Protecting our Children, Part 2

[Lilka]

Thought I'd start a new thread because the other one was so big

Anyone else going to be watching?

But h knows the words to Twinkle, Twinkle,so hey ho.

I don't see this as a pro-Shaun or anti-Shaun discussion.
No-one here has said that he should have kept the baby.

For me it's about the general sadness that so many Shauns are created, and how does it come to that, and how do you cope with knowing you can't fix it.

How so many young children even now are slipping through the net and slowly turning in to future Shauns.

Obviously it's easy to be idealistic after watching one hour of telly and basing all opinions on that snippet. Of course the reality of dealing with a person with those kind of problems on a daily basis is a whole different story.

But it's a waste of a life, the destruction of a happy child that no one can fix.

Also

I can't trawl 20 plus pages but does anyone else seriously wonder if mava and Shaun really have the intellectual cabability to consent to having all this filmed?

I really doubt they do- both of them are really damaged people and I suspect the both have a degree of learning difficulty.

I too have this feeling that it wasn't quite right - but I still watched the programme with avid interest and I guess it's prompting some public discussion on these kind of social problems.

furthermore I actually agree with you seeker, but maybe we should make more of how the programme was edited, showing him singing that and why did they edit it that way.

You have tobe careful when quoting learning difficulties without evidence.

When an adult enters the CP process a parenting assessment is asked for this includes finding out their educational backgrund.

Long term emotional, psychological, drink, drugs can alter intelectual capacity/function but it isn't the same as having a learning difficulty. There would have been psychologist reports requested. A lack of attainment educationally is very different from a learning difficulty, also.

Understanding the possible consequences of the decision allows for the consent route tobe obtained. I am sure that if the foster carer had of had doubts, she wouldn't have proceeded. She was probably the best person to judge,as well as those who had worked with the family a long time. People sometimes get good a playing the game of how they have learned to survive or cope. These programmes would not show the real people.

Well if that's the situation, surely most reality TV shouldn't be allowed? Not to mention Jeremy Kyle...

I think that it is a useful programme to make. We always hear about social workers when things go wrong and it is good to see what the job entails. You are going to have to show vulnerable people to make it. I think that they have edited it very fairly. There must have been a lot that we were not shown, to have two security guards on every visit, and yet Shaun was shown to have a good side. I would image that different editing could easily have made him the villain.
As I see it, he was just like his son as a child, but he wasn't rescued.

Jeremy Kyle should definitely NOT be allowed. Its misery porn with a disgusting disregard for contributors IMO. Watching it lowers your IQ - FACT. (disclaimer: not in fact a fact)
AT LEAST POC has a positive agenda and features professionals doing their jobs but I agree that its hard to imaging either Shaun or Mava giving truly informed consent - or is that just horribly patronising?

My nomination for quote of the week goes to WrigglyWorm for "FACT. (disclaimer: not in fact a fact)"

To Annie, the social worker. In the unlikely chance you are reading this, I would like to say that, based on this programme, you are probably the best social worker I have come across to date. You and Arthur (if I remember his name correctly) are a brilliant team and you are fair. You tried your best. You gave this couple a lot more chances and opportunities than the social workers I know.
Despite giving them ample support, things did not work out. There are limits and you intervened appropriately.
It is social workers like Annie and Arthur who restored my faith in child protection. My area could do with Annie in their team!

I really don't know how they do it-I couldn't. I have great admiration.

BUT I wonder
do the CP SS workers on here think that the current policies will reduce the numbers of Shaun/Marva/Tiffany coming out of the care system?

my neighbour who is a SS emergency foster parent sees it all. I admire her and I could not do it without getting angry.

Unfortunately there isn't consistancy with how current polices are applied.

I work under a very good L.A., i have worked under others that are under performing.

The threseholds in CP, i believe are right, i personally believe in the childs right to be brought up if at all possible within the birth family, but admitingly others don't. This can cause or solve problems.

I feel the the concept of multi agency working is vital. The tools are there in CP, it is a matter of if they are used correctly. This includes the police, schools etc and most importantly the general public. Information sharing is the key.

The system as it stands does more to break the cycle than it ever did. There are no easy answers because moving either way brings it's own dilemma's. I believe that living standards and outcomes for families have been raised by accepting involvement.

The system will hopefully improve, as it has done. When i first started children were thrown out of care homes at 16 with no support. The Looked After Children and Leaving Care Acts have helped to improve life chances,but there are always improvements possible.

It is the quality of the professionals/services, the dedication to improving outcomes for all of the family and the workload that has a direct influence on the case.

also like to make clear that most social workers now come from working class backgrounds and with the drive to recruite older workers, they have usually been LP's, Carers etc before embarking on adult education. If they are younger they tend to have had involvement in some way and know what they would have wanted from their SW and want to make a difference.

I've just seen this on iplayer and I've got a genuine question for the SWs on this thread. I know this has been touched on but I still don't really understand why...

Why wasn't Marva sectioned after her second attempted suicide? Why was Shaun discharged when deemed at moderate risk of completing suicide?

I've got no experience of SW or MH care, but I do have personal experience of a pregnant, depressed friend living with a controlling partner and experiencing DV. I just knew during the case conference that it wasn't going to work, that Marva would definitely go back to Shaun and the baby would be removed anyway. Marva, IMO, was not yet ready to leave Shaun, and her depression wasn't being treated. I know you can't make decisions based on a hunch that it's all going to go pear shaped, but if Marva was getting treatment and in residential care there might have been a better chance for her to get better and keep her baby. In foster care she was free to see Shaun, drink or overdose if she chose. The partnership agreement they drew up, IMO, just set Marva up for spectacular failure. She was an alcoholic, depressed and very attached to Shaun, they were asking her to go cold turkey and, unsurprisingly, she couldn't do it. Now she has nowhere to go but back to Shaun, minus her baby and feeling worthless.

It was her first suicide attempt after 12 years, she would not have been considered a great risk.

This isn't anything to do with SW's this is the decision of the psychiatrists acting under the Mental Health Act. Personally i think the suicide attempt may have been a reaction to a come down rather than a real attempt.

They would consider how they could accomodate her, not every ward is suitable for a pregnant woman. The clauses to the M H Act mean that she doesn't tick all of the boxes for needing sectioning, we don't know what treatment was being followed and whether anything else could have been done without a detox period, which then would rule out sectioning under the MH Act because that would be oppressive.
She would have to voluntary enter detox, which wouldn't have followed the usual route because of her pregnancy. She refused,anyway,
This is a ethical dilemma that the doctors would have had a case conference over.
She has the right to choose to live with Shaun, we cannot tell adults were they should live. The MH Act makes it clear that a person cannot be sectioned if their condition is any way linked to their mental capacity. She is borderline.

Sectioning her would have taken the chance of looking after the baby away from her and on release she probably would have returned home to Shaun.

Marva has chosen to live with Shaun for nearly 5 years, it would have been unethical to section her just to keep her away from him, which again, asks the question to what extend does the 'state' have power over a pregnant womans body in the name of Child Protection?

We do not section male alcoholics do we have the right to section female pregnant alcoholics? It is ethics that answers that.

Contary to popular belief one suicide attempt is not grounds for sectioning, if afterwards the person regrets their action and shows understanding.

The MH Act also states that refusing treatment is not grounds for sectioning, alone.

CrashLanded, I hope it will give you some reassurance that based on my experience of working up and down the country on various CP teams (and now being considered a fairly senior authority on the subject), Annie and her manager are completely run of the mill and normal in the context of UK social work.

Well, with the exception of their use of security guards - I've never come across that one before!!

It wasn't her first suicide attempt in 12 years though. She did it twice during filming. The first OD was diazepam and the second was paracetamol. The diazepam OD was the first OD since she was 10. I think that MH problems, alcoholism, 2 ODs and pregnancy are reasonable grounds to consider a sectioning her?

What I found most alarming about this weeks episode is that this mother was given a chance, and that chance seriously put this babies life at risk. That baby could quite easily have died that night and then the press would have swarmed all over Social Services for placing a child in danger in the first place.

The problem here is not Social Services but instead the law who state that biological parents have to be given every chance there is. Social Services have to adhere to this. They cannot remove a child without proving to the court that they have given the parents every opportunity they can to be good enough parents first. It is the law who state this, not Social Services. The law puts children at further risk in the name of 'giving parents a chance'.

However, when tragedy hits, Social Services are then to blame for their failure to protect.

They're in a no-win situation. They give parents a chance and time and time again they're proven to be in the wrong. Yet if they don't give them a chance we still jump on them saying they're wrong for removing a child in the first place.

I wonder how everyone here would have felt had that baby died - either through havig an accident whilst parents were drunk or through severe dehydration etc. Would SS then have been wrong to place mother and baby in the foster placement? Are they only right because, fortunately no harm did come to the baby in the end?

PS. I wasn't pointing the finger at SWs at all, I have nothing but respect for SW and Annie and Arthur were amazing in this program. I know it's not down to the SW to section, I just directed the question at SW because there seemed to be a few on this thread!

An OD isn't neccessarily a suicide attempt. There has to be a change in the persons "mental disorder" as defined by the Act, if she lived in the community with this condition, they couldn't then section her because she was pregnant.

This used to be the case but because of the change n the law we don't section just for safety, based on opinion, anymore.

They cannot section because of addition problems anymore, either.

They would argue that they made the right decision because there were no further attempts.

The Act was written for the safeguarding of adults,not to force people into treatment for addiction. Mental Health Units are not the best places to treat addictions, that is not what they do and locking someone away does not stop them from being an addict because you have to let them out eventually.

they didn't section her because there is basically no money or room to properly deal with acute admissions anymore. they could very easily have legally sectioned her but chose not to.

all the emphasis is on 'care in the community' which is a bit like releasing an injured badger on the m25 in the name of freedom for animals in some cases.

The lack of support pre-2000 for care leavers was abysmal. I was told to leave my FC's ON my 16th birthday. I found out I was pg with my DD two weeks later while sleeping on a park bench...

(That was 1997)

The problem with Shaun and Marva is that they are so badly damaged that they do not know what it is to nurture. They have had to muddle through on their wits for so long that their concept of not harming is radically different to the SWs'. When they say not harming, they mean not stab or kick their children, whereas the SW (and most people) would feel that ensuring that a 5 week old baby does not go hungry for 15 hours is closer to nurturing. I'm not sure there is any way back for S&M, that they will ever be able to adequately care for a child.

Furthermore, S's behaviour is so dangerously unstable he is certainly not safe around a small child, no matter what he may think- we witnessed him several times switching from socially adequate behaviour to being on the verge of totally losing it without any apparent triggering event- no wonder Annie went there with security every time.