ss and pre birth assessment

[hay2018]

Hi, Im new to this site and this will be my first ever post.

can anyone give me any advice on pre birth assessments. im meeting my social worker tom to discuss the report, has anyone else been in the same situation. she is so far unwilling to put in our disagreements to what she has written. when will we get a chance to put our side of things across?? she also wants to submit it before the 45day deadline, can she do this???
any advice would help.
thankyou

Alcohol use at the level to cause seizures would trigger ss interest though because that's pretty serious

were look into doing a complaint.
May i ask how you know so much about this? do you think we need legal representation yet? is a solicitor allowed to attend my appointment next week which is to look at the assessment which is a draft, and then will be made into a report for the deadline a day after?

ive been told there are some meetings solicitors are not allowed to attend?

How long ago do you feel you used to have an alcohol problem? And does your baby's father have any issues with alcohol or drugs? In my experience there are two different types of seizure activity related to alcohol use - one where alcohol withdrawal causes the seizures, not the drinking itself. And one where chronic alcoholism causes people to develop epilepsy. Are people thinking you have the second type then? As from what you were saying you can't have been drinking enough when you got pregnant to suffer from withdrawal seizures? It sounds like your past issues with alcohol were quite severe, which is why I am asking when you feel like you got better.

People are probably thinking the stress of pregnancy/birth might make you start using alcohol problematically again. It might be best to seek advice from alcohol misuse services, maybe one you have been helped by before, to make sure you are really confident with your alternative strategies for dealing with difficult emotions, stress, relationship difficulties.

Because I'm a sw. I don't know you or recognise you don't worry.

You don't need a solicitor yet and you won't get legal aid until it goes to pre proceedings. This means the local authority are going to issue court proceedings.

You can bring who you want to meetings but you won't get a solicitor to them unless you pay them and since they have no mandate at that point it's a bit pointless

ok thanks for your help.

earlier i mentioned we wanted to answer the final list of q's in writing and our sw doesnt want us to. is this really a cause of concern for them, do you think it is ok for us to push to have our replies in writing. It is quite a long and indepth list of questions and we worry that what we reply off the cuff may not be a true representation of what we are actually saying?
have you come across this before? we have answered loads already "off the cuff", what would your opinion be?

I would say that you can push to have the questions in advance but the reason your social worker wouldn’t want to is so that she/he is confident they are getting genuine answers. Sometimes people tell social workers what they want to hear so it’s a way to get past that. You can take your time answering questions and ask for time to think about it. In my job I prefer to ask questions like that for that reason but I normally tell people what I’m planning to talk to them about on my next visit.
Also you can take a solicitor to any meeting or visit that you want but really you’re potentially wasting your money as if you need a solicitor the local authority will pay for it and will write to you formally so you know this for sure.
I can understand how worrying this is but the focus of social workers is to keep families together and they don’t want to be involved unless they feel they have to be.

Off the cuff is totally normal. I have never had a client want the questions in advance before. How the client reacts and answers the questions is part of the assessment. Also off the cuff you can reword the question or give examples of you think the clone title doesn't understand which is not a criticism - it's the sw job to make the assessment accessible.

Also there are tons of pre birth questionnaires you won't necessarily be asked all the questions.

What are your protective factors? What is your support system made up of? Local family/resources?

Agree, off the cuff is normal. It's supposed to be a conversation. Giving written responses would be very strange.

How many weeks are you? I'm a bit confused because you said the two doctors suggested a taper down plan for alcohol but then a later post it seems like you made that decision yourself? I have close experience with an alcoholic, he's had seizures twice, both times after going from ridiculous drinking levels (8+ litres of cider a day plus beers) to zero. If you were drinking normally the seizure risk would be low? Why would a doctor recommend it in that case? Are you minimising your prior levels on here?

The assessment isn't the be all and end all. What they ask you to do and if you do will be very important. Just answer the questions they have.

Who has been at the meetings? Or by meetings are you referring to seeing your social worker in your home?

Don't worry about where you live. You are almost certainly not being judged based on the estate.