocating to another location, so I have a fresh start and we can get all these behind us. Am I overthinking this ?

Of course they close, I've worked with lots of families who have had a social worker either through a genuine concern or just a miscommunication and they closed and never saw a social worker again and just got on with their lives. Social services are far too busy to be bothering with families who don't carry a risk. But they do need to show that they've done their job properly first, offered the right support, that you've taken it, and spoken to the right people to make sure your child is genuinely okay. Also social workers understand that children will get injuries. I was also assessed by social workers due to my stbxh actions even though I'd never done anything wrong and we'd separated. My child tripped and fell during that time and I had to take him to hospital for a small head injury to be checked over but that was never passed on to social services because it was an injury consistent with a toddler who likes to run about. Medical staff know the difference between injuries that are normal for a child of your dds age and those that aren't and they're trained to look for the differences- they'll only pass on the ones that are abnormal and concerning. I've done the training myself for work and the difference is quite obvious when you know what to look for. So you don't need to live in fear of that on a day to day.

Also if you relocate, it could look like you're running away to hide things, you'd be transferred to another team anyway. So much better to just stay and work with them and get things cleared up. At the end of the day, your dh did do something wrong and assaulted and scared you. It's right that someone is now holding him accountable to make sure he's doing what he needs to, to handle things better. You deserve that support as well for yourself and your own peace of mind as well as dd.

Thank you so much @Lavender14 , you’ve been very helpful.

I would just chin up and keep smiling to the teachers and school staff when I see them, and try to overcome this embarrassment feeling I have . I really worked hard for my daughter to get into this particular new school, because I really admired the school from the get-go but we couldn’t get a space then. Now she just started last month, and I just wanted her to start right and continue right. But I guess I was wrong as my excitement and great recognition in this new school only lasted for a month.

My child is the most important person to me in the entire world. Over time , her teachers might forget about this and not judge us with bad looks.

We are very bent on being good role model adults to our kids and that’s what we will keep doing. I hope this case gets closed like the social worker said, so I can move on completely from this and heal fully.