My 4 years with children services

[blueplain]

Hi there

(please note I am dyslexic and so please expect spelling mistakes)

I am a farther of five children, there ages range from as follows 6,4,3,2,1 I am sure your tempted to ask what happened to five we must of been having an off day, on a serious note, Me, my wife and my children have been with social services almost four years. It has been quite a journey with many ups and downs, joyful at times and other times very frustrating and upsetting. I want to take you through our journey in this account. I am hoping it can bring help and advice and perhaps a deeper understanding of what life is like living with social services, from the initial assessment to a protection plan and back. I will keep to the facts and state a few opinions but most importantly I will detail the effect it had on us as parents so that you may be able to relate or feel comforted that you are not alone.

To begin with I had lost my job, the debts were mounting and as such we were beginning to fall into a downward spiral. The children services were notified when a housing inspection was made by the estate agents representing our landlord of whom was not pleased with the presentation of our house. The house was rightly reported as a mess and as such a social worker was round our house within the hour. This was very embarrassing and distressing for us, we felt overwhelmed by the sudden change in events feeling mortified and in a state of shock we sat with the social worker and spoke openly about our situation. I remember apologizing many times and before we knew it the visit had ended with us being told that we shall be visited again to discuss future actions. When we were again alone the shock changed to fear and it was difficult to find consolment in each other. We began speculating on what will happen and one question was strong in our mind "will they take our children". This thought to any parent is the worst thing imaginable and I was fighting back tears that I may not ever see my children again.

Three days had passed and the social worker once again came round, she sat down and talked to us about an initial assessment. They were going to investigate our situation and determine the course of action. She reassured us that help will be offered and the services will be tailored to our needs and to not even consider at that point the possible fate of our children in regards to being removed. This helped to console us a little but we still continued in fear as to the outcome of the investigation.

Ten days went by when finally we received the initial assessment. That moment is still fresh in my mind. We expected to read bad findings about our house but we were not prepared for what knock on opinions such a thing had. I remember feeling prosecuted, angry, upset, horrified. We had accepted that we had been bad maintaining the house but we felt we had within the best of our skills provided for our children to make sure they were healthy and happy. We read statements such as "the children seem quiet and withdrawn" "its my opinion that parents do not show emotional warmth or comfort to there children" and other such horrible things about our capacity as parents. We had learned the hard way that social workers can give opinions on what they observe and state what they think is happening to explain what they have seen. We were outraged at the accusations and we felt that we were seen as vile unloving people. I remember the sleepless night turning over and over in my head what they thought about us as parents. I had to keep reassuring myself and telling myself that I am a good parent we were just going through a difficult time. I know I cuddled my children and spent most of my day with them looking after them and playing with them. I then realized that when the social worker had come round each time, we spent all our energy and effort being a good host for her and catering to the social workers needs and had not spent the time doing what we usually did and interact with our children. At the end of the initial assessment we were placed on a child in need plan and had meetings every month.

I want you to learn from that. When a social worker comes round I know it is in your nature to make sure her visit is pleasant but resist that urge. Carry on doing your daily routine and answer her while carrying out said routine. She/he needs to observe your daily lives with your children. I wish back then we were given that information. We spent visit after visit catering as a good host instead of doing what we usually would be doing.

Once we had got the idea of the process we began becoming less angry and less resistant (it did take a while to get over the initial assessment) and we became more comfortable and confident in ourselves. We had been given a FRS worker that purchased us a new fridge and a washing machine, even new carpets and everything was going really well. Unfortunately due to the findings of our estate agents inspection the landlord had started the process of evicting us from his property. This was a very stressful time, dealing with loosing your home and having your parental capacity assessed. We went to a housing charity though and in the end got a house in the corner of a council estate. It was away form our family and isolated.The street was pretty rough and we felt very intimidated but we had no other choice and moved onto the street.

As time passed the children on the street began knocking on asking for money, throwing trash in our garden and we did not know how to deal with this. We became withdrawn and did not want to go out of the house and of course this had a direct impact with the social services involvement. We had missed a few medical appointments, such as immunizations ect and we had slipped back a little feeling trapped and not in control of our situation. The meetings were becoming more and more negative and our social worker at some point said when I inquired about a protection plan
"A protection plan would not be any help to you, I am afraid with how your continuing we might have to go straight to court proceedings"

Let me tell you right now as I have learned it is not possible to skip a protection level as children services will have to prove in court that they helped you in every way they could before going to court proceedings. If you are ever told this seek advice. I am just a bit skeptic that he felt this way but left our children in our care. There are procedures in which if he felt it was bad enough to go to court that he could of got a order to have our children protected.

Well this naturally scared the hell out of us, We were mortified and thought we was about to loose our children. Instead of helping us they made us feel more helpless. This was when I turned to my mother. I phoned her and told her everything that was happening and she just turned around and said

"I will evict my tenants and you can come and live in my house"

before we knew it we had informed social services of our move and moved to the new area and it was amazing. My mother house we moved into was a beach house and it was the start of summer, I had support from my family and it was the fresh start we needed. We got the kids into school and nursery, set up the doctors and completed all the outstanding medical appointments even before the new social worker turned up. In the new assessment it said we were doing a fantastic job the kids are happy and healthy and there is no concern and as such were signed off. We were in complete shock. We went from coming close to court proceedings and loosing our children to just moving house and being told we were perfect parents. The sudden change was overwhelming and we were extremely confused and angry with the previous authority from which we moved from. How could there be such huge contrasts in reports?

As time went by we received our health visitor who was informed of everything that had happened in the previous authority, she repeated concerns that she felt we should not of been signed off with what she had read in our history and we naturally resented her for her judgement about our past. I soon found myself on the new government work trial and they forced me into work. The amusing thing was the job they put me into was cleaning houses of those from social worker cases, I seemed to have surrounded my life with children services. After my wife had our 5th child and she began to struggle. We latter found she did not have enough iron in her system and was suffering from anemia. The health visitor then at the time immediately called social services as soon as the house began to get a little untidy. I was very angry because my wife had only just given birth and it takes time to recover and I had to go to work or loose the benefits we was receiving. a social worker did come round.

the social worker said everything seemed fine and that there did not seem to be anything to be concerned about. We were very happy that this social worker had seen sense until she came round a week later.

"I have read your chronology (previous report) and I have decided to stick around and do a further assessment"

At this point I immediately quit my job.

We were outraged, She seemed to have been reflecting the same judgement as our health visitor who reported us. When we received the initial assessment we were disgusted. It stated that we had left our new born baby in his cot and never picked him up due to the flat side of his head. We had found out later that he had a medical condition in which the suture on the back right side of his head had fused early and caused the the flatness unfortunately that was not known at the time and we suddenly found ourselves sitting around a table of 20 people at a child protection conference. I had never been so scared in my life up to that point. How could this of occurred so quickly. A few weeks ago we were great parents and suddenly we were being assessed worse then ever. This caused us to become extremely confused and upset and it was exhausting.
We met our new social worker after the meeting and he came at regular 10 days intervals. We signed ourselves up to makaton courses, baby massage, parental courses to show we were serious about the level and we wanted the best for our children. Time went by and our social worker kept coming round saying everything seems great, I can not see any problems. The targets reflected this to our amusement the targets set were individual medical appointments for us to make, in which I made all.

Later my mother decided we were back on our feet again and she wanted her house back. The move was soon after a protection plan review. We went to the review and we were naturally signed off and we felt great that we could continue our future without living in fear. We moved back to the original authority in which the children services first began as that was were most our family lived. Our social worker informed the authority in which we just moved back to about our move and said that it be best for them to monitor our move so that they can feel assured that we settled ok. We first moved into the wife's grandmothers house while we decorated our new house and prepared it for the children.

A social worker came round during this time and said she could not complete the assessment as we have not moved to our future address yet. When we finally moved she skipped the initial assessment saying it could not be completed at the time and did a core assessment. They said there was no concerns but it was procedure to place us on a child in need level after a protection plan. Me and the wife said to each other "here we go again" we felt as though we were trapped in a constant cycle and it was very demoralizing and frustrating. We were joyful a few weeks ago and now we were angry and frustrated again. When will this roller coaster be over? We phoned our previous social worker and he was not happy with this outcome, he told us we have the right to refuse there services. We then called the service manager to request a meeting to refuse the services. After time passed the meeting never came round and we were told such a conversation never took place.

6 months past, we had three child in need meetings, the first was good the second had a few bad reports as we were adjusting to our move but the third they said everything was going great again. We are still today 9 months later waiting for the completion of our core assessment since it started when we moved back. We have put in a complaint and have received a letter of apology and informed us that we shall be getting our targets and core assessment that we are currently still waiting for. I have phoned Bernardo services to get us a key worker to help organize the transitioning appointments and we are still waiting for our social workers to sign the permission form 9 months later. She has blocked a services we requested which is incredible which brings us today as I write this account to you now

We feel optimistic about the future but we are so very very exhausted emotionally with these constant ups and downs and we hope this experience will be over before it effects our mental state. We have never been offered counseling in the four years we been under investigation and I do not wish such a long period of time with children services on anyone. There is a point were it becomes detrimental to your overall health.

Thank you for the time to read my account and I hope you will find it useful in your situation.
If there is any advice this board can give us it will be appreciated as we feel that overall we have been treated unfairly, especially in our current situation.
thanks again and please stay strong and keep you chin up. It is a lot to deal with and your not weak or a bad person for feeling the pressure, it is a life changing and draining situation and you are all dealing with a lot, I understand how you feel but keep going.

[mummyof2]

Thank you for sharing your story with us I have recently been involved with social services, I have a 4year old daughter and my son is due in 6weeks. I had a core assessment done with very nearly turned into a pre-birth assessment because they had concerns regarding my unborn childs father with whom I had a one night stand and haven't even seen since! Fortunately after the core assessment my case has now been closed and I have received a letter stating that they are taking no further action. Although our cases are very different I can completely relate to you when you talk about sleepless nights (I still have these and am becoming increasingly scared about going to hospital even though they have closed my case!) The absolute fear of losing your children and the complete loneliness and despair you feel that things will never get better. I also strongly agree with you that parents who are involved or who have been involved with social services could benefit from some form of counselling, as I am still scared they will re-involve themselves in my life and will never completely be at ease anymore. Although I can say the one positive that has come out of this mess is that I now know how precious my children are and will never take them for granted again! I hope you get closure soon but if your anything like me this ordeal will leave you completely paranoid and a nervous wreck seeing as they seem to be able to walk in and destroy your life whenever they feel like it. Kind regards xx

[blueplain]

thanks for your reply mummyof2

Yes, we live in a constant state of fear, when one of our children spill anything or get dirty a little bit, we panic and rush about to clear up after them all the time in case there is a knock on the door. All our children teachers know all about it and so its very uncomfortable around them. We are also very worried that one might fall and hurt themselves and need to go hospital. In our minds that would spell doom and they will be taken off us immediately, when you have history your judge more harshly. They should be actively offering counseling, it is like they do not think about the effects it has on us as parents. We are too scared to get counseling ourselves because they might think we are not coping and take them. I am sorry you had to experience children services and I hope we both can move on someday and leave it behind us.

[blueplain]

We have just had a CIN meeting and all feedback given was all positive again, frustratingly our social worker has prolonged the CIN level for another 2 months until the next meeting and our complaint has gone onto stage 2 after the actions stated would happen in the complaint has not been instigated and our social came round and argued about my complaint which I feel is not professional, Anyway we have finally just received our targets after 7 months and the rest of our core assessments, which was part of my complaint. Is there any thing I can do law wise for the neglect of our case?

[blueplain]

Another update. We have now completed all our targets, attended every appointment, had many visits with no complaints and everything seems positive. We then suddenly get a FRS worker asigned to us by our social worker, which is frustrating because we requested one over 8 months ago and now we have been given one when we dont need one anymore. Anyway she came round and said that everything seems fine and she doesnt see why we need her but we now have to go through the 12 week, 1 visit a week with her because she has been asigned to us. This is obviously a ploy by our social worker because they are running out of things to pin on us as our complaint goes up through the levels. Anway we should be sighned off in less then three weeks and if not I am going to refuse the services anyway. If we was bad parents we would of had our kids taken from us after this period of time. 4 years is stupid. I mean we have lived with judgements and feedback and inspections for longer then is healthy for anyone. There should be legislation to prevent such long term exposure. After this has all finished I am gonig to start campigning to give parents more power in this situation. To be able to record everything offically and have more then one person deciding everything because one person should not have that much power over an entire family.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Bluepain

My name is Suzie, one of the online advisers from the Family Rights Group.

Sorry to hear about the difficult time you have been having regarding Children's Services involvement with two Local Authorities, and that your original post was overlooked in error. Because of the time that has lapsed since you first posted, I will try to make the answer relevant to what I think are the main issues for you now.

It appears that there was significant delay in the core assessment of the children being completed. This means that the children's needs, your parenting capacity, and any family support needs could not have been accurately assessed, whilst child protection concerns were being held by the Local Authority.

It is useful to know that you are exercising your right to make a complaint. I wish you good luck with this process. Perhaps you wish to post back here, with details of the response that you receive.

If you wish to speak to an adviser, feel free to contact our advice line on 0808 801 0366 Monday to Friday 09.30 to 03.00 pm. Alternatively, if you need specific legal advice, you may wish to contact an independent family law solicitor via http://www.lawsociety.org.uk.

Apologies once again for overlooking your first post. I have made a brief response to your query on core assessments (on that thread), so you may wish to combine both responses so the answers make more sense to you.

Best Wishes

Suzie

[blueplain]

Thank you for your reply. Yes we are quite upset and appauld at the very long delay. Especially if they feel we should be at a child in need level they themselves do not seem to be treating it as such. I will now paste in the complaint as it has all been delt with through email.

The initial complaint

We have a complaint concerning the level we have been placed by the social services. I would like to update this information with more information relevant to the complaint.

It states within the initial assessment that.

"information received from children's center on the 16.07.12, commenting on the children's unclean appearance and strong odor, highlights that the children are at possible risk of neglect."

This is completly untrue since we did not have the children with us. We were at school moments before that can state as a witness that the children were not with us and the cctv within children center were we updated our address.

It also states in the report

"However, previous involvement from children's services here and in other authority due to neglectful parenting and poor home conditions would demonstrate that parents have not made changes to their parenting capabilities."

I found this a terrible statement to make since we have made huge progress and were sighed off of a protection plan with no further concerns.

I would also like to state that we received this assessment during the children in need meeting and not before so we were unable to protest the incorrect information. We were told that the social worker had attempted to drop the assessment off the day before but there was no reply. We were in all day and listening for the door because we also had home deliveries for that day.

thank you for you time to read this update

There reply which was by letter

informed that as an outcome of our complaint we will receive the core assessments and we would have the targets given to us and explained carefully by our social worker

They did not do the actions stated in the complaint and so I put in another complaint

I would like to make a complaint in regards to our previous complaint. We were informed that as an outcome of our complaint we will receive the core assessments, of which we have only received the core assessment for M and J and we would have the targets given to us and explained carefully by our social worker.

Many mistakes were made in regards to M's assessment commenting that we were not been pro active in getting M into CDC. This is completely incorrect and she had been informed that M had already been to CDC of which I myself made an appointment for with the doctor for him to be refereed to the CDC. She had been told this at a previouse meeting but unfortunately with her forgetting the paperwork for the case at said meeting and not coming prepared to record the facts this was evidently not recorded correctly as would explain the miss information within the core assessment. I am also concerned that she did not seek the medical records to see for herself that he had been to the CDC. It stated we have not been proactive with J and CDC, again J has already been to the CDC he has already got his statement and does not need to go again. I would like to add that our health visitor has not been to any meetings except the very first meeting we have had. This leaves us very concerned because our social worker has a large impact on the function and on the future of our family, there should not be mistakes at this level, therefore it is detrimental to our trust and relationship with our social worker as well as detrimental to our family.

Furthermore we have not received the targets that we were told in the complaints reply we would be getting and of which would be given to us by our social worker with her sitting down and talking through the targets with us. We are now very concerned about the complaints procedure not been taken seriously as the outcome stated by the complaint has not been put into action even though we had received the complaint outcome 6 weeks ago

As far as a referral to Bernardos is concerned she had not made the referral as stated in the complaint and she had brought the consent form around after we received the reply to the complaint and as such lied to the worker dealing with the complaint. Bernarndos will be able to provide you with the date of the referral which had been made as proof and we also have a photgraph of the consent form as further proof with said date on.

So to put this into prospective, it has now been six months since we were placed on a child in need plan. In such time we have only received 2 core assessment due to the action that was only taken because of our complaint. We still have had no targets. The information in the core assessment is incorrect and said information could of been easily verified if the correct contact was made e.g. Checking our sons medical report, contacting the health visitor.

Therefore not only do we feel let down and neglected by our case worker but we now have concerns and a lack of trust for the complaints procedure.

We would like as the outcome of this complaint to continue straight onto stage 2 as we would like the neglect for our case and complaint to be considered at a more serious level.

Please could you reply to this email acknowledging the receipt of this complaint and the action you shall be taking

There reply

Dear Mr N


Thank you for your email.



I have forwarded a copy of your email to (managers name), Service Manager for the Family Safeguarding Service, for responding to.



The formal response date for this is 18th February 2013. If we are unable to meet this timescale we will contact you and ask for more time.



As you gave raised some new points in your complaint this will be treated as a stage 1 complaint. If you remain dissatisfied with the response you receive from (social workers name) that we can discuss what further action can be taken at that point.



Should you require any further help or assistance please do contact me.



Kind regards



(name of social worker manager)

My reply

Hi

The time for the formal response date for the complaint has now passed, 18th of February. We have not received any letters with the outcome of the complaint or a letter stating it will be extended. Could you reply to this email stating if a letter is on it's way and if not why we have not been informed about the process of the complaint.

Regards

N family

There reply

Dear Mr N

Re: Stage 1 Complaint



Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you.



I have received your response to my letter and see that you remain unhappy with the service you have received.



I have again spoken to (social worker name) manager and discussed at length your complaint and how this can be resolved. (mangers name), (social workers name) manager, informs me that she attended the Child in Need Meeting and felt that you had been given clear targets in relation to what you are expected to do. However as you remain unclear (name of manager) has agreed to undertake a home visit with (name of social worker) and explain again the concerns and expectations. She will also leave you a clear list of expectations. During this visit (name of manager) will also go through the core assessments with, giving you the opportunity to challenge any parts you disagree with. I would ask that for this to be successful you go through your assessments prior to the visit and highlight the areas you feel are inaccurate. I have asked that you have copies of all five assessments by Friday of this week at the latest.



You also state that (name of social worker) has not sought the medical records to be able to complete the assessment. It is correct that she has not requested all health records, however she has made contact with all relevant agencies and considered their views and information when completing the assessment.



I hope that following your face to face meeting with (name of manager) your confidence in the service will be restored and your family can access the support you state you would like. Your desired outcome for this complaint was for it to be progressed to stage 2, however I hope that you will reconsider this and accept the attempts made by myself and (name of manager) to resolve your concerns at this stage.



Yours sincerely

(name of complaint manager)

My reply

Our social worker (name of social worker) came round yesterday and informed us of how she was going to proceed with the complaint, She told us her manager (name of manager) was unable to come and speak with us and that they will not be making any changes to the core assessment. She then stated that the only way we could get anything changed in the core assessment was to come into the office ourselves to discuss the issue with the core assessments. This is obviously completely different to the action stated would be taken by the complaint. As such we became very upset that our complaint was again not been taken seriously and damaging our confidence in the process further, as there has been no attempt by (name of manager) to address our complaint, no face to face discussion with (name of manager) and we were left with the impression that our assesments would be corrected only if we came to your office

After waiting a full 7 months now to get our Core assessments then be told that we could not influence the core assessment and correct any mistakes we believe were made, which I am sure is against the procedure, taking into account that it is now four days before a child in need meeting in which the professionals would be reading said core assessment is in my eyes unlawful, this is coupled with that fact that we have not received any of the meetings paper work before or after any of our meetings so we do not have to hand any of our targets she has stated she had set for us.

I am astonished that through this whole period of time we have not been given any services and there has been no intervention from (name of social worker) except for feedback. The only service we could of got was the service that I requested that we believed we needed (Bernarndos) was not given because and I will quote (name of social worker) on this (there was confusion). When dealing with the welfare of our children whom which we love and care about deeply, no matter what (name of social worker) opinion is of our relationship with our children , it is paramount and it is the most important issue there needs are well met which I am sure you agree. There is no room for confusion when dealing with our children's health, I am shocked and very distressed that the health of my children has been allowed to be effected by inaction since important appointments could have been more efficiently dealt with if we had a key worker. We all know how important early intervention is. (name of social worker) should have the skills to communicate properly with services so that there is no confusion in the first place.

To then come round to our house and to inform us that there will be further inaction after such a long period of time to complete a section 47 core assessment which should be completed no later then 35 days after the initial assessment, on top of all the other mistakes we believe she has made leaves me confounded and it is with this detailed explanation of our thought process which leaves us to request that this complaint to be placed on stage 2 if not for us but also for the other family's that are effected by her standard of work.

I thank you for your time to consider my complaint and look forward to hearing your reply

The N family

A long period of time passes

My reply

I have replied to the complaint procedure as you can see below and it has been 8 weeks since I requested stage 2. I expected to have had a reply before now and I hope that the complaint has not been pushed aside after all that has transpirered with our case.

Regards

N Familly

And that is where we are at, at the moment

[blueplain]

haha I have just recieved this reply just now in my email/

"Dear Mr N


Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you. I am currently discussing your complaint and request for stage 2 and will contact you again to advise you of the next steps. "

That is seriously concerning, it has been over 8 weeks and I am only now being told they are going to discuss it and request for stage 2, absolutly unbelivable, surely I can approach onbudisman after this diabolical complaint system.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi bluepain

Generally the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) will not become involved until you have exhausted the internal complaints proceedure.

There are exceptions to this, however, including if you are being prevented from using the internal proceedure appropriately.

The best thing would be to give the LGO helpline a ring on 0300 061 0614. The line is open from 8.30am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday.

Best Wishes

Suzie
FRG Adviser

[blueplain]

Would you say outside of the complaint that I have a case to take legal action against our case worker? we are getting all our files under the data protection act on thursday and we feel we will find a lack of action by the authority with our case and therfore feel that we have been through stress and duress over a long period of time due to the abilities of our case workers,