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.

It depends on the concerns shared and the ages of the children. If they are in relation to significant harm happening to the children they may consider child protection procedures where they will have a multi agency meeting (without you) to ascertain whether the threshold of significant harm has been met.

If the concerns don't meet that threshold, they don't contact the agencies.

You haven't shared here what the abusive behaviour is so I've no idea about the extent of the harm being experienced by the children. Please accept though that they are experiencing harm if you are.

Your children are growing up in an abusive household where their father threatens to throw their mother out and their mother feels she needs to seek help from WA in case that happens… yet doesn’t realise this is a dreadful environment for children to grow up in.

I hope SS do investigate this, sorry.

He is abusive to the children. If he is emotionally abusive to you, their mother, then that is also abusive to the children. You need to leave this man and focus on you and your children.

The children’s social worker will complete an assessment which will involve speaking to you, your partner if safe to do so (although given you’ve already told him about the referral there’s no reason they shouldn’t talk to him) and the children and will gather information from all professionals involved (gp, school etc). They may also hold a meeting as part of this assessment with the professionals and yourself and your partner. The purpose of the assessment is to consider what impact on the children there is as a result of the emotional abuse. It’s clear from your post that you don’t think there is any impact on your kids. Personally I think that’s incredibly unlikely and there’s loads of research that says even without being exposed to physical abuse, children suffer greatly in these situations. If it’s as you claim they won’t have grounds to keep the case open, but if they have concerns they will likely try to support you to leave, by involving other agencies like housing and domestic abuse services etc.

Thank you for your detailed reply and to others who have provided insight. It's incredibly stressful not knowing the process. I felt I had to tell my partner as the social worker had said they would definitely be talking to him, so I had no choice really.

I'm a little concerned he'll make himself look bad by focusing on my mental health. It's one of the things he does; if things don't go his way or I question him, I get relentless paragraphs of messages about how mentally unwell I am. When I spoke with the social worker I played everything down but did agree that he tells me I'm mentally unwell. She wasn't impressed at all and kept saying how it's not right. So if he goes on about it to her, it may make things worse. Or they'll believe it and I'll get carted off!

Your social worker will have had training on domestic abuse and will understand the tactics abusers use, such as trying to discredit the victim. Given the social worker has already raised concerns about his behaviour I would suggest you don’t need to be concerned about her buying his version of events. That said, I would urge you to be honest with the social worker if you want to ensure they don’t believe him and to get the right support. It might help to review this image so you really understand what abuse has been occurring in your home.

Why would it make things worse if the full level of his abuse to you is clear ?

Considering you “played things down” things after a referral to social services - its incredibly important that social services understand the full extent of abuse on your household to ensure they protect your children.

Given you have already not been fully honest this is very worrying as it suggests you are not able to clearly see the situation for what it is and may not be able to take the actions required to protect your children. This is exactly why a referal needed to be made.

I promise you any social worker with even a month of experience will have heard a perpetrator say that their victim is crazy/lying/unwell/the real perpetrator so many times that they have a strategy to counter it.

I think you should be as honest as you can with the social worker. It will create problems for you if you change your story if for example you separate and enter into Court procedures for child arrangements. You've done the two bravest things you could have already- you've sought guidance from WA and you've told your arsehole partner that a social worker will be talking to you all.

You can change things for yourself and your children. It doesn't have to remain the way it is now.

FWIW social workers can't force you to separate or him to leave. However, if they advise that this is the only way they think your children will be safe and you seem to not get how harmful the situation is for your children, they can seek legal advice about whether your children need to be removed. This would only be after all other avenues and options had been exhausted.

I strongly suspect you disclosed something in particular to women’s aid that you are either minimising or not saying here or are simply not able to take in as the level of abuse that it really is and that they have referred due to how concerning it is.

Trying to make out that you are mentally ill is abusive but I am not clear this is what you meant when you talked about emotional abuse - something else may have concerned them.

To some extent you are being judged. Any form of domestic abuse is now classed as abuse towards the children, even if they are just witnesses in another room. They will be judging you on whether you can see that risk.

You need to not downplay or overstate what's happening. You need to share factual, genuine examples including eg

• threats of being made homeless
• reams of messages
• being labelled as mentally Ill when you disagree

part of being a really good dad is how you treat mum, as the adults create the safe and secure base for the children. You do not have that.

Or perhaps he will tell them your not fit to look after the children, you are going to have to be very careful here and I am not talking about as either, if he turns it around on you, you could end up losing the children to him.

There's no evidence of this though. Zero. I have no mental illness. I've been seeing a counsellor through work over a year and she has said that she can speak to them on my behalf. He regularly leaves the children with me for a few days. Also, if I showed them the messages he sends me, he would come off looking worse. I understand where you're coming from though.

Why would you not consent to ss contacting school ect?

Because I'm horrified, because all his teachers will know is that SS's are involved and they won't know why. They will forever look at me like I'm some child abusing scum. They'll be looking at my child daily to see if he has marks on him or if his behaviour has changed. It breaks me.

People who have ss involvement are not "child abusing scum" FFS

The teachers won't know why we have involvement. They'll constantly be looking at me as a potential abuser, wondering if I'm causing my child harm.

They will be informed of the nature of the contact with them ( school, gp) from your posts here you are heavily defending him and they will see that as a red flag and rightly so. I understand you are in turmoil and your life has been turned upside down, but you absolutely do need to prepare to remove him from your life.

The social workers and teachers won't make any assumption about why SS are involved. People access social services support for all kinds of reasons, the vast majority because they need some special help or support for a time, not abuse.

They will talk to you, they will talk to your partner if they have told you they will, they will talk to the children. They will talk to the GP, any other involved professionals, school. They do not need your consent to do that if they have concerns.

They won't go into it all thinking you are terrible people or assume anything. They will investigate with the questions of what needs your family has. The lead questions will probably be, "What does this family need?" and, "How can I help this family?" It is a support service, not a service that is looking for excuses to remove children. Sometimes that does have to happen, but it's not done that easily as children are best with their families most of the time.

I understand you are scared and it's intimidating to go through any kind of investigation. Maybe use this as an opportunity to get any support or help you need as a family, of any kind? The fact you went to WA suggests there are needs that could be supported, even just for yourself.

What kind of things did you disclose to them ?

And the mental health crap is one of the most common ones they use as first a threat, then a blame shift then a scapegoat. These people you are dealing with now are used to the lies and the tactics but they will also be super aware of you lying to protect him.

Then why not tell them yourself? Schools are used to hearing about this kind of thing, not much shocks them.

You are obviously going to have to end the relationship.

Women's Aid is domestic abuse charity. They don't just help anyone leaving a relationship- can you imagine how impossible it would be to offer assistance to anyone going through break-up?- they help women to leave (or flee) abusive relationships. As part of that role, they will be mandated to report any children who are in a home where abuse is occurring, as that, in itself, is child abuse.

You have now reported the abuse and the goal of social services will be to get the children out of that situation, whether that's by removing your partner or your children from the home.

Not once in your posts have you acknowledged that your children are experiencing harm. You are worried for your partner but don’t seem to realise, or want to admit, that he’s not the important one in this scenario. You need to start putting your children first.

She seems more concerned about saving face, and how it's affecting her relationship with her shitty partner.

Thank you all for your replies. I've had mixed responses, some saying SS want to keep families together and offer support and others saying my partner will be removed or my children will. Also lots of different advice regarding the process etc. I suppose I just have to wait and see and find a way to carry on with life because at this point it feels like the world has ended and I can't see past all of this.

You are making this all about you and not what's best for your children, your going to have to have a good long hard think about you and your partner's behaviour.