Social services- any advice please

[Anonanonanon12]

Hi all,

I will try and keep this brief. Please try to be kind in your responses and remember I'm a real person in turmoil.

I have been in a difficult relationship for a few years, it's been quite emotionally abusive.
I went to Women's Aid recently just to have a conversation about housing/finance options and some other bits. Anyway, she made a social service referral and I've been in bits ever since. My partner has never been abusive to the children and would never be physical. However they see a risk as they are in the household.

I met the Social worker last week for an initial chat (an hour and a half). I didn't really have much to say but my partner loves the children and is a good dad. SW said she'd have to discuss our case with her manager. She then went on annual leave for a week and was back in work yesterday. She said she would be doing an assessment and speaking with my children and my partner.

It's been the worst 2 weeks of my life. I haven't slept, eaten, been vomiting have a constant migraine. I had to tell my partner because I couldn't even look at him. I'm now wondering when to tell my eldest child that they will be speaking to him.

I expected to hear from her when she was back off leave yesterday but haven't heard from her, doesn't look like I'll hear anything today either. I'm constantly staring at my phone awaiting the call, I'm shaking and off work with stress.

I'm a fantastic mother, my children our my world. They have everything they need; from material items to love.

Does anyone have any idea of the process or what's likely to happen? I'm feeling I'm the one being judged and worried they'll make my partner leave. I've no idea what they actually do and I'm terrified.

Tbh this thread will now have women thinking yep I won't contact womens aid. Anyways what did you exactly tell them. If the kids are washed fed no.physical.abuse they will close the case after speaking to the kids. Don't worry. Just frustrating as now your husband knows everything and rather than building up strength to leave with support you have gone into protective survival mode and can't trust anyone. Ss won't take your kids but they may discuss support or refer onto mast.

You've "hit the nail on the head".
I would never use WA again. Ever. Not just due to the referral bit the way it was done. I.e. telling me as I was on my way out of the door.
I just feel immense guilt and like I've betrayed my partner and terrified what will happen to my children. Im questioning everything that's ever happened.

Who do you care more about your partner or children?

In the nicest possible way, your kids are more important than both you and your DP put together and so social services are righty putting the kids first because you and their dad aren’t.

I do think it can be quite dangerous to have SS involved in a situation like this because it can make life even more difficult for the abused women and I’m surprised that they’ve gone straight to phoning social services, as many people contact them just for advice.

However, they obviously must be concerned for your children to do this.

If you are afraid of your partner finding out, I would ring SS and ask that he nor the children are made aware of it because you don’t want to make the situation worse.

In honesty (and I'm not just saying this) I think she's overly cautious. She literally said "I refer to social services all time time" and then when I asked questions about the process, she gave me some patronising replies "why do you have a negative view of social services". If I had the mental capacity I'd be complaining about her. I was saving up money ready to leave so I can afford a private rental and now I've no control and if they make my partner leave, I have nowhere for me and the kids to live.

It's such a risk for the children that they need social services involved. Yet they're happy for me to go home, tell him about all of this and then love my life with him and the kids with no idea what's going on. It's all a shambles.

Sorry, just re-read your few sentences. My partner knows. I had to tell him. I couldn't even look at him and was making myself even more ill than I am now.

He has to know, they will be speaking to him and the children.

I wonder whether it could have been that your partner threatens you with homelessness when you have an argument? That could absolutely be seen as controlling, and would potentially put the kids at risk of homelessness too?

They are not going to take your children away or do anything drastic. They just want identify the level of risk posed to your children and work with you to put measures in place to ensure everyone is safeguarded.

Dear OP, you have to watch SS like a hawk. They are underresourced, undertrained, and scared of any complaints… overall ineffective and completely out of their depth in my situation, I’d say they actually made matters worse. Get them to put everything in writing and only question every inaccuracy. They are a joke where I am.

Come on OP if you were just looking for housing advice why did you call a domestic violence helpline?

womens aid help with women suffer abuse in the home. They are not a neutral body? You spoke to someone who for whatever reason seems that’s home situation needs a look in for your children safety. It doesn’t mean they want to take them, it doesn’t mean you needed to tell your partner. You could’ve said it was anonymous the SW would’ve gone with that.

also your partner threatening to kick you (and the children?) out every time you disagree is not normal or safe either.

please remain calm and I know it’s easier said than done. SS are not going to take your kids away. Think of it as an extended welfare check for you and them.

Regarding your housing if you can’t afford your rent you need to research housing benefits and support from your local council.

I'm furious for you. They have really put you at risk here. I would be emailing and complaining and I'm really sorry this happened to you.

You mentioned that you work.

It’s worth checking if your work have any kind of employee assistance program. A lot of employers do, and these programs can be very useful for advice on all kinds of matters.

As theyre a professional, rather than voluntary service, you should get a much more professional response than the one you got from Women’s Aid.

I’ve seen Women’s Aid recommended a few times recently in different places to people who are thinking about leaving at some point because they think it’s better in the long run, rather than because there’s an ongoing abuse issue. The problem with that being women’s aid as an organisation was historically one to support people suffering from domestic violence and a lot of their practises are based on that context. Not the much more recent and broader perception of the range of things that can be considered emotional abuse.

Social services are almost bound to investigate. It’s difficult for them not to take any follow up. In the vast majority of cases where there aren’t any material issues they do a visit when they get round to it, talk to parents, kids and school, and agree with manager to take no further action. The good news is that you’re very unlikely to have been screened as a high risk situation. The bad news being that means you’ll sit on the ‘to do’ list and in limbo for a lot longer than you’d like.

If it makes you feel more in control, you might want to consider having a chat with the safeguarding lead at the school.

So the emotional abuser now has forewarning and can get his story straight and work further on you to make sure you have no protection from further abuse.

He'll probably be on his best behaviour for a couple of weeks until between you, you convince them that there's nothing to worry about.

Then he'll make you pay for it.

Hiya.

I'm a few years out from a remarkably similar situation. Not WA who made the referral but similar.

In the nicest possible way, you are minimising what's happening here. You're understandably focused on what SS could do to your family, and ignoring the abusive situation that has led to you being here.

Here is what happened to me.

I received the call from SS (after hoping for a couple of days that they'd be overrun with "real" cases and would have no need to actually follow up mine).

The reality of the contact let me see what was actually in danger of happening.

I had thought it "wasn't so bad" and that I could fix him, and that it wasn't impacting DC.

It WAS that bad, and I couldn't fix him, and OF COURSE it would impact DC. The referral simply made that clear to me.

I ended the marriage that same day.

It was incredibly hard, and tbh as people have said, potentially dangerous. I had SS on the phone locked in the bathroom at one point while he banged on the door. Of course he also then threatened to kill himself. This was the man who I thought I loved beyond all things and would never hurt me, but the reality was it had come to this. I had to stay calm and practical for young DC.

I told him either he could leave that night or me and DC would have to leave, and eventually he left when he saw I was serious.

I took three days off work (lied about why) and by day three I had the house on the market and we were working out how to coparent (another thread entirely). SS did speak to nursery, refer me to a DV service and so on. All these things terrified me. Utterly terrified. I was able to tell them "I've kicked him out and I'll accept any help and advice you have, no question" because NOTHING, NO MAN, NO MARRIAGE, is as important as my DC and why on earth would I risk having SS involvement and staying in an abusive relationship and the fear of having DC taken away????

What I'm saying is, without sugarcoating it, if you genuinely want to put your DC first you have to leave him.

Professionals are telling you that your relationship is so abusive it's damaging your children, so stop making excuses and being mad with them.

Be mad at HIM for putting you in this situation.

Don't be mad at yourself for not getting your DC out of it.

@LividNC has it absolutely right. Why have social services been called? Not because the women's aid person has nothing better to do. Not because you made a mistake talking to women's aid. But because he is such a massive arsehole to you that experienced professionals in this field think your children's emotional and social development might be affected by him.He is such a massive arsehole to you that you wanted to make plans to leave him and you had to do it carefully and in secret. He is such a massive arsehole to you that social services might need to speak to your children and their schools. This is all his fault.

Just a quick note for all the people saying "wel l you went to WA". I have already said in my opening post that the relationship has been difficult. So yes, I went to ask about finances and housing as they do actually help with that. Not that I would know because we didn't get that far.
She made things worse by putting on the referral "highly sensitive" and "only contact by email". Which raised further concern to social services apparently. I have no idea why she put this, I didn't say they couldn't contact me via phone. The only thing I can think of, is that I kept asking if they'd contact my partner first. She couldn't answer and said "I'll put a note on the referral for them to call you first".

He's already planning to tell them I'm mentally ill. I think that's what it looks like from his response.

And you can’t see why this person needs to be removed from your home for your children’s sake? Open your eyes OP, if not for you then for your kids.

WA/SS are giving you a way out here, TAKE IT.

I've just remembered that someone (sorry can't find the post) said that I need to give consent for the school/GP etc to be contacted. Is this correct? What happens if I don't consent.
Honestly, I'm mortified and embarrassed so would rather as little involvement as possible. However I've no concerns from either, I think both children have only been to the drs twice in their lives!

Maybe he genuinely believes I'm mentally ill. It appears that way!

Big mistake. WTH!

You are clearly not mentally unwell. And he is going to make himself look even worse by blaming you.

You’ve given him a heads up to create his own narrative, and this time you’re the villain, the crazy one, the unfit parent, the one who the kids need protecting from.

The solution? You tell the truth, the full truth. You went to WA for a reason, you’ve already said here there is emotional abuse, TELL THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HELP YOU THE TRUTH.

He’s not protecting you so don’t protect him, he’ll destroy as much of your life as you let him, you set the boundaries.

He’ll start emotionally abusing them too.., give it time. Speaking as a grown who, who was a child with a emotional abusive dad

If they see him as a threat emotionally or physically they will remove him, if you are defending him they can also see it as you allowing abuse and may have a protective plan that's what happened with my mam she had routine checks long after he had gone to ensure everything in order, he's not returned ect.