getting together information and support for EVERYONE in the child protection system

[Spero]

I am posting here, mainly because I am not sure what I am doing and I don't want to do anything against the rules or contrary to the site ethos.

In a nutshell, a lot of us have been contributing to various threads since before Christmas about the child protection system in the UK and all the controversy that has arisen since the case of Alessandra Pacchieri and the issue of 'forced adoption'.

We have perspectives from every part of the child protection system - there are birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, lawyers etc and we think it could be a good idea to try to do something to bring us all together, to help people get access to information that is balanced and useful, particularly if they are facing care proceedings or worried they might be.

At the moment, we are thinking a blog could help, with different people providing short posts about their experiences and providing links to other sources that we know are credible and reliable. This could be very valuable for all of us - I am a lawyer for e.g. but I would love to know more about what doctors working in child protection are looking out for, and I would like to get more perspectives from birth parents about what they think is good or bad about the system.

We are also wondering if there could be a separate topic in 'Parenting' - Dealing with child Protection issues or similar, which could link to the blog, once we get if off the ground.

So sorry quite a lot of info there. Trying to précis

1. We have a lot of untapped knowledge and experience and would like to pull it altogether to provide a good source of reliable and balanced advice
2. We would like to start a blog, does anyone want to contribute or can think of snappy name?
3. We would like to use the power of mumsnet to steer people towards our information and provide another platform for discussion and debate

4.What's the best way of going about this?

Any comments, thoughts welcomed.

I havi no experience or knowledge I can share to contribute, but just wanted to say this is a brilliant idea!

Well done spero et al

No probs. I'll have a think about how I can explain it without getting too technical.

If you can do a simple short piece, it would be great to provide links to more technical detailed stuff so people who want to investigate further can.

I think there is loads of helpful stuff out there, it is just finding it that is the problem. I would like us to be a gateway.

If people want to share all their experiences, good and bad, that could be helpful to others.

But if people want to assert as FACT that babies are being targeted before birth for removal to meet adoption targets, I think we are entitled to ask for proof of that assertion.

HollyHB - and quite frankly any of the Conspiracy Theorists - speaking as a birth parent who has been through this and on behalf of parents faced with this, please stop. Please.

These "theories", the statements being bandied around as fact yet without evidence, the advice that is being given to flee, to run, not to work openly and honestly, not to seek help when it's needed, to be coached to say the "right" thing, never to trust a system or it's workers - it's not helpful to us, it frightens us even more. We hear these statements and believe them - because we are threatened with losing the most precious thing to us. And in a lot of cases we believe them because it's easier than confronting our own failings as parents.

Yes, there are mistakes and miscarriages of justice. Nobody denies that. And it's abhorrent and I for one feel sick for those children and parents.

But they are in the minority. It just feels like they aren't because the public is much more likely to hear about them via the media.

As I said upthread, ss took my baby at birth. I believed that to be the wrong thing for MY CHILD. So I contested their plan of "forced adoption" and - lo and behold - justice was done and - very very recently - I won. I was steadfast, I did not give up.

But - more importantly - I confronted the reasons why this was happening to my family. And I worked and worked and worked to repair the damage I had done. I educated myself on the law, I searched desperately for advice - even posting here - I eventually put together bits and pieces of advice, put my case together and fought. In my search I came across the Theorists. They absolutely terrified me. I took their advice on board - noting that the path of staying, confronting, fighting was the much more difficult option.

I can categorically say if I had taken the Theorists advice, I would have lost my baby forever.

Having the balls to stay, to fight, to work in partnership with the very people opposing me meant my baby and I are to be together.

This resource of Speros - and the invaluable contributions being suggested - is long overdue and desperately needed for ALL of those in the CP triangle to work together for the good of the child

Sorry, know this is a long post, but it's from the heart.

Well said Garp

thanks Garp. I think your contributions are and will be very valuable.

I think we can at least all agree on one thing - that we want the best outcome for the child in every case.

familyencyclopaedia.com

My blogger friend just sent me this link as kind of site we might want - I think it looks very professional - and a great resource! I wasn't even aware of it.

Ours would be more practical based, with views from as many different people as we can get, but this looks the type of thing which could be helpful.

What do you think?

She has also told me to go and look at this
wordpress.org

So its a good thing my 3 day trial finished early...

I'm a birth parent, and now recovering alcoholic. I have a fair bit of experience of being the other side of this. My story is somewhat atypical, in that I was holding down a full time professional job, and DD's preschool had no concerns, when she was removed.
She was eventually adopted due to 'risk of emotional harm'.
I am still grieving but would love to help someone else feel less alone as they go through the child protection process, just having someone walk along side me without judgement would have meant so much. I also feel that if someone educated and fairly well balanced completely misunderstood the system and was misled throughout, what chance do people less fortunate than me stand.

I already blog about my recovery from alcoholism and from losing my DD here

weregoingtothezoo, thanks for posting. Would you be ok with us linking to your blog if we get something up and running?

Yours could be a very valuable and helpful perspective. As you say, just letting someone know she is not alone can be helpful.

Hi, this is great & I'm glad it's being done.

It would be great to have some input from registered health professionals ie. counsellors / arts therapists, etc. I'm sure that a lot of health professionals would welcome advice too, ie what to expect if called upon to contribute to court / child protection proceedings.

That is a very good idea - we could have a What to Expect in Court section which would be very helpful for parents AND other witnesses.

I am posting tentatively because I am not sure if this is helpful or not but it can't hurt I suppose?

Two things - I remember a thread probably about four years ago, titled "This fear that social services will come and take your children", which might have some interesting/helpful info on it for your campaign. I could only read it through once and never returned to it, because it came at a time when I had extremely brief and minor (but still terrifying and stressful for me at the time) SS involvement, because I was struggling to keep the house in a habitable condition. In actual fact the actual SS involvement was helpful rather than not (they gave me an objective guideline of what I was actually supposed to be doing, which was more than the four other professionals involved with me at the time did.)

I remember feeling very alone, very much like a rabbit in the headlights totally terrified to do anything because I didn't want to be seen to do the "wrong" thing. However I had no idea what the right thing to do was - I kept being told what I was doing wrong but because it was all very subjective I did not know how to fix it or make it right.

Because I have not experienced more "heavy duty" SS involvement I don't know how well informed parents usually are about the steps they should be taking in order to prove themselves as good parents. I just remember feeling not only confused and stupid and low because I didn't know what the right thing was to do and I was frightened that I wouldn't be good enough even if I tried my very hardest, I also had this constant and utterly paralysing fear hanging over me that "If I fuck this up, they'll take him away from me." And I must stress that the involvement was incredibly low level and nowhere near that stage. I cannot imagine how much worse that fear must be when there is a very real chance that SS may remove your child or children. It's total fight or flight, both of which, obviously, are the worst things you can do.

I think it also would have helped to know that the fact I was a young parent was, yes, probably an extra red flag to them, but not in a way that it would automatically count against me without me being able to do anything about it.

My only concern about the idea is the potential for scaremongering and/or conspiracy theorists which, TBH, the thread I mentioned above had its fair share of, and terrified me half to death especially as I had a "cute, white boy under 3". Also, although this is a lesser concern, the potential for it to be "directions on how to avoid SS" which could be accessed by someone who wanted to avoid them in order to cover up actual abuse. But it sounds more as though it's geared up to support people to work with SS which I think is a great idea.

It felt a bit like they had an assumption that I should know how to keep the house clean and tidy and to their standards. I knew it was messy, but I didn't know what they wanted me to do exactly - it is not and never will be in my nature to live in a showhome. But I felt like a failure for not being able to keep up these standards (with an 18 month old). In actual fact, looking back I can see why they were concerned and I can see what the problem areas would have been, but (again, looking back) I was most likely suffering from depression at the time and I just COULD NOT see what exactly it was that they wanted from me.

I can imagine that this probably extends, if you had a chaotic childhood or upbringing and literally didn't know what the "normal" is that they expect, it's very very hard to live up to that. Actually (again minor personal example) I was totally gobsmacked to see that one of the items on the list I was given was "Washing up left until item is needed again to be washed" - I just thought that was NORMAL and everybody left stuff until they needed it again unless they were super organised and tidy and/or had a dishwasher. It was out of DS' reach so what was the problem? And I had the most mundane, normal childhood ever except my mum had ME and couldn't keep on top of the housework very well.

Zoo, I read your blog and it is heartbreaking. Your DD is beautiful and you are very brave to share your story. None of the emoticons fit so I offer you a [hand] should you want to hold one from a stranger.

Well done bertie - this was certainly easy to find! :)
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feeling_depressed/903685-This-fear-that-social-services-will-come-and-take-your/AllOnOnePage

I'm quite impressed but also sad that I remembered the title word for word - MN was my literal lifeline at that time and it made a huge impression on me :(

Wow, four years ago minus one week exactly. No, I'm not going to read it again right now. I find dredging up old threads of mine very difficult actually, wonderful as MN is.

I missed that one! But I see NanaNina was holding the fort.

I think the op was very telling.

*There seem to be so many women out there who are afraid to seek help for depression and other problems out of fear that they will lose their children.

I have just asked MNHQ if they would consider doing something with this. Because surely if so many of us fear to lose our children something is going wrong somewhere! Surely we should all be albe to seek help with confidence?*

I think this thread and what it has achieved encapsulates what I think we need to achieve with blog/website.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1974548-social-services-are-destroying-my-family?

Some kind of resource where this level of help and advice is accessible. The experiences of those who have been through the system are invaluable.

Hello

Thanks for this. As ever, we're a bit awed at what MNers get done once they've got the bit between their teeth.

You're very welcome to use MN to source content and allies, and (do please sign up to our Bloggers Network...) link to the final result - so long as you do so within our rules (ie links to blogs must form part of longer discursive posts, not just be 'here, look at our blog').

That's great news, thanks Rowan.

You are absolutely spot on there Spero. People entering the system need independent, reliable and specific support, and if more of that can come from peers who have been there and come out the other side with their children, then that indeed would be a wonderful thing.

It makes me think also of similarities with mental health befriending schemes that are run in some areas, but online, and more information based and specific to the needs of parents facing involvement from Children and Families Services.

Thanks, Rowan.