protecting our children

[thekidsrule]

carry on please

They are bound to have more than one set of foster carers. Some are just there for emergency cases. If DCs are suddenly taken away they have to be placed somewhere. It isn't possible at 11pm to take DCs and place them with a family that is going to suit their long term needs. The priority is a place of safety. There is a huge shortage of foster carers.

The thing is as someone else pointed out, Tiffany would not remain single and devote the rest of her life to caring for her children. She will meet another Mike (I think she probably already has) and then a step dad would be on the scene and how would he cope with Toby - there will probably be a series of Mike type men and the children would be more damaged as the years went by.

Tiffany had never been alone. I don't think that she was strong enough to be a single mother and devote herself to bringing up the children. I have done it and it isn't easy. With help and support and the real will to put them first, at all times, I think that she could do it. However, she is too needy, she is the one who needs mothering. I would say that she would almost certainly meet another man-and not the type to put children first. I can't see them gaining a wonderful stepfather.

Tiffany appeared to have no family or support network. If she had then a mother, sibling or friend would have taken Toby when she was rushed to hospital. If I had a DD with such a clueless partner I would have dropped everything and taken the child-however inconvenient.

I think that she did a brave thing-and the best for her DCs.

Of course intelligence plays a part! I'm not saying the cleverer you are = the better parent, but a certain level of intelligence IS important, ESPECIALLY if other factors are not present. Intelligence helps you observe and interpret different ways of parenting, and adapt them to your own situation; it helps you understand what people (friends, neighbours, social workers) are telling you; it helps you identify your obstacles and possible solutions; it helps you navigate the challenges and negotiate for better support; it helps you understand your child as a separate person from you and how the world looks from their perspective.

People of very low intelligence can be good parents, but it is harder. And if other factors (like natural empathy, warmth, family support, good role models etc) are absent, it becomes particularly hard.

I think that they need an extensive support network.

Nananina lovely , thanks for that , just self righteous enough to make loads of us feel shit about our ability to parent

You need to do your homework

Notanotter I don't think nina was being self righteous. I think that may be her experiene coming from a sw background.

Personally while I think it may be true that the vast vast majority of abusive parents come from abusive families I don't think it is in any way true to say if you are abused as a child you will go on to be an abusive parent.

I think we horribly underestimate the number of abused children, and consequently adults. I know many people who's childhoods most decent people would describe as abusive who have turned into great parents because they would never put their child through what they went through. I also think those people who give little thought to pro creating and to the care children need tend to breed generally more. Therefore increasing the percentage of damaged people in the world.

Ie 1 couple who has 6 children. 3 break the cycle 3 don't, the problem is still worse than it was at the start even though 3 people have beaten the odds.

I disagree NOTANOTER. What has struck me with the response to this programme is the refusal, by some to admit that there is just some people who will never be able to parent in a safe way.

Nananina has talked about her experiences . I do not think she needs to do any 'homework'.

Ask any child protection worker about their own , many case's and each would tell you that Toby's case is not uncommon.That they meet hundreds of parents like these , who themselves were never parented but their focus must always be the young child. It is a sad, difficult,depressing but undeniable fact of life.

what happened to the scheme (related to Sure Start?) where volunteers from the community were assigned to families to help them with small children? Home Start? Does it still operate?

Home start isnt actually connected to sure start [just a similiar name!]

Dont know if its a nation wide thing now but a home start volunteer I know was told that they no longer take on referals from families that have social services involvement.

Head, desk, head, desk. Some people can't be helped. Their children need to be protected. Toby is better off in care. At least now he has a chance.

posted this ages ago but does not seem to have show.

I do not think nan was being self rightiouse one bit, she was providing some of the trueths about social work, from her own very knowledgable experience. It does not come across as self rightiouse, difficult to grapple yes, but sadly pretty reflective.

I find it difficult to see how many people just do not see the need to to interveen, I understand individuals have poor experiences, but that to comes hand in hand with a refusal to change and so clouds appropriate judgement of what is happening, I think that is the case for some people who have viewed the film and are coming away with a negative idea of what they just watched.

I have not even looked at the other thread about this as I understand it is coming very much from that angle so would be pointless even reading or posting as some people are saddly very resistant and that resisitance hinders what can be achieved from the services made availible in way of support and intervention.

Thank you Festi for your support. I think all your posts are very interesting and accurate.

NotanOtter - I really didn't intend to make anyone feel a shit parent - why would I want to do that. I think (and hope) that I said that most abused children I had come across had parents who had themselves been abused. In fact I think I said that I had never come across an abused child whose parents had not been abused/neglected etc. This by no means suggest that every parent who has been abused will go on to abuse their own child. The thing is SSs are never involved with children who are not abused, so would have no idea about the numbers of parents who were abused, but went on to be perfectly good parents to their own children. Maybe you misunderstood. What homework am I supposed to do!?

Tigerlilly I think you raised the issue of the numbers of children who have been placed for permanency, and whose placements had been successful. Again this is not possible to quantify as SSs are only involved in the families where there are difficulties, and not with the ones that are successful. Hope I am plugging in to what you asked! NNx

I haven't seen a mention of family support workers on this thread - something like the nanny/mentor supporter described as an idea, but these are trained, paid workers who I am almost certain would have been offered to Mike and Tiffany.

They work with families, usually for a period of several weeks, visiting daily (or therabouts) for a couple of hours, often at getting-up time, or in the evening, to help parents get a structure to their day, and yes, they do teach things like how to mop the floor, how to make a bed, how to brush teeth, and they model how to talk to children and to interact with them.

All areas (AFAIK) have them, and their clients are referred by social/children's services.

However, parents don't have to have them. They can refuse, and it is their right to refuse....or they don't let the FSW in sometimes. It's very likely this family will have been offered a FSW and they have just said 'no' - one of the issues with the family was that they refused to engage with help, and this made the team increasingly concerned.

I have a relative who is a FSW, and it is a demanding (and not well paid) job, but it can make a difference to people who want to change. Some families refuse because they are involved in drugs and drink, possibly dealing, and they don't want this observed....obviously, this would ring alarm bells. I don't think that was the case with Mike and Tiffany, and I think they would not be able to change - not without years of therapy/support, and children simply don't have time to wait for this to happen.

One thing I thought was poignant and telling in the programme was the scene where Tiffany and Mike had a contact session with Toby.

Toby had his back turned to T & M (signalling probably that he was cross with them). Tiffany reached out to him saying 'come and cuddle me, I've missed my cuddles'.

Now, this was just one small moment (and I might be over-analysing here) but I thought this was symptomatic. It suggested that Tiffany wanted Toby to fulfil her need for love (my cuddles). If she had never been unconditionally loved (she had said earlier that her childhood had been unhappy) she may well have seen her children as filling her need to be loved. The problem with that is that when you are a parent your needs must be secondary to your child's.

There are so many parents like this, who grow up with an emptiness inside where the security and sense of self given by unconditional love should be. They have children to fill their own emptiness, but then cannot give to their own children the love they have not had.

And then, when the child has needs that conflict with their own they cannot meet them; and when the child is angry with them (as children will be), they cannot endure it and either ignore or punish the child. I thought all of this was going on in the programme.

Of course there are ways of breaking the cycle. They cost money. The schemes set up over the years have been sucessful but short lived because the depend on funding.

To say there is no way of breaking it is to say that the abuse/neglect is inherent in the genes. That it is hard wired and nothing will change it.

If this were the case there would be many, many, many more abused and neglected children than there already are.

Theraputic communities with intense and long term interventions have been shown to work. Taking a family out of their familar and comfortable (however vile to the rest of us) surroundings, rewireing their dynamic, supporting them through the change and good follow up after care - how can that not work as long as the family are engaged?

Engaging them is the first step and the rest follows.

No one is suggesting it is easy but it is possible.

The failure to stop the Cycle of Deprevation is not a human one but a financial one.
I cant match your 30 years but I have been involved for around 20 and aim to be for a good while yet. I am not ready to conceed defeat to that old chesnut just yet.

It does wear you down, seeing the same stuff day after day and Tiffiny and Mike were very representative of an average family involved with SS.

There is a big problem when professionals enter with their own values and try and impose them on a family. I think we can all agree that keeping children safe/warm/clean/fed/loved are essentials. Keeping children in routines, sending them to school, dressing them in a certain way and (particularly) having certain ambitions for a child are not so set in stone. Historically they have been set as a marker of 'good parenting'.

Much as I would like to think we would all want our children to love to read, wear pretty clothes, have lots of toys and books, eat fresh fruit and go off to uni - it is not my business if other parents dont give a stuff about that.

NanaNina - do you think Mike and Tiffany would have been offered a family support worker? And if so, in your experience would it have helped (if they had agreed to have one)?

They will have had more than just the SW involved but it depends on how the teams work in their area. I'm a FSW and I hold my own cases( not CP) , the CP FSWs do a lot of contact & help with assessements & would have been involved with a case like that one.
Certainly in my team all staff are very hands on with helping to clean etc.

How often do families refuse the help of a FSW, HarrietJones?

I don't have any direct experience of this work myself, I have just talked to people who do it.

A lot of truth there niminypiminy-so many parents want 'a child to love me'. A child has the right to be loved, they do not come into the world to fill their parent's emotional needs.

Tiktok, in Hawaii a programme like that was piloted and the conclusion of a study to gauge its effectiveness was that the main stumbling block was the difficulty in getting families to engage with the programme. The people who were most likely to need the help the programme offered were the least likely to want it in their lives.

I think part of the usefulness of offering such help really boils down in some cases to providing a means of quickly identifying families where intervention along the lines of removing the children entirely would be the best solution.

"There is a big problem when professionals enter with their own values and try and impose them on a family. I think we can all agree that keeping children safe/warm/clean/fed/loved are essentials. Keeping children in routines, sending them to school, dressing them in a certain way and (particularly) having certain ambitions for a child are not so set in stone. Historically they have been set as a marker of 'good parenting'.

Much as I would like to think we would all want our children to love to read, wear pretty clothes, have lots of toys and books, eat fresh fruit and go off to uni - it is not my business if other parents dont give a stuff about that."

I'm so glad you said that. I've been struggling with this thought all through this thread. It seems to me that Tiffany and Mike have been condemned on this thread AND on the programme for being really crap at the practical stuff, like putting up beds and cleaning bathrooms. There must, surely, have been loads of other stuff we didn't see for th decision to be taken to tqk th baby away immediately,

There was the lack of interaction and the failure of Mike to change a nappy or feed Toby, and the dynamic that Niminy pointed out. There was also Mike's comment about the baby 'If she lives she lives [shrug]..." As said upthread, the lack of practical stuff, the absence of the nuts and bolts of a home signified a lack of room in the family for the child. The farewell scene with Mike and Toby must surely have convinced the SWs that the decision in the case was the right one.

Wrt the baby, Tiffany herself came to the decision to place her for adoption iirc. I don't think the baby was removed in the same way that Toby was.

Yep a premie in those unsanitary conditions would have severe health risks.

The safe, warm, clean and fed all of which were being denied to Toby. It's not really that subjective.

I know of at least 1 parent who had their child removed. She agreed fairly quickly to a voluntary adoption as she had been in and out of care most of her life and wanted better than that for her child.

Hats off to that woman. Her child got a decent life which, despite chances, she was unable to provide at that time. She was/is very brave and strong and I wish her the world of success and stability in her future.

Math, if your last sentence is true, then I'm hardly surprised that people don't want to engage in such a programme.

The problem I think with a lot of 'help' is that schemes are rarely individualised to the families, and too tick boxy.

As MrsD says, there are things that are considered 'common sense' that a parent might be encouraged to do that are really not essentials.

My limited involvement with such agencies had me being told that heating the kitchen with an electric oven was a fire risk and that if I wasn't aware of that then they had grave concerns for my parenting. My 'intelligence' enabled me to get a letter from the fire brigade to send to them saying that it was an expensive way to heat a house but not a dangerous one.

I received no appology for that gross allegation.

I was also told that my child should not be wearing sandals in the rain in august, should always wear vests, should open my post the day it came, should attend the local sure start centre daily with one child and take up my free nursery hours with the second. What I actually NEEDED was for someone to look after my baby for a few hours a week so that I could get on with all the therapy that my SN child NEEDED which was impossible for me to do. But that would have had a financial implication.

I could not afford a new boiler because of the amount of money I was shelling out on childcare for my dd in order to work to private SALT targets (was on a waiting list of a year for NHS SALT) and then further expert advice and a small amount of tutoring. We eventually also sold our house to pay for ds' therapy, losing our security and home.

So, unless the 'help' is relevant to the family, and at least involves them and values their priorities and concerns, it won't be accepted.

My concern and priority was DS. He was 3, and rapidly moving out of his 'window of opportunity'. No-one wanted to help us. Which is why I think that SW was extremely out of order for quoting window of opportunity as justification for removing toby. As a SW you cannot use evidence and research to fulfil your own agenda whilst ignoring it when it suits you.

That sounds hopeless stralight and I also think it would be nieve to think situations such as yours does not happen, whilst recognising the good that is also done.

I do also struggle with the idea that tiffany came to her own unsolicitated decission to adopt her children I asked this of a social worker the other day and they did very much agree, that it is often pressented in working together for the best out comes, Social work is by no means perfect all of the time.

just read that bck and sounds a bit patronisisng not meant to sorry, I just wanted to get across it is also important to be critical of where things go wrong and the support is not there.