How were/are your experiences with Social Worker?

[AnxiousLand]

Mine have been not so good until 2 years ago. My SW now has been a Godsend. Shame he married hehehe xx

I was going through a rough time 2 years ago.
My controlling ex had left me and i felt lost. I let the housework slide into amn absolute disgusting mess. I had cared for my son totlally on my own for 10 years and was fine. The sw came and said there had been an anon call to their office and the allegations that had been made was that i was starving my child, hitting him , shouting at him. I cried and said i never do that everyone knows it and felt immediately powerless. Since then although my sw has been a Godsend as he didnt take my child and swore he would be back on the monday and i had to clean up or else i felt that i had somwhow 'done 'it and would be under surveillance forever.

I sat at home that night and as my neighbour is vile and petty i stormed to her house next door and accused her
She denied it of course (this was the 4thanon call since she had moved in) and we had an almighty row. I felt that up until this point i had managed the situ between i amnd neghbour and now she keeps complaining about me to the housing association.
I feel slightly unhinged lately as i have had to explain every tiny detail (i expected to and have reamined clam and friendly) and even though the sw accept that my 'blip' was due to my brek up and my parents emigrating and that my son is safe at home with me i cannot seem to get out of the habit of feeling watched. especially as my neighbour is so petty. I feel unhapppy and as if i am a bit mental these days. I fear that i will never be accepted by anyone at school and eleswhere to do with my son as i have a record of (afore stated on here) previous incidents with the care of my son.

I am all alone now as my attitude is bad and friends have left me too in their droves!!

I am trying to start a new life and this week i am requestiong a meeting with the neighbour and state that i can no longer bare her attitude and pettiness and want to make a verbal agreement between us that we will never speak to each other again unless there is an emergency or poilce assistance.
I feel this will help me to start afresh in my house even though she is the other side of the wall and then she cannot say i have said anything to her again and make stuff up.

I really do not need all this on top of my son still being a pupil at junior school and he is 12 in october. tribunal in october.

I am startingt ot hink that my only option is to get out and give my son to the social services for good.

I feel i am on route of having ahard life forever otherwise.

I feel better for writing this and as my son is blind and has NO communication skills i am goign a bit loopy

Support grouops are full of moms whom are loopier than even i am at the moment

Sorry it is long
Nneighbour has complained that son has awoken her Grandaughter to h/a and wants sound proofing on my walls

fair enough but she didnt have to shout her head off at me

BITCH

I am sure social workers must feel very frustrated at their roles, always being seen as the baddies. Even though I said a lot of negative things about SW earlier, I do recognise that quite a lot of their work is behind the scenes, at meetings, doing strategic stuff etc., which isn't seen or appreciated by us, (especially as it often doesn't come to much).

I do wonder whether children's disability is seen as a 'soft' option, where you get put out to grass after child protection and other hair-raising departments? I have come across quite a lot of burnt out SW's.

SW's would really benefit from reading this forum. It should be a compulsary part of the training and ongoing development. One SW who I really respect reads this

Yes i do feel protected now as i was really lost. My SW has our best interests at heart and i trust him. I worry though that i might get used to him being around and when he is gone who will i turn to? Or i will have to start explaning and justifying again to someone new. This SW is very open minded and lever and says what i think better than i am capable of. he gets me. Just worried xx

starlight hope that doesnt include me LOL

Obviousky we shall have to separate at some point if my son is accepted for residential school which is out of city, but then i might meet wth prejudice from the staff att he new school or any problems i have i can always talk to him and he always listens and has really sensible answers. he calms me down.
GOD I SOUND LIKE A RIGHT NUTJOB

starlight

how do you know what your sons file contains?
how did you obtain the files?

Just back...
star; yeah all that covered by course, and to be honest some students are carers themselves, or have disabilities, or are ex LACs (Looked after children) so do have that understanding for themselves.
derbyI think sometimes the attitude in Child protection which can be quite 'adversarial' is held by workers who then move to other children's teams where the ethos should be much more about working in partnership and valuing the expertease (sp?)of the parent, also think you are right one of the hidden points of burn out means less inclination to be able to be flexible with solutions and ideas, to find individual solutions to individual issues.
Anxious you can always ask to see files, if the file is your childs and they are of an age\deemed capable to decide then they need to ask, but if they are very young, or unable to ask\or manage to understand then you can ask as parent. They may take out names of third parties (I think?) but you can take issue with anything in it. I would always say keep your own records, who said what, when and to who, means you can catch them out if its wrong and it feels quite powerful... ( also if you put 'yr name's' copy on the top of anything you get then if it's missing from file they can't photo copy yours and pretend they had a copy.)

Blimey that's a bit long post, and ds is eyeing me hungrily,

Sorry mean he wants tea, not wants to eat me!!

why would/do sw pretend things? they seem untrustworthy towards parents that are law abiding, caring and good parents etc
it is wrong that some of them can intimidate parents

Mine accused me of being in it for the money, so they were to give me no help with DD and DS2. I told her to bugger off take a long walk off a short cliff as I've been doing it without any extra money for 12 yrs so far....

Loudlass accused you of being in what for the money?

Looking after your child?

Interestingly I have the same Soc Worker as a good friend - my friend thinks she's crap and I quite like her and have a good relationship with her. My friend's DD has very different disability to my DS (she has Retts, he has ASD) so I think that makes a difference. I tend not to want the Soc Worker to do much, just leave us with what we've got, and my friend has wanted her to do more for her (which she has done over time) AND, of course, my friend and I are very different people (I am great and she is shite of course ). Unfortunately it really helps if you "play the game", treat them with care, present your needs and feelings carefully. But then for a long time I have not been at the end of my tether, desperate and defeated but my friend certainly has been and I don't blame her, it just doesn't help sometimes to seem "high maintenance" but then sometimes its exactly what works!

Davors you could be on to something there dd sw very nice but we don't need much from her

ds3 needs are more and well not so good though it seems ok

GREAT ANSWERS XX