Why do social services take away the children instead of the violent man?

[chaoticgood]

Call me naive but I had never really considered before how a common reason for removing children from their homes & separating them from their mothers is that the mother "refuses to leave" their violent partner and the children are considered to be in danger from the man. I saw a documentary about this recently and then looked into it more and I am absolutely shocked that men who are considered a danger to children are so often allowed to remain in normal society while the child and the mother are forcibly separated, causing immense trauma to both, and the child is put into care with all the known disadvantages that brings.

I don't know why everyone is not shouting from the rooftops about the absolute inhumanity and insanity of this. If a man is a danger to children why is he not locked up? People who are a danger to themselves and others are supposed to be sectioned under the mental health act, I thought. If they are a man and the "others" to whom they are a danger are their partner's children then what, that's ok because boys will be boys, and we should remove the child from the danger instead because the danger itself is just how the world is and can't be helped, we can only try to get out of its way?

It seems to me that the assumptions behind this practise and behind the acceptance of it are:

1. Male violence is a fact of life, like the weather. It's a mother's job to protect her child from these things, and if she does not manage it she does not deserve to keep the child.
2. Men are entitled to abuse their partner and their partner's children. A man who goes next door and assaults his neighbours will be in prison or sectioned but in His Own House Under His Roof the rules are different.
3. Women "choose" to remain with violent men for the sheer fun of it and those who do so are selfish women who are choosing for themselves at the expense of their children. (All this choosing going on, huh, it's not as if violent men ever target vulnerable, previously abused women and mess with their heads until they lose sight of their free will or anything.)

I just don't get how social services can have enough evidence of a child being in danger to actually remove them, but somehow that evidence is not enough to remove the man who is actually doing the bad things???

Offred thats disgusting. She has been failed time and time again by authorities and organisations.

Which HA was it out of curiosity Im asking because a couple of them do have domestic abuse policies.

I have tried regarding domestic abuse policy (and did at the time) but it’s hard because in truth, when I am acting as her spokesperson and she suffers from such a deep lack of trust in the system (reasonable IMO having actually dealt with the representative) there is only so much I can do.

Running off re debts has, I acknowledge, been a more effective strategy for her re her personal circs than taking responsibility for them (she is looking to bankruptcy now for the 2nd time).

I have got her to get WA involved and advised her what arguments to make re the broken window debate but I can’t, and wouldn’t want to impose my view on her regarding what is best for her re survival and negotiation of the system.

I completely understand where you are coming from Offred. It just angers me that she seems to have been failed (not by you) and i agree with what you say is happening in housing. Tenants are seen as a humogenous mass to be managed.

Chasing her for the debt is easier than chasing him and they can get away with it because of the way the narrative about tenants has been reframed.

You can apply for an urgent case to the court by writing personally to the judge. Solicitors swallow money but all of these kinds of things can be done by yourself or a capable friend. The actual fees to the court are very minimal and I seem to remember an occupation order and non-Mol are free.

@Terfulike just stop for a moment to consider the social capital, confidence, MC privilege, education and general dynamism you’re describing or quite unconsciously assuming there.

I also think pinkbobbles hit open one of the key issues very early on; the yawning gulf between the attitude of the two different types of family law to men who are violent to their women.

Of course what ties it all together is class. Stereotypes and preconceptions of class. If a MC man punches his wife a few times this is understood to be an aberration in his behaviour and the wife trying to express concern that he’s a risk to the children will be ignored and he’ll be granted contact or shared residence. If a WC man is violent in the same way, it is automatically ascribed to his animalistic and uneducated essential self and he’s consider d irredeemable and a risk to all around him, most of all any children of the household.

He was never on that tenancy, they housed her there after the assault case.

She’s the only one responsible for the debt.

If it were me, I would be disputing the amount. I’ve advised her to do so and how to.

The main issue is one of confidence and experience.

Why would you play ‘by the rules’ when those rules penalise you?!

She has been much better off playing the system. I can’t argue with that.

For me that wouldn’t work because I have different socialisation but I don’t think the way that works best for me is what will solve her problems.

Yy battlax

Not only that, but the WC partner or a violent WC man, who faces far more barriers to extricating herself and the children compared to her MC counterpart, (to obtaining alternative housing, to obtaining legal help, to securing an adequate income and so on), she is understood to be lacking agency, intelligence and gumption and that this reflects on her parenting instincts.

It’s an inherent bias written deep into every element of the system. It comes close to categorising material poverty as a moral failure.

Oh it does categorise poverty as moral failure.

When I left my ‘high earning’ husband I became a ‘benefit claimant’ despite zero having changed in my personal circs.

When I was assessed by SC their attitude changed immediately when they saw my degree certificate and I told them it was an LLB.

As part of parenting capacity SC assess whether a single parent has work.... what does having work say that has any meaning regarding parenting capacity?

My interactions with SC have been very different to my friend’s too. She was desperate to get them out of her life. I have been motivated to make them do stuff and not let them close the case.

That depends on having a basic level of belief in the system which comes from socialisation. I am not afraid of them and see them as there to help. She sees them as there to judge.

It is not irrational TBF.

Fab posts Battleax Totally agree.

If I had a couple of hundred million to throw at this, I think I’d be tempted to spend it on reforming the judiciary, rather than starting with SW policy. Possibly starting with lavish funding for graduate entrants from ordinary backgrounds. The structure of the legal profession, training etc, leaves us stuck with exactly the archaic, classbound system you’d expect. We’ll never move forward until we reverse that dramatically.

When I was assessed by SC their attitude changed immediately when they saw my degree certificate and I told them it was an LLB.

The worst thing is that that isn’t even slightly surprising

As part of parenting capacity SC assess whether a single parent has work.... what does having work say that has any meaning regarding parenting capacity?

Revolting, it really is.

I agree battlax but I’d also reform laws so that there was a cohesive approach to DA.

It should not be possible for SC, the police, housing, medicine and the judiciary to all have their own separate rules, approaches, bureaucracies and aims.

If SC see witnessing DA as child abuse then the other orgs should too.

Social policy should also be consistent no more considering both adults for one purpose but seeing them as single people for others and no-one should risk destitution. Full stop. It’s inexcusable given how wealthy our country is.

NC for this.

I left an abusive relationship five years ago. I was harassed, stalked and it left me with anxiety and panic attacks. The law considers the best interests of the child to be contact with the non-resident parent. My separated husband used contact as a way of getting at me. Emotional manipulation, aggression and hostility, following me and DC back to the car, touching me when I told him not to. I was not yet up to speed on how coercive control works.

We are in a jurisdiction where you need agreement on childcare arrangements to be able to divorce. Firstly, he refused to get a solicitor. He only did this when I threatened to call the police if he came to the house. Then it was difficult to agree contact which DS could manage (DS is now diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum, but it was coming out as behaviour then).

This went on for three years. Just me trying to enact a separation/divorce I had started and he did not accept. He does not need to do anything criminal, just not agree the childcare.

I cut lots of details, which revolve around DS not settling to overnight contact and me trying to facilitate it, because that is what the law tells you to do. I had seen three lawyers for opinions by this point.

Then DS disclosed abuse and some of his past behaviour made sense. He disclosed this also in interview with the family protection unit. I live in a jurisdiction where corroboration is required. His father gave a no comment interview. The police told me it was extremely difficult to get a prosecution in these circumstances because it relied on the words of a child. They told me I was doing a good job of protecting my child and to keep doing it.

Social work did not speak to DS, or my ex. They assessed my parenting capacity and found me to be motivated to keep DS safe. They said they had no role, and I could keep contact stopped through the courts.

But if you don’t qualify for legal aid, and where I am, the threshold applies also for domestic abuse cases, who pays for that? Life-savings, such as they were, re-mortgaging house, a good friend who I can never pay back, debt. And the courts work on the principle that it is in the best interests of the child to have some contact.

For a poster above to say you just need to fill in some forms is such an under-estimation of the real costs. Firstly, if you are the resident parent, you cannot bring the case where I am, because that is not the contested part. So the parent seeking contact has to do it. If they send multiple letters to your solicitor instead, then that costs emotionally and financially, even if all your solicitor is doing is saying no, or forwarding the latest missive on.

This is not even half the story. You need to add in him muddying the waters around getting an ASD diagnosis and arguing (also in court) that it was my parenting and mental health issues. You need to add in a series of court hearings which drag on and nothing resolved. You need to remember where I am you cannot get divorced without child arrangements being resolved.

Violence is not always physical and does not always leave bruises.

I am lucky. I had the savings, the equity and the affluent and kind friend, the ability to borrow against future earnings. I have an excellent solicitor (now - for the first three years, in retrospect, I had a rubbish one). I have been able to put enough boundaries in place to make things safe and manageable for DC.

I have not managed to get my ex to stop pushing for direct contact with me. I have not managed to get to a stage where child contact arrangements are agreed (and this will probably remain the case for a good while, given the circumstances), I cannot divorce the man.

So, the things I know now about the judiciary system, social work, and family law, as well as how coercive control works (and is not recognised, firstly not by myself and then only slowly by those involved), what do I do with all that?

I just write this because the attitude of some posters that a mother should protect her children or face having them removed. I got no help to protect my DC. I do not know what would have happened if I had said on-going contact is fine, I am not standing against it.

What if I had been a SAHM or low wage, reliant on ex’s income to feed and house my children, what then? Walk a mile in some-one else’s shoes.

And my question is serious, with everything I know now, if you were me, how would you help change things in the future?

Because a parent's primary role in life is to keep her children safe and put them first. Women (or men actually in some case) are given a lot of help and support to do this by cutting contact with a person who is a danger to the children but if they won't/can't then they take the children as the parent Is failing to keep them safe. Locking up the perpetrator wouldn't work I'm afraid because they couldn't keep them locked up forever so it's likely things would start up again on release, also sadly women who are vulnerable to this extent are often targeted by abusive potential partners so she may well find another partner who's just as bad (I've seen this happen more than once) it's desperately sad and the decision is never taken lightly, often a mother is providing really good care for the children in other ways. Sometimes, though, it's the only course of action that's going to keep those children safe long term.

Read my post again RideSallyRide what help and support was I given?

I raised a concern about my DS’s welfare and I was assessed. My capacity as a parent, my ability to keep DS safe. I had done nothing wrong.

Surely it is the primary responsibility of BOTH parents to keep their child/ten safe?

Op

Why are children removed and not the DV perpetrator?

Because the mother has refused to protect her children from him. Because after initial SW involvement where she is told to keep him out of the home she doesn’t listen, because after a few weeks she starts asking SW when he can come home? Because she has a pattern in dating men who are known as DV perpetrators?

Disclosing to SW that a man has beaten you and emotionally abused you for years (usually in a low moment after an attack) then weeks later the woman’s anger subsides and she wants him back home and he pressures her to ask SW they say no. This also shows that she has failed to understand the lifelong emotional impact on her kids DV/DA will have.

Kids growing up like this end up turning out like this and the cycle continues.

The offender will be dealt with via the justice system.

There are usually other factors at play too such as addiction etc

It’s not black and white.

Someone mentioned about why working is relevant - that’s just part of the holistic assessment looking at all aspects of the child’s world.

No words now

But you are in a different country by the sounds of it so the same laws wouldn’t apply?

I have read Family Court judgements where chikdren are still taken or not returned AFTER the woman has left because there is an assumption her future relationships will be the same and there is a risk of future emotional harm to the child. I don't know what evidence these future risk assessments are based on but it seems some women can't win. Is there consideration of the harm which is guaranteed if a child is removed, shunted between different foster parents etc?

I agree op. The onus is on the woman to protect her offspring and get away. I agree that social services need to be child centric and have a lower burden of proof as the risks are great. But I'd expect higher rate of men in these cases to end up with a criminal conviction. The man presumably goes on to abuse another family that may not end up on social services radar for years.

Ella oldie

If this was the woman’s third relationship featuring DV then she has a predisposition to date abusers. She may we’ll have grown up where DV was prevalent in the home.

Should those kids go back? Or have they suffered enough? They’d have to leave placements to be returned on the basis that mum would never date another abuser.

Kids shouldn’t be returned then removed on a constant basis

The difficulty, in my experience as a family lawyer, is that many many women have a propensity for entering into relationships characterised by domestic abuse. Of course there are always reasons for this (usually entrenched in childhood issues) but the reality seems to be that even if you manage to 'get rid' of one abuser, it's only a matter of time before another one takes his place.

A lot of the women in these type of situations do not recognise the impact of DV on the children involved and would require months/years of CBT/DBT type therapy in order to make the changes needed. Those timescales are not usually compatible with the welfare of the children.

The 'system' is far from ideal but I can count on one hand the number of cases I've dealt with where removal of the children by SS has centred around only 1 abusive relationship and even then there have been other factors at play.

As an aside, legal aid is still available for those wanting to pursue non molestation/occupation orders but don't have the confidence or knowledge to conduct their own proceedings. It is subject to income/capital assessment but for the most vulnerable women there is usually the possibility of instructing a solicitor to help.

Grass pigeons

You are right. He will abuse others it is only by chance that one time the mother might be so afraid she calls the police and this triggers SW involvement.

Many women won’t call the police for this reason

Having worked within safeguarding it basically boils down to the mother making appropriate decisions to effectively safeguard her children.
If the man is known to be abusive etc the woman would be supported to leave the man for the physical and emotional wellbeing of the children.
For me it's common sense. I get what you are saying but a child is never removed lightly and the woman would always be helped and supprted

Well said stardust!!

These kids have endured so much before they are removed