protecting our children

[thekidsrule]

carry on please

I would have imagined that there was a lot off camera and that someone would have taken Mike and Tiffany through the whole procedure first-i.e. the purpose of the meeting, who would be there and what would be discussed and that in a similar way they would be debriefed afterwards.
Meetings are formal-I haven't been to one but I imagine they have a format that has to be followed and records that have to be written up.
Unfortunately a programme like that shows only a small part. I doubt whether we saw even a tenth of the filming.

mrsdevere is spot on further up there about early intervention budgets being slashed leading to more CP cases

Re teaching parenting I work with lots of families where we can teach things & give them lists of things to do and come back to things been done. There are also families known to us that have been around for years, 2nd/3rd generation coming through and although the children are fed & not beaten its not good enough parenting and the children are growing up with problems. They never reach the level of child protection but parents don't improve enough to be discharged :(

I would imagine that if Mike and Tiffany were local they had been known by SS as DCs.

I didn't like the fact that they went round the table asking each person if they 'agreed' with the action they were proposing but didn't include the parents in that. They should have been included, even though they would have said no. It is a decent way to treat them, otherwise it is all happening TO them instead of WITH them.

In fact, that is my whole problem with the way it was conducted. The intervention was always done TO them, instead of WITH them. Although I have to say those filmed social workers were a hellova lot kinder and reasonable on the programm (perhaps because of the filming) than they were to me.

you can have a formal meeting without using formal language, imo. to do otherwise when the principals have LDs is just pandering to educated people's ego. why say 'significant' change when what you need to express to the parents of the child is just 'big'?
i thought there was evidence of some hive mind stuff going on amongst that panel, and my heart absolutely broke for the mother when she gave up her kids. i only hope that when they are older the kids see it (and by it i mean the filmed process of their being taken into care) the same way. i really think that with support she'd have done okay, but because the dept didn't have the money to support her she was guilted into letting them go.

It was the first thing I've watched for ages that really made me sad. I was very frustrated as well with the formal language they used. And the scene where Mike was being observed with Toby - he just looked so lost with the toy and clearly had no idea how to play. And when they talked about Toby sleeping on his bed with their duvet 'we just kept our clothes on' . they just had no idea at all of how to look after him, ut Tiffany obvioulsy really really did love him - in her own way.

I think that the fact that Mike was so antagonistic meant that it had to be done to them and not with them. Tiffany would have probably found the whole process more supportive without him.
I think that the whole thing would be easier to understand with the full picture and not the snippets we were given. e.g she had been with Mike for 6 yrs-I doubt whether it was the first time that he had hit her.
Everyone is an individual and it is easy to upset them. If a social worker changed 'significant' to 'big' for me I would be very upset to be patronised-I would want to be treated an an equal.

Watched this programme with fansication as 6 yrs ago adopted 3 children who where then 4, 21/4 and 10 months old.

Their parents had been under ss since the middle child was 8 weeks old, they were given chance after chance and ended up in a mother and child unit was only for 16 weeks ended up being 11th monnths as mum fell pregnant with youngest.

they were given all the support and more and still they couldn't fathom out how to be parents. When baby was born all were taken into foster care when baby was 6 weeks old.

When we got them we were told that middle child was development delayed due to his childhood experiences.

He is now 8 attends a SN school, has speaking age of 4 yrd old and behaviour both far behind, it is extremely hard on all of us but we wouldn't swop it for the world.

I have been in meetings where the SW has objected to the sign language interpreter because 'they are distracting' and who was shocked that the interpreter continued to interpret when she was saying unpleasant things about the parent.

I have been in meetings where the parents do not understand a single word of the proceding and continue to not understand right up until the child is removed for adoption.

I have also been in meetings were SW have tied themselves in knots trying to get parents to understand their situation, given them options and agreed to thousands of pounds worth of support. The parents are so bound up in their own problems, so tied to their lifestyle, who cannot imagine anything different, have never experienced anything different - they just cannot take advantage of anything offered.

Imagine someone walking into your life and telling you just about everything you are doing is wrong. If that is the way you have always done it, the way your parents and friends do it - why should you believe them? (I chose these things because they often spark debate on MN. Lots of people have strong views about them)

You have to stop co-sleeping, breastfeeding, that organic stuff? Its bad for the children, you mustnt try and teach your 3 year old to read - its damaging etc etc.
You woud be furious, quite rightly.

Many of these parents are as sure of their right to parent in their way as we are. Its a lot to expect people like the father to play the game and cooperate. He was right and the SW were wrong in his eyes.

That is why the intervention was pretty much doomed to failure. Not so much with the mum I thought.

I bet if we had seen Mike as a DC we would have been heartbroken and understood why he didn't know how to play. There is no neat solution with 'they all lived happily ever after'-it is much too complex a problem.

This was heart-rending to watch; and I did feel terribly sorry for both parents. It is clear that they had both been damaged by their own up-bringing. These parents were not malicious; just incompetent.

However, I think that the outcome was best for the children, which is what matters above everything else; and a cycle has been broken. Toby stands a chance of catching up with his peers, learning to speak, read and write. His aggression will be under control within a few years. It does not matter whether his mistreatment was deliberate or accidental: his parents could not give him the most basic things which a child needs; and they clearly could not be taught to do so.

It is interesting to contrast the incredible level of perfection which is required of adoptive parents with just how bad things need to be before a child is taken away from its natural parents

YY to the language used being very important.

Far to much jargon and acronyms used in these type of meetings. When you work in an environment like that its so easy to slip into using it on a daily basis. I go to meetings now where I have to make myself very unpopular by stopping and asking what things mean. I am sure they think I am trying to make a point!

I worked with parents with LD who were involved with SS. They dont really stand much of a chance tbh.

can you explain how using the word 'big' instead of 'substantial' patronise you, exoticfruits?

why was there no advocate for the parent, does anyone know?

Sorry, Aitch, I misread your post. I thought you meant the SWs were being patronising by using simple language. But I get what you mean now.

Also, wr to the language etc most parents are not going to stop and ask what is meant. You need to be confident to do that. They dont want to admit they dont know what SS are talking about.

My DS's birthmum NEVER admitted that she didnt know what was going on. No matter how many times i checked.

Someone like Mike is not going to put his hand up and say 'what does that mean'. He will just sit there and feel more and more angry and humilitated.

aitch I can only guess but it may be that

1/they were not aware the option was available
2/ advocacy services are very limited so it is possible that one wasnt available
3/ the parents might see advocacy as yet another branch of ss and refuse their help.

As I said we are all different Aitch and what upsets one person doesn't upset another. I would want to be the equal of the social worker and I would be highly annoyed if I thought she was watching her vocabulary because she didn't think that I can cope. I didn't do it with my DCs. One of my earliest memories with my DS is my mother saying to him-'you have gone quiet-what are you thinking about?' and he said 'that word you just used'.(he was 2yrs old) He had a wonderful vocabulary because people didn't talk down to him.
We all have our pet bugbears-SS would have to be saints to sort everyone out but using 'big' instead of 'substantial' would rile me. I expect things that rile you would pass quite happily over my head!
It is an odd idea that we all think the same-this thread shows we don't!!

other way round, agent. i thought they were using formal language precisely to exclude the parents from the process, whether consciously or unconsciously. i imagine that it would be hard to return to first principles every case, and a way of speaking at these meetings will have evolved that gets the business done in the most expedient manner - but expediency will ride roughshod imo over the parents in the case.
was also shocked at how much was discussed in front of the child. realise that it's hard to separate kids from their parents, though.

I agree that you should miss out jargon-I always do. (another bugbear)

i am talking about using language appropriate to the situation and the people involved, not dumbing down all language in all meetings.

although having said that, as a professional mass communicator i would say that much of the language they were using was purposefully obfuscatory and there is fuck all need for it.

They did try and separate the child-it wasn't always possible.My impression was just that the meeting was a formal necessity and someone would have explained it to the parents first. We are making huge judgements when we have only a small part of the picture.

This is why poor social workers are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

There's no money for intensive therapeutic intervention, even if there were any guarantee it would work.

Tiffany was pregnant again. Toby can't speak at 3.5. There is dog shit all over the floor. Mike is frankly worrying.

So they leave Toby there and fund as much support as they can, but Toby gets bigger, the house gets smaller and filthier, the baby cries...

Outcry - how could they leave children with those parents?

Remove him: outcry - why didn't they do more to help?

They have to make a judgment call once they have spent the £1.50 available.

As far as the case conferences are concerned, the parents will have had it all explained to them beforehand. They can't participate in the decision making process really, because what they want is diametrically opposed to the child's best interests.

how am i making huge judgements when i have explicitly said that it must be hard to separate them? i am allowed nevertheless to be shocked at the content of the discussion held over a child's head. you seem very defensive of the SS, exotic.

But exotic for some people it is just not appropriate to use 'difficult' words. Its not patronizing, its essential to fit your language to the family you are working with.

No matter how much I chatted to my DS2, how many interesting words I gave him, he is not going to understand, ever.

I have to talk to him in a way he can manage or he misses out on vital information.

For example: he was at school for two years and didnt learn to read/write/days of the week etc. He went to a new school and within a term he could do all of those things.

No magic, just the right approach.

IMO using simple, easy to understand language benefits everyone and patronizes no one.