I dont feel my concerns are being taken seriously.

[Bee*]

In the one and a half years our family have been on the CP plan, we have had three social workers. The first left, and the second was replaced because I requested a change in social worker. (its a complicated story, I am raising my four younger siblings after our mother died, my stepfather is semi involved and has the kids on weekends)

I got a new one because my father made a complaint about how I was treated and said he wanted us to have a new social worker, and then after the first PLO meeting my solicitor and I met with the manager and we talked about how SW2 is causing problems in the family. He agreed to change our social worker and agreed that there is a big personality difference and approach between SW1 and SW2, and he would try and get us a change. That worked (and I like the new social worker we have and things have improved with her).

I told my older sister about the problems we have had with her, and she decided to write an email to the manager about it (with my consent), and says I should make a complaint about her because she has treated me horribly and could be doing this to other families too. I spoke to the manager after the last PLO meeting about it, although he only focussed on one of my concerns. He talked about the concern that my stepdad's sexually abusive behaviour to me and my sister as teenagers was not taken seriously by SW2, but not any of the concerns about her actual conduct towards me. At the moment, I feel that SW3 is taking me seriously about it, and hopefully I will now be listened to, but I had loads of concerns about the conduct of SW2. The manager said he would respond to my sister's email, but couldn't give her much information as she is not involved in the case. He never responded, and my sister feels that she is being brushed off. He was apparently away when she sent the email, in early September, she was told he would be back in two weeks, on the second week, SW3 told me that he was away until the week after when I asked her about it. My sister has emailed twice, one time they told her that Manager was off, and the second time, whoever replied said he was in court. I met with him on the 15th October, over a month after she sent the email. He said he would reply to her, but he didn't and its been two months since she sent the email.

These are my concerns:

1. SW1 had minimal concerns, and in fact wanted to end the CPP but the last conference was split in voting and keeping us on it won out due to assessments not being completed yet. SW2 was working with our family for 3 months before she started talking about legal stuff (it was just before the conference she mentioned it), and during that time she was nothing but negative. I cant understand how we went from almost not being on the plan anymore to PLO in a few months with no major things happening-my panic attack at the conference was because she was talking about PLO stuff and I thought the conference would be where that would be decided because I didn't understand it. I am suspicious about how everything has changed so dramatically in just a few months, especially now SW3 is being so positive about our family and saying she is surprised about how much things have changed since she took over, especially about my mental health and how my anxiety seems to get better each time she sees me. She asked me what I thought it was, I truthfully told her it was because we had a new social worker, and I think she took it as a compliment, lol.

2. She brushed off my allegations of sexual abuse against my stepfather. She asked him if he had done it, he said no, and she dropped it and said there was no proof. I had her speak to my sister, who said that she didn't feel that SW2 ever took her seriously, and she didn't think that she even wrote anything down. Nothing my sister said about his abuse of her ever ended up mentioned. In the report for the last conference, it just said that I had made claims of both current and past inappropriate comments from him, they asked and he denied it. It didn't mention him showing us his ***** or him hitting my sister a lot when she was a teenager, or creeping on our friends, or anything more than mild inappropriate sexual comments.

3. It seemed like her behaviour towards me was actively malicious. After the first time I had a panic attack, she made my stepdad have the children at his house for an extra day and have the baby stay over too. This happened a few days after. She also started coming up more frequently, always unannounced, after I confided in another member of the core group about how its gotten to the point where seeing her gives me panic attacks and I was having nightmares about her and on edge constantly over the possibility she might show up. She was constantly negative and always putting me down, despite minimal concerns by SW1, and praising my stepdad for every little bit of effort and wanting the kids to spend more time with him, even if he abused me as a kid and leaves them watching TV all day at his house. She was irritated and cold to me at me at a time when I was in a pretty vulnerable position and alone with her, and told me that I am making it harder for myself by sitting there and complaining, go play with the baby because she doesn't want to be here either and she knows I don't like her but she doesn't care because her job is to protect the kids.

What more can I do about this? Something's not right and I don't feel that I am being taken seriously by the manager.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Beth,

I can see that things are very busy at the moment with children services involvement with your family.

Things are on the cusp of potentially going into care proceedings so I can’t stress how important it is that you work with your solicitor.

You are worried that you are not taken seriously by the team manager. In particular that the behaviour of the second social worker that impacted so greatly on you and caused you to have panic attacks, has never been properly addressed. Your sisters letter has never been answered.

Are you thinking about pursuing a complaint?

Before you pursue any further complaints (such as your sisters) I would check first with your solicitor. All what you say will be evidence that might be important if care proceedings are taken.
Also as you are at the pre proceedings stage, you have to be careful not get bogged down in extra disputes and just concentrate on what needs to be done within both the PLO procedure and child protection plan. There will be so much to do.

Sometimes complaints can muddy the water and affect the relationship between you and children services when you need to show that you can work with professionals.

Now social worker 2 is no longer on the case, and the third one seems so much better, can you concentrate on working well with the new social worker? It seems like you are already drawing a line under what happened with the second social worker and you have a good relationship with social worker number three. This is a really good step forward. As you are still being assessed the fact that you work better with social worker 3 will be noted. Also you have to show that you can take advice from professionals as well as form a working relationship with them.


Your post also raises the issue of your mental health. You will be getting a psychological assessment. It sounds like children services think your anxiety or another mental health condition might be affecting your parenting ability. Have you obtained any support or treatment? if not the
psychological assessment might recommend further support that you might need.

Here is some information about psychological assessments .

Do you know what documents and reports have been sent to the psychologist about you and the children? Have you seen the letter of instruction? If not, ask for a copy from your solicitor.
Other parents might be able to share their experiences of being assessed.

I hope this helps. But please post back if you need further advice or you have more questions.
Best wishes,

Suzie

[Bee*]

I will speak to my solicitor about it, I have spoken to her since I posted this, as she was present at the PLO meeting where we talked about this, and she says she will chase it up with the manager about him not replying.

Yes, I have obtained support for my mental health issues and dealing with my past abuse

No, I do not know what kind of documents have been sent to the psychologist, although I had to give consent for them to see my medical records and the children's too. I have no idea what a letter of instruction is, but I will ask my solicitor.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Beth

Thank you for your post.

I am not sure if you have already sought advice from your solicitor. If not, the Letter of Instruction formally identifies the key areas, the psychologist will be asked to assess as part of the PLO process. The document normally sets out a series of agreed questions between the various parties which may, or may not be shared with you in advance.

I hope this helps.

Best Wishes

Suzie

[Bee*]

Had the psychological assessment now. It was long, but it was okay. I cant remember entirely what we talked about, but it was nothing that I hadn't already been asked before, like how my mental health is now, about my anxiety, how the kids behave, about my childhood experiences and my stepdad abusing me. She also asked me a lot of true/false questions, it was a questionnaire but she asked the questions to me, I found it a little confusing because on some, true meant you did the thing, and on others, false meant you did the thing, and some questions were the same but worded differently. She did remind me when she was certain I had understood the question wrong (like ones about drugs and alcohol, as I already made it clear that I don't drink or do drugs). She has also seen the children at school, and visited us in the home to just observe our interactions, she wasn't there long.

Completed the parenting assessment as well, apparently I did really well.

We are getting things done with SW3. She agreed to change the arrangements we have with the kids, so instead of having the kids all weekend, their dad gets them Thursdays-Saturdays instead so I get Sundays with them. Also means he has to take them to school on Fridays, and so far our social worker has only had to speak to him about kids needing coats in November and stuff once. The last one thought he was wonderful and that I was making it up, but the newest one listened to my concerns. Ive been having fun having Sundays, been baking and doing craft projects, and now I am starting to trust the professionals, theyre seeing that I am very emotionally warm with the kids and are meeting their needs.

The next conference is on Monday, but we will not be getting dropped from the CP plan because we are still in PLO, even if all of the reports I have gotten so far are very positive-another 6 months and Im thinking its likely that's it. Its strange how in the space of a year, we have had a conference with SW1 (Dec 2014) that was very positive and almost ended the CP plan, her leaving, me not getting on well with SW2, a conference with her where every report was negative and I had a panic attack and couldn't even go into the room, followed by me being so afraid of her that being in the same room as her gave me panic attacks, going into PLO, getting a new social worker, and then everything is looking up. Im suspicious how things can change so much.

SW3 says that PLO will end after either this meeting or the one after, risks have reduced and things are really looking up. I haven't done anything dramatically different than what I was doing before, the only difference is that I now have a social worker who isn't picking on me...shes actually quite nice and offered to take me to the conference because I am feeling nervous about it after my panic attack at the last one. I haven't had any panic attacks at the core groups in months, and I am able to discuss things with other professionals instead of being afraid of them, and that's helped a lot, people are seeing me be myself, and be relaxed around them. Nobody can observe emotional warmth from someone who is completely terrified.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Beth,

Thank you for updating us. Things seem to be progressing in the right direction now. I am glad to hear that the parenting assessment went well.
I am also glad that the social worker seems more experienced than the last one, has understood you and enabled you to work with the plan. Part of the parenting assessment is to see what support you as a parent might need (including support for any health needs including mental health).

Best wishes,

Suzie