This is one of the reasons I never went into child protection. I wanted to be able to enjoy my own children with a bit of innocence, and without my view of “normal” childhood being skewed by the atrocities you would come across in such a line of work. Very selfish reasoning, but that was my decision. It is such a shame that your friend has had her view skewed like this, but it makes you wonder what she has witnessed to make her feel horrified at your familiy’s decision over bathing.
This is one of the reasons I never went into child protection. I wanted to be able to enjoy my own children with a bit of innocence, and without my view of “normal” childhood being skewed by the atrocities you would come across in such a line of work. Very selfish reasoning, but that was my decision. It is such a shame that your friend has had her view skewed like this, but it makes you wonder what she has witnessed to make her feel horrified at your familiy’s decision over bathing.
The other thing that alarmed me (and her too to be honest) was that in her 3yrs degree she only briefly touched on child development which I thought should be quite a major factor in a children and families social worker. How could she assess if the child is thriving or not if she doesn’t know what is “normal” for a child. (Obviously this comes with experience too but surely a professional in children’s services should know about how children develop?).
Gosh, I feel like I’m the sole advocate for social work here!!
Alot of things do come with working on the job (as in any profession). I think midwives get half a day on breastfeeding training! But back to the point in question, child development and “normal” are such massive areas, one you could devote a whole degree to, so social workers would be drawing on the experiences of those within multi-disciplinary working arrangements who do have more knowledge such as doctors, psychiatrists etc.
Gosh, I feel like I’m the sole advocate for social work here!!
Alot of things do come with working on the job (as in any profession). I think midwives get half a day on breastfeeding training! But back to the point in question, child development and “normal” are such massive areas, one you could devote a whole degree to, so social workers would be drawing on the experiences of those within multi-disciplinary working arrangements who do have more knowledge such as doctors, psychiatrists etc.
Yes, I agree, but I do feel they should dedicate a half decent amount of time to it. I have a degree in Early Childhood studies as well as a Diploma in Nursery Nursing and I actually feel the criteria to be a child and families social worker should be to have the diploma in child development first before they do the degree.
And seeing as you mentioned midwives with their half day breastfeeding training…it is the same for SOME (not all) Health Visitors who are adult trained nurses who then do a one year HV course rather than insisting they are paediatric trained first. So the community nursery nurses often have far more experience and knowledge of child development than the doubley paid health visitors do.
I’m really going off on a tangent here! Sorry! I guess in an ideal world, things would be very different. But in an ideal world there would be peace and harmony and everyone would be happy. x
The public is rarely aware of the set up of the family courts where all hearings are heard in private and parents are put on trial without a jury. That’s right, there are no jurys in the family court, if a parent reports their plight to the press (who are not allowed to report it!!!) they can be imprisoned, again by a secret court without a jury. Even a murderer gets a fair trial with a jury.
A bit off topic, by my friend attends a family court right now regarding access arrangements where her son’s father (who is proven to be violent) has been granted unsupervised access to their child. It has been mainly down to reports which have been wrongly written (ie twisting the truth to get it through and out of their system asap) so it sounds like it is the best thing for the child (WHICH IT IS NOT!).
I think it is disgusting that family courts have no jury and in my experience children’s services aren’t always in the best interest of the child but more to reach the targets that some unknown person “above” has set. (As in child care and education services too…but that’s another thread!) x
Hi Skye-blu,
It is absolutely extraodinary that this happens, but it happens all too oftern, I have heard of many many cases like this. There was one reported in the main press about a mum who left the UK due to her violent husband and the SS chased her to France and took the children from her and the abusive father was given full custody of the children. I hope your friend manages to get the result she wants, it might be well worth her contacting Ian Josephs on the weblink I’ve given as he will give her free advice.
I am not suggesting that social workers are all bad people either, there are many good social workers but the good ones tend to leave child protection when they find that their good intentions are not met. Of course children have to be protected and even removed if they are in real danger. Adoption is another matter though, and children should never be freed for adoption unless there is overwhelming evidence that they will be subjected to abuse if they remain in the home. That is why I was uncomfortable about the government wantting to speed adoptions up, a child can be taken and freed for adoption in less than a year. The whole family court system is a nightmare particularly for any poor innocent parent who ends up there. Once a parent is in the family court they have to face a whole battery of tests, including IQ tests, interviews with psychologists, psychiatrists all people who also work for the local authority too, which is where things get murky. The parents’ lawyer also works for the local authority as lawyers that are registered with the children’s panel are the only ones allowed to take part in care proceedings, adoption hearings etc. The problem parents can face is that these cases are heard everyday and the same old “experts” are brought in again and again, look at Dr Roy Meadows, the guy who coined the munchaussens (sp?) by proxy disorder and condemned many women such as Sally Slater and Angela Cannings to jail. Why did his name crop up so oftern? because he was used again and again!!! This is the problem, it is not just about social workers, the whole system needs to be completey overhauled and there needs to be much more transparency. If this doesn’t happen then it will continue to come under scrutiny even though the main media still choose to ignore it apart from a few journalists like Camilla Cavendish who have stuck their necks out and this guy, Brian Gerrish, please take a look at these videos,
I have two sets of friends who have both adopted children who had been placed in care through child protection interventions - in both cases it is an “open” adoption where the birth parent (and, in one case, birth grandparents) are able to write to, telephone and have supervised visits with the children. My understanding is that that is how SS prefer to proceed nowadays, and it’s pretty rare and extreme for children with living parents who were not put up for adoption at birth to have “closed” adoptions.
It’s pretty emotive language to called them “forced” adoptions - if a child really is at great risk from their parents, the less time they spend in children’s homes or foster care (not that im knocking foster carers - just the uncertainty of being in foster care) the better - far better to place them with a permenant family, especially in an open adoption where they get safe contact with their birth parents. If anything, it’s hardest for adopting family, who have to also take on an often very dysfunctional family along with their adopted child.
Having worked in a setting where one poor three year old actually thought her name was Little S£&t I can totally see why some children are removed, and I’d much rather see them in a loving family than in a children’s home, however well run…
That’s all very well if the children are removed from a family that truly is dysfunctional, a family that doesn’t love their children, a family that molests or beats their children on a regular basis, then fine those children deserve an opportunity to have a new family. I’m sorry that you don’t like the term “forced adoption”, but there is no other way to describe taking a child, which might I add is oftern by force, away from parents who may be deemed not intelligent enough, who might be at risk of possibly doing something in the future even though they haven’t done it yet, or innocent altogether because some professional or nasty neighbour gets it wrong. The very fact that social services start looking for and placing a child with a prospective adoptive family as soon as the care proceedings begin is suggestive of a determination to adopt the child. The fact that hearings are held in secret without a jury also reinforce the idea that it is. If everything is so well managed then why are a number of MPs pressing for change, why are a number of journalists reporting injustices in the family courts? If it is so fair then why are parents told that if they try to expose their case they can be locked up by a secret court? How a high number of mums end up getting accused of suffering from munchaussens by proxy, a rare psychiatric illness, even though no one ever raised the issue before they got in the family courts. Sorry, but that doesn’t seem very fair to me. Many adopters report that they don’t get the support they need after adopting a child and they have my full sympathy for that.
I disagree that most adoptions these days are as *open* as you suggest. I know for a fact that this is very rare indeed, perhaps if the child is a few years upwards, then some limited contact is possible, in my experience this amounts to little more than a letter a year. However statisically we know that most children who are adopted are under the age of 5, after all this being the most sought after age group, particularly the babies. Therefore most adopted children don’t get any contact at all. We are not dealing with a new dog, or a kitten, though one would think so the way they are advertised like puppies, these are human beings with a right to their identity, their birth certificate and a right to life when they develop an illness like leukeamia and need a blood relative to help save their life. Can you tell me do the SS go and look for the birth family then. I’m fed up with hearing that adoptive families give children in care the perfect family life. This is not true either, many adoptions break down because the adopters haven’t been given the full story about the child’s behaviour, or the child misses their family etc. I have read countless stories of adopters running back to the SS and pleading for an adoption to be overturned, so the child is returned back into the foster system. Perhaps if they didn’t have the one sided reports of the social workers they might have a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the beginnings of the child’s life and the upset and anger of the child’s birth relatives. Many adopters have commented that they eren’t well supported, and they have my sympathy in that respect.
I have worked with troubled youngsters as well and yes there are people who don’t deserve to have them, but the hypocrisy of the system overwhelms me. I believe that more should be done to keep families together, the foster system should not be considered such a dangerous place for them to be. I don’t think paying a foster family around £800 a week is necessarily going to attract the right people, and perhaps they wouldn’t be needed if that money was put into resources supporting families that need the help. More needs to be done to address the *dysfunctional* families, who probably haven’t had a nice upbringing themselves, who don’t think they’re good enough or are confident enough to get a good education, who are undiagnosed with dyslexia and have turned to other means of making money because they can’t read or write. The care system has never had a good record in this country and it makes more financial sense to free these children up for adoption as quickly as possible. Actually it hasn’t got a good record in that respect either when you think of the horror stories from all the children that were sent out to Australia tears ago.
Motherearth, you have a lot of passion for this subject, and yes, the system is less than perfect and people will have been let down by the system. But that is not to say that there are not lots of people within the system that are working very hard to make the best decisions possible for some very vulnerable people. As with any large public sector service there will be alot of bureaucracy and it will not be the tailored service that the 21st century demands it be, change for the benefit of the vulnerable people who use the service is always welcome by those who care. And the fact that people are campaigning for change is encouraging.
I hope your friend manages to get the result she wants, it might be well worth her contacting Ian Josephs on the weblink I’ve given as he will give her free advice.
No, sadly she didn’t get the result she wanted or even feels remotely safe with. I have let her know your links and what you suggested about contacting Ian Josephs. Thank you for this. x
I hope your friend manages to get the result she wants, it might be well worth her contacting Ian Josephs on the weblink I’ve given as he will give her free advice.
No, sadly she didn’t get the result she wanted or even feels remotely safe with. I have let her know your links and what you suggested about contacting Ian Josephs. Thank you for this. x
Hi Skye-blu,
Sorry to hear that this has happened to your friend, she must be sick with worry. Sadly this happens all too oftern within the family courts. If she hasn’t done so already, she could appeal the decision as soon as possible. In care proceedings it can normally be a bad thing to employ a local solicitor as they oftern represent the Local Authority in other hearings and so relations exist between the Legal teams and the social services, not ideal if one is fighting them. In your friend’s case, the father may have employed a lawyer who was “well in” with the local authority. That is why a secret court can never be a good thing and transparancy is the only way forward. Ian Josephs’ website is very detailed and there might be some relevant info on there and a way forward for your friend but Ian will ring her back with some free advice. I would also advise your friend to contact Brian Gerrish at the UK Column http://www.ukcolumn.org they may be able to do some digging around and forward your friend on to others who could help.
I hope your friend can get another hearing and hopefully get the result she needs, but she is lucky to have a friend like you around to support her.
Sorry to hear that this has happened to your friend, she must be sick with worry. Sadly this happens all too oftern within the family courts. If she hasn’t done so already, she could appeal the decision as soon as possible. In care proceedings it can normally be a bad thing to employ a local solicitor as they oftern represent the Local Authority in other hearings and so relations exist between the Legal teams and the social services, not ideal if one is fighting them. In your friend’s case, the father may have employed a lawyer who was “well in” with the local authority. That is why a secret court can never be a good thing and transparancy is the only way forward. Ian Josephs’ website is very detailed and there might be some relevant info on there and a way forward for your friend but Ian will ring her back with some free advice. I would also advise your friend to contact Brian Gerrish at the UK Column http://www.ukcolumn.org they may be able to do some digging around and forward your friend on to others who could help.
I hope your friend can get another hearing and hopefully get the result she needs, but she is lucky to have a friend like you around to support her.
xx.
She is sick with worry yes. I don’t want to go into too much detail on here but it all is so ludicrous if it wasn’t so serious it would comical! Everything appears to be for “targets” rather than what is in the best interest of the child and no one seems to be listening to her child or her with regards to their fears and worries. Neither my friend or the father have solicitors as neither can afford them. Thank you again for your advice and I will pass on your links. x
Sorry to hear that this has happened to your friend, she must be sick with worry. Sadly this happens all too oftern within the family courts. If she hasn’t done so already, she could appeal the decision as soon as possible. In care proceedings it can normally be a bad thing to employ a local solicitor as they oftern represent the Local Authority in other hearings and so relations exist between the Legal teams and the social services, not ideal if one is fighting them. In your friend’s case, the father may have employed a lawyer who was “well in” with the local authority. That is why a secret court can never be a good thing and transparancy is the only way forward. Ian Josephs’ website is very detailed and there might be some relevant info on there and a way forward for your friend but Ian will ring her back with some free advice. I would also advise your friend to contact Brian Gerrish at the UK Column http://www.ukcolumn.org they may be able to do some digging around and forward your friend on to others who could help.
I hope your friend can get another hearing and hopefully get the result she needs, but she is lucky to have a friend like you around to support her.
xx.
She is sick with worry yes. I don’t want to go into too much detail on here but it all is so ludicrous if it wasn’t so serious it would comical! Everything appears to be for “targets” rather than what is in the best interest of the child and no one seems to be listening to her child or her with regards to their fears and worries. Neither my friend or the father have solicitors as neither can afford them. Thank you again for your advice and I will pass on your links. x
This thread has been very interesting, but can I just put in a word for social workers here. IMO they do an incredibly difficult job with almost no public support and nowhere near enough resources - it must be the most ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ job in our society at the moment, which seems a shame when the vast majority of social workers have gone into it with the intention of helping the vulnerable. It seems as if lack of resources and too high a workload have squeezed many social workers so hard.
I have to say that I’m glad so many social workers were actually at the training you went on Angie - seeing so many terrible things happening to the vulnerable, you probably do need to be reminded regularly that sometimes things are innocent.
I agree that in a short programme the true picture was not necessarily seen. It certainly came across that not much help and support was given but maybe there was more given than was shown. For me it was the end that really upset me. As others have said I felt that the mum given the right support would have been able to care for her children on her own. I couldn’t understand why it was felt necessary to separate the brother and sister and put them up for adoption and that the mum would never get to see them again as children. Even if it was felt they should live in another family why was the mum considered such a danger to the children that she could have no contact with them? To sever the little boy’s emotional relationship with his mum did not seem helpful to me.
I have let her know your links and what you suggested about contacting Ian Josephs. Thank you for this. x
