CPS problem

[TheRareHare]

I’m just needing a bit of advice here and what too even reply back to my daughters nursery as I am just feeling a lot of things now and feeling a bit overwhelmed and just need a little rant really. My daughters nursery had sent me a message saying

“ Hi , I am afraid, I have to refer your family to social services as we have some concerns regarding your care for (daughters name) after the toe nail accident and scratches by your cat.
Have a good evening.”

my daughters is turning 3 next month and sometimes doesn’t handle our kitten very well as the kitten will try to escape her sometimes when she’s holding the kitten which causes the scratching on her stomach and sometimes face but the scratch on her face was 1-2cm and the stomach was a long scratch. The toe nail incident also she had opened the door onto her toe and where my door is a firedoor basically it’s very heavy and was badly bruised and took her toe nail off but I had brought her to the hospital for that and they had just cleaned it out for her.
sometimes she may even get scratches from her older sister where they fight sometimes as my 5 year old is autistic she doesn’t communicate well so there is always miscommunication between them two but they are slowly learning to be more gentle between both of them and scratches from her sister hasn’t been occurring as much now.

My daughters are very confident and very out there and can be very wild so these things just happen so so quick and I can’t help it sometimes I can’t keep my eye on them 24/7 when they’re playing because sometimes I need to cook, clean, do laundry etc etc

Because sometimes I struggle with my youngest daughters behaviour for not listening a lot of the times I have actually reached out too a Homestart team and asked her nursery recently a few weeks ago to refer me and the Homestart team gets volunteers to come out and help with parenting advice or even emotional support etc so I’m still waiting on them to come round .. I do try and I do get the help if I need too , I’ll reach out to people or ask for advice.

I had social involvement last year and they had signed me off last year due to improvements. If needing to know why they were involved before is because in the end of 2023 I had kidney stones so was always in pain and struggling around the house when my partner was at work so my partner called the ambulance to come round during the night and I had vomited on my bed due to the pain so I had to take the bed sheets off but they referred me to say I had no bed sheets on the bed and you know the house was a mess basically but I was improving overtime. Whenever that social worked had come round I would clean my house so spotless she would still moan about things like folded clothes being out in living room or toys on the floor or for using a plastic bag on the door as rubbish bin and whatever but I did get signed off in the end anyways and she says she hopes she doesn’t see me again and well done.

Because of what the nursery has told them also would cps even give me the chance to choose voluntary even if everything is good when they come too visit ? Or if everything’s been fine in between. I don’t know .

thanks

I'm not sure I follow- why were social services called in 2023 because you had kidney stone?

I think the nursery are being over-cautious here but I wouldn't worry if everything can be explained. Do they know her older sibling is autistic and lashes out by scratching?

Someone will come along with helpful advice re CPS but it doesn't sound like there would be CPS involvement from what you have said.

It sounds like you're lacking insight into why you were referred last time, and this all sounds very chaotic and like you need some help. You say you want to get referred to the local Homestart team, SS can potentially do that for you or get you access to other targeted support. They won't put a plan in place unless you meet the threshold for it.

My advice is to accept their help and try to make life less chaotic and get boundaries and more supervision of the children in place. Your child shouldn't be unsupervised and distressing your kitten so much that the kitten is scratching her to this extent, it's not fair on the animal or the child.

Sorry I haven’t read back on what I had typed. In 2023 the paramedics had referred me when they had come to my house due too mess at the time because of how much pain I was in due to having kidney stones. Also yes my oldest daughter went too the same nursery as her so they know all of this

thank you for your reply and the Homestart team I had spoke to the nursery a few weeks ago and had told them to refer me to Homestart myself and of course yes but when I’m doing household stuff and laundry , cleaning or cooking it happens so quickly and out of nowhere

How often is she going into nursery with scratches OP?

It does sound like you need support. If you’re not capable of preventing your child from irritating the cat/keep them separate to avoid incidents then you need to think about whether you really can provide a safe home for either the animal or your child. The current set up isn’t working.

Is a kitten really a good idea when you are already struggling with two demanding children? Could you look at rehoming the kitten? If not, then you need to keep the kitten separate from your little one for both of their sakes.

It sounds like you have struggled/are struggling and social services could be of help to you. Don’t automatically jump to the worse presumption and think they want to snatch your children from you, this is a last resort and what they really want is to support parents to be the best they can be for their children.

Be open and honest and try not to worry.