protecting our children

[thekidsrule]

carry on please

thekidsrule - That is a good point. If there are any parents out there who would be quite happy and willing to allow their own children to live where Toby was - even with some ongoing support for parents, then their views that this the outcome was extremely unfair would be valid. If it's not good enough for your own children - then please don't expect anyone else's children to live there either. All children deserve the very best irrespective of who their parents are.

It's just not quite that simple though is it? Beyond the obvious cost implications of removing children from all parents deemed substandard or at risk of being so, there is a chance that some or even many of those children might have been better off emotionally staying with their birth family however poor/deprived they were. That's why SW is so bloody difficult. There is NOTHING easy or clear-cut about any of the decisions or courses of action. They do a vital job and will always be wrong in some people's eyes- either the parents' for intervening too much or other people's for not intervening enough. In the end they have to do the best they can on a balance of probabilities for the children. There is after all a huge range of circumstances between benign neglect and frank abuse and cruelty and much of it will be hidden from outside view.

I'm inclined as a teacher of secondary age pupils to believe the figures extrapolated by the NSPCC a couple of years of 1 in 5 children in this country being neglected or abused in some way as being in fairly accurate parallel with the number of apparently disturbed or behaviourally challenging secondary pupils in our schools. Whether they are the same kids, or if not an exact correlation whether there is an overlap, is another matter entirely.

The NSPCC think that 15 year olds can't babysit.

cuppatea2 I'm with you. If a social worker was to come here and tell me I had to provide something for my child, I think I'd be both shocked and upset too - especially if it was something that I didn't see as an urgent requirement.

However, if I was unclear as to why exactly he needed such an item I would ask and hopefully learn and be enlightened. For example - if he had no duvet but it hadn't crossed my mind to get him one and that professional told me he would be cold and uncomfortable all night, I would be absolutely gutted to think my child was suffering or could suffer due to not having that specific thing thing and therefore, I would want to rectify it for his benefit.

If there was something that I thought was arguable - such as he didn't have a duvet but I provided fleece blankets in winter, cotton blankets in summer, I had a thermometre in his room to ensure I kept a steady, warm temperature and he slept in an otherwise comfortable environment then I would put this forward.

However, if that argument wasn't good enough for them (of course it would be but just if not) and it was a case of "do it or else", of course I'd do it!

The NSPCC guidelines say choose a babysitter over 16, they don't say that you can't have a 15yr old. If you live next door to a mature 15yr old, whose mother is at home, you could leave them sitting and they could have their mother around within seconds.

Don't think anyone is actually saying that Toby should have gone on living in that place. People expressing doubts are (I would say) thinking of him living with his mother but not his father in a proper, clean home, with lots of support. Many have argued that even that wouldn't work, and they may well be right. Personally my doubts were not about removing him from his parents' house, but the fact that he would never see his mother again - he was clearly attached to her and she to him, although on her part it wasn't followed through on at all well. So I wondered whether in his new life with another family, it could still be arranged for him to see his mother every so often on a visiting/supervised contact basis and know that she loves him.

I really don't think anyone feels it's acceptable for Toby to live the way he was living, even if they express doubts about him being removed from his parents. That's making a false dilemma out of the situation, as if by questioning any part of the outcome, you are saying everything should stay exactly as it was.

You really believe there is NO way of breaking the cycle of depravation?
No intervention at all that can stop a family member repeating the mistakes made by their own parents?

I dont think that is true at all.

Its never easy to convince people that all they have ever known is wrong but of course you can break the cycle.

You may never have met an abusing parent who wasnt abused themselves but I bet you have met thousands of non abusing parents who were abused as children.

Sorry if I have misunderstood your statement Nana but I really quite shocked by what I think it means.

But I might have misinterpreted it because I have skipped a few pages since I was last on the thread

Tody's parents had learning difficulites. It wasn't just a complete and utter lack of intelligence, but very stubborn, rigid and child like thinking. Its almost like a form of autism and probably genetic. The best parenting in the world, does not make up for a duff hand from nature. Its a bit like expecting my two year old to be a mother.

I think that Nana is right. In the past natural selection would have prevented these families from growing up. Before social workers Toby would have almost certainly died as a result of their loving stupidity. I am sure that modern medicine (ie. anti biotics, nhs) have saved lives of the kids whose parents don't take the best of care.

There was a woman in my ante natal group who had learning difficulties as bad as Toby's parents. The difference is that she wasn't lazy and her child wasn't negleted or abused. The baby was the centre of her and husband's universe. Both of them struggled with common sense and the inablity to read. I think you need a certain threshold of IQ to parent adequately or substantial support from family.For example she didn't sterilize her babies bottles and made up the formula wrong with unsterilised tap water. No one in the hospital had shown her how to make up bottles because of fanatics wanting to promote breastfeeding. The woman could not follow the instructions on the packet of formula and no one had told her that sterile water and bottles were necessary. If it had not been for the NHS her baby would had died.

People with learning difficulties are very gullible even if they haven't been abused. Even if they have never been abused they can fall into abusive situations. Or they find it hard to to ask for help or manage their emotions.

i think what is being missed is that there was such an utter lack of willingness to try and make even the most basic changes.

even with ss making spot checks and the child being on the protection list there was no motivation to clean up the house and improve even the appearance of their parenting. if even when bought a bed and having had it delivered and KNOWING you are being investigated and whether you can keep your child is being considered you still cannot be bothered to put the bed up then there is zero evidence of even wanting to do better.

the father putting the gate up with shit and mud all over his shoes being trampled into the boys bedroom carpet for example. not even the sense to take his shoes off or wipe them at least.

they knew they were being watched yet went out and got a dog and let it shit and piss in their home. there was zero effort and in fact things were getting worse.

if they had just tidied up, put that bed up, started taking care of the home the outcome would likely have been very different.

if parents can't even, when at risk of losing the child, make the effort to do these very basic things how can you trust them to be competent to make the massive changes to their parenting and behaviour required to prevent a child from totally missing his development window?

one thing i would say is that the ss were too softly, softly in a way and that it would have been better to make very clear to the parents what way things were headed - re: you are at risk of losing your child, you need to be showing that you are making changes and willing to improve things or you WILL end up losing your child. if i don't see that the carpet is clean, the bed up, food in the fridge etc etc by the time i come next week i will have to recommend x. i don't think the parents actually got the magnitude of things and whilst they were holding onto the idea of keeping the family together they should have still been making very clear what they would need to see to be able to do that and what would happen if they didn't.

very sad.

Just watched the whole program.

Halfway through I received a delivery for a v nice changing bag DH has bought for me, I burst into tears as knew it would have bought Toby a bed. I know it went beyond having a bed.

I felt v much for all involved, so difficult. I really want to work with women and families and this inspires me to do so, but scared of being a social worker they seem to have such a hard hard role.

They are debating program on this morning and think they have two of the sw on from program.

I agree swallow re effort, they just didn't seem to understand at all.

It did seem they weren't made clear of consequences in a firm manner, how much is down to editing though?

Don't think the bed would have mattered if the parents had engaged with Toby properly.

The trouble is, the programme gave the impression that the absence of a bed was one of the main reasons Toby was taken into foster care.

Children can have the most expensive comfortable bed in the world and still be neglected. They can have very little materially- even not have a bed- and still be nurtured and valued.

they would possibly have been better off with a very down to earth, working class sw who could 'tell it like it is'. i think also they'd have benefited from having meetings with just the mum and getting across to her that with his attitude and behaviour as it was she would end up losing the children and making her aware really how much was at stake. she may have made the decision to leave the relationship earlier if that had occurred.

in some ways the starting assumption that families should stay together and we shouldn't be seen as trying to break them up actually shot them in the foot. being blatantly clear that yes, we do split families up if they are totally unwilling to cooperate with us to improve their children's lives is fairer in a way as it lets the parents know the magnitude of the problem and the severity of the consequences right up front which you would hope would be a great motivator for sorting stuff out.

seeker i thought it came across that the absence of a bed and the unwillingness to put it up even when given one was symbolic of the whole picture rather than the cause of the picture. that they neglected to care for even his most basic needs and even when they were given everything to do that on a plate it was too much effort

i think it begged the question if you can't even be bothered to put the bed up what chance of being bothered to changing your parenting style and doing the intensive input toby needed to address his complex needs?

I just wanted to say i am involved in an intervention type scheme working with young families and sometimes all the support in the world doesnt work , We do see it working and children thriving but some parents just cant be arsed tbh ,

But I didn't hear anyone say to the parents " you need to talk to him and play with him". They just went on about beds and toothbrushes and dirty bathrooms. And when Mike was having supervised access, why didn't anyone suggest to him that he could talk to Toby on that petend phone? Or play with Toby and Mike to join in? That bloke just sat with his clip board and wrote things down.

he was given feedback at the end and then they would have looked to see if he applied it the next week i guess. it was supervised access not parenting class. agree he needed that help though given the outcome (whacked tiffany then disappeared and never made contact with the children again) i don't know it would have helped.

was awful with the phones wasn't it? i was shouting - pick it up and say hello!!!! at the telly. such a total absence of... all sorts of things - knowing how to play, desire for child to progress and to be a part of that, desire to make the child laugh etc.

On the face of it, from the program shown, it did make it look like it was about bed, toothbrush, dogshit, language delay and 2 small bruises.

And if this is reflective of what really happened then I think it was a great failing by s svs.

As posters who have been in this situation have said, we saw nothing on the program to indicate that the parents had had intensive support in HOW to engage and interact with their child, HOW to clean up a house etc.

If they dont know how to do it, or dont know what s svs are complaining about (and I think they didnt understand what the problem was), then they have no chance of fixing it.

Also, and worst of all from my point of view, Tiffany made the decision to give the children up when the baby was approx 5 months old and Toby had been in foster care for 8 months.

She was separated from Mike, had moved area and was on antidepressants. She was no longer post natal and the premie would have been stable at that time. Toby had begun to make improvements and was more manageable behaviour wise.

It is so so obvious to me that instead of supporting her to improve her parenting and keep her children, at this point s svs chose to support her in giving them up.

She may not have been a naturally good mother, but perhaps her as a single parent with plenty of support would have been "good enough" when compared with Tobys statistically most likely outcomes as a "looked after" child.

And I have no doubt that an absolutely huge amount of practical training and one to one could have been bought for the cost of fostering.

I think there should have been some indication of the support Tiffany got once Mike left qnd while she made the decision to put the childrennup for adoption. What was the process that led to her not being allowed to give it a go as a parent?

as a single parent, that should reac

she wasn't not allowed seeker. said she was having parenting guidance and improving her skills and the supervised contact appeared to be going well. she had been diagnosed with depression so hopefully mental health team were involved. she decided to put them up for adoption. there may have been pressure not shown on camera but likewise there may have been her having other reasons for not wanting to work towards getting the children back that they sympathetically did not show on camera. we don't know.

it is sad about the not staying in contact (not counting the letters) - that bit i can't understand unless it is the standard contract when children are put up for adoption?

i think that seeing the improvement in her son and the work that had gone into his development, and paid off, once he was out of home and with people who could give him that support and input is probably what swayed her. being able to see for herself how well he was doing and how much better he had fared would likely bring home to her what was missing at home also that realisation that she'd never been on her own, never found her own identity etc might have also brought a bit of self preservation to life whereby she actually wanted a fresh start herself. alternatively she may have decided she was going back to mike.

Agree seeker...

Things needed to be more black and white simply because of the parents ability to understand what was beibg saud and what was at stake

When the dad was observed by the psychologist - playing with toby he was DREADFUL. Unresponsive no eye contact etc etc - at the end the psych indicated need for change - how long it had taken him to move off the sofa etc.

To HELP the dad - bluntness was needed. Not good enough - talk- pick up toys - play with him ... He needed teaching how to parent on a basic level and nothing short of this would help, huffing and puffing and glossing over things didn't seem to help.

They needed grass roots help with simple domestic living and basic basic child care