Core Group Meetings

[1234_]

So my children were placed onto a CPP on Monday. Straight after the ICPC there was a 'Core Group Meeting'.

We found the core group meeting to be a lot more positive than we thought it would be. However my only gripe was that the actual Child Protection Plan was not discussed in detail. The core group meeting was cut short as there was another meeting due to start so they needed the room . There were no exact details about what we will be asked to do, or timings etc. They only went over the rough plan that was drawn up by the chair and were told that our SW would write up a 'contract' asap with more details. I feel like we are still hanging in limbo not knowing what we should and shouldn't be doing and it would have been nice to discuss the details without them doing it behind closed doors. - Is it normal for this to happen?

[Miserylovescompany2]

Hello

It shouldn't be rushed nor should it be left with you not knowing exactly what it is you are supposed to be doing. Were you given the oportinunty at the initial conference to make suggestions about what kind of support you and your family would find useful or beneficial? It shouldn't be about everything being discussed behind closed doors and then a plan shoved in front of you. The IRO should be making sure CS have and are doing what is expected of them.

No - not normal in my opinion. Unfortunately not unusual though.

[1234_]

The initial conference was literally just us providing answers to questions in the 'professionals' reports. Nothing specific about what we will be required to do, nothing at all. That's basically what we are waiting for... the plan to be shown to us and us expected to agree to it without having discussed it etc. We asked for help with our daughter, she has issues concentrating, self esteem, working memory etc. The schools took all of that on board and are working with us on that front.

But nobody has spoken to us about what it is they want us to do :/ I really want to get cracking, our kids mean the absolute world to us and we want to do everything we can to make sure they are thriving and receiving the right support but it's sort of hard when we're not really going to have a say over anything.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear 1234

Thank you for your post.

One of the purposes of the core group should have been to discuss, agree and outline the child protection plan in more detail, outlining timings, actions, what ‘work’ is needed and how much improvement etc. From what you say you were not provided with a clear picture of what the next steps should be and how any action was to be achieved. I think it would be useful for you to contact the lead person and say that you felt rushed and left without a clear plan about how to make any of the changes that were discussed in the ICPC and the core group meeting.

Our advice sheet Child protection procedures may give you some insight into the CP process and you could ask the social worker responsible to provide you with any information or policies they hold locally.

Best wishes.

Suzie

[1234_]

We are still waiting to see the plan, been told they're drawing it up so we've lost a week of time that we could have been using to make 'progress'. We are also still living separately from daddy, have absolutely no idea what they expect of us going forwards. We also have no contact details for the chair of the meeting so couldn't raise a complaint even if we wanted to

[PerfectlySafeDad]

We are still waiting to see the plan, been told they're drawing it up so we've lost a week of time that we could have been using to make 'progress'. We are also still living separately from daddy, have absolutely no idea what they expect of us going forwards. We also have no contact details for the chair of the meeting so couldn't raise a complaint even if we wanted to

Complete tyranny. The impact on people's lives through under-resourcing, bureaucratic error, foot-dragging or downright rank incompetence is just as real as any act of conscious cruelty, and it needs to be given it's due as such. These things are not acceptable as excuses. Either reform the system to cope with the workload in a fair manner or accept that resources don't stretch and simply drop cases. Either resources are not sufficient to investigate the alleged 'risk' out there, or the threshold for investigation is set way too low. Which is it? Get it sorted, but don't penalize the public for it, these are human rights abuses. The lack of contact details for the chair is the most pertinent point here; it epitomizes the extent of CS's unaccountability, and it's impossible to discern whether it's simply oversight or deliberate, cynical evasiveness - which is itself a feature of the tyranny; their 'errors' are invariably easy to be glossed over as such. I'm inclined to believe it's more often than not a subtle combination of chaos and callous cover-up. After all, they have a track record, and they themselves love to say how 'past behaviour is the best determiner of future behaviour', and they routinely damage people's lives on that basis.
Complete tyranny.

[1234_]

The impression I am getting from them is that they really don't have the time for our case. The social workers report was made from a total of 35mins he spent with my daughter and 15 minutes he spent with my son. He made 2 flying visits to gather his info in the 3 weeks it took for the conference to come around. Now they don't seem to be in any rush to get this plan in place.

The fact they don't seem to want to get overly involved and keep dragging their feet is the only positive thing I'm clinging on to. Just a shame we have to endure their hash of a plan in the meantime.

[PerfectlySafeDad]

You're correct, they definitely don't have time or the manpower, and seems your case is not regarded as serious enough to merit their attention. This is better than the opposite for sure. The thing that upsets me, though, on your behalf (and similar in mine) is that instead of backing out cleanly they attempt to cover their backs by keeping some kind of unwritten hold on you, letting things dangle or 'closing' cases with verbal 'advice' which nobody is sure is a serious threat or not. It's just not on. Slippery and callous doesn't even cover their tactics. Has anybody ever received an apology from social services over anything ever, however trivial?