protecting our children

[thekidsrule]

carry on please

The saddest thing is that there isn't enopugh money.

Or rather, the money isn't spent in this direction. I used to work with parents like these. They need parenting themselves. If there was money for it they could live in a supported home while they learnt to be parents (or not). Frankly, a lot of people just can't.

It's a pity that as a society we can't yet come up with scenarios where the kids live in a family and the parents see them for a day a week or similar.

What a mess, there just has to be a way. Every day in the papers the same old, same old. All these families and children.

I admire the SW such a heart-breaking, mind -bending job.

It's money and political will isn't it? So it won't change will it?.

I wonder if Tiffany watched the programme. Do not forget she was diagnosed with depression, i have read this can impact on caring for yourself, children and home when untreated.

oneline, remeber this was a snapshot, they had for months intesive support, they were enmcouraged, involved and collaborated with, but sadly they were not good enough despite that.

I do agree though though that I think the program has failed to achive what it was set up to achive, they should have conveyed some of that a little better, but it did happen despite not being explicit.

I have no doubt that there was a lot more to all of this than seen on film.

oneliein, how would you deal with it then? how many chances would you give parents like that? how long would you leave that poor boy in that shitty (literally and metaphorically) home?

You do NOT NOT NOT solve the problem of poor parenting by SS intervention and ultimate adoption....

Well the thing is OneLieIn you do. You solve it for the child that is in that situation. The life that Toby had was not good enough. It's very sad for the parents but ultimately their need/wants come second.

Hopefully they'll both seek help and support in their next relationships to avoid a repeat of all this.

Very sad for all concerned. The mother loved her children but was not equipped to care for them. Awful for everyone, except perhaps the children who hopefully will now be properly cared for.

I would never want to be a social worker and really do think they do a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances.

nutcracker you don't give a family chances, you don't give them lists, you give them help, practical help.

barnacle - how do you know you cannot fix this collaboratively? This approach didn't clearly work. Why couldn't people clean the house with them? Show them how to do things, work together with them to make things better? Instead of telling them how to do things, show them, guide them.

girliefriend whilst they may have had poor childhoods themselves, that doesn't mean they could not learn parenting skills. Surely it is our duty to show them what good parenting looks like? To help them become good parents? You don't just give up on them.
FFS, what do you all think is going to happen to Mike or Tiff's future unborn children? How many children have to be adopted, fostered or given up on for us to realise that unless we intervene and HELP, nothing improves.

A lot of the skills laking from the couple were life skilss not just parenting skills. Cleaning both personal and house just a few things we saw. If an adult would not or can not look after themselves then how are they going to look after children.

Having said that I do wish they tried a bit harder with keeping them together after the dad left ( I don't think there was any hope for him :( )

There should be a 'nanny squad' that go in twice a day am - get DC up and off to nursery/school, pm make sure DC fed, washed and in bed. Court order to get rid of dog.
More support wk/nds. No long hols without help.

.... and that must be much cheaper than foster care/insitutions/ picking up crime/problems when they are adults.

Can't understand why social services were not involved earlier.Surely it must have been seen by the maternity services and the health visitor when Toby was first born and his first early years that he was being neglected and living in dog shit ? But it seemed that it was only when they moved that a social worker was aware of them.
Poor kid living like that.Interesting that within 3 months of being in foster care he was starting to talk. Only time will tell if he is SN because of genetics or from neglect.

them poor kids especially toby,

might annoy some but whats the bet that both mum and dad will produce more poor kids for the system to parent again

Hullygully exactly. That's what I was thinking of. A supported environment where they could come as a family and learn the skills they need.

OneLieIn - I don't manage any budgets. I just have a little knowlegde of the constraints family support services face.

Hullygully that's exactly what someone I know, who has adopted her two children, said on meeting their birth parents, that 'they needed parenting themselves'. Desperately sad.

I absolutely don't think they should have left Toby in the 'home' he lived in, but I do wonder whether something like Hullygully's scenario where Tiffany could see him at regular intervals would be better for him. I remember listening to a radio programme about children who were serious offenders and were detained in secure units. Someone from a unit said that they always tried to get the kids' mothers to come in and see them, even if the mothers had been involved in some way in the circumstances that led to them being there, because when kids feel abandoned by their mother, in particular, it is very, very hard to rehabilitate them and 'bring them back' to a level where they are able to function in society

I do know most of the intensive supportive residential support has gone.

They waited too long, Toby must have been on SS radar from the maternity ward, if not why not, who let them take him home unsupported. Where were the midwives, the HV's ?
I honestly wonder if we shouldn't offer people an incentive to be steralised, that poor woman has had 10 pregnancies and no happy ending, it's cruel. The next Mike will be long shortly no doubt :(

WRT the father not playing with the child... I cannot remember my own father ever playing with me... no one said he was dysfunctional. And Toby did run to him and sit on his lap so he was obviously not scared of him.

oneline they did do that. but unfortunatly a clean house and love is not enough for a child to develop.

The bit I watched confirmed my preconceptions. Ss mean well, no funding for what is really needed. Speaking to parents like naughty children, rather than as equals, and lots of power and control by ss.

I wonder if later Toby and his sister will have a diagnosis similar to Mum and Dad?

Speaking from a position of relative ignorance here but wouldn't it have been better for Toby to be placed in long-term foster care so that tiffany could have a chance to see him and develop her parenting skills over a period of time?

Just seems so obvious that he won't be adopted easily so will be in care for a long time any way- may as well give him and his mother a chance to be together.

I think the biggest tragedy in this case was that Toby was left in that environment for far too long - to the point that he will no doubt have some major psychological problems in future. And with the way things are in this country, it'll be much harder to find him an adoptive family.

All this extra 'help' you talk of OneLieIn prolongs this suffering in children.

ginmakes - as for confrontation - I thought the language used by "the professionals" and manner, especially from the blonde lady, was not engaging.

Do you think the parents understood the roundtable and the language being used? No
Do you think the lady helped Mike realise what was best for his child? No

I think they were definitely subtly threatening - whether it was in a patronising tone and language