can you trust social services

[Cacw]

Child services should abolished and reformed with professionals and family focused. I’ve seen nothing but corruption, lies, manipulation and closed ranks with the exception of one cafcass officer who did the pre hearing assessment but unfortunately was not the cafcass representative at the hearing. SC don’t care about the children, only placing them anywhere as fast as possible to sign off. My ex had just remarried so I didn’t matter

My court proceedings are over and due to two very good qualified judges , all is agreed. However as the first judge said, this family should not have been in court proceedings and ignored the cafcass woman in court who had obviously an agenda or had spoken to my ex in the break

I have negligence issues with XXXXXX child services putting me at the the mercy of my abusive ex husband, narcissist, very charming, my concerns were ignored, refusal to assist in restoring status quo, forcing a court battle, bias to my ex with no regard for the children but just to close a case, refusal of social workers manager to answer my calls or my health visitors, the assessment was biased fabricated and even copied from one child to next comments without changing the name. The child services officer saw me 7 week after the incident... to sign off the case but encouraged my ex to keep controlling my contact which was the opposite of her communication with myself and a health worker witness. Her emails to my ex are rude about me and biased and contradictory to her emails to me. The whole process was corrupt. I am closer to our children than my ex, I am only telling you this to understand the harm social services did to them. Failure to understand what lead to the horrible day, failure to see the role my ex had and failure to understand that when I made excuses it was because I was devastated with shame. What happened to working with separated families to the end. It’s incredible to say but social services caused devastating prolonged emotional harm to our children compared to even my actions!

The cafcass report was performed professionally by a cafcass officer but the report totally disregarded by the cafcass officer attending court who changed her opinion after a recess, called into question my children’s wishes.

The judge went against her opinion and saw the true picture and s that was need was a doctors report. However the caff as officer in court decided to contact my ex husband after the court date and encourage him to contact social services again! This led to about £ 15000 extra I paid whilst getting back to work after long illness cancer etc , ignoring the judges wishes to agree ASAP

Thankfully the judge at the second hearing was as horrified as my legal team and I and carefully told my ex to put the children first. This didn’t completely happen until 2 months later due to the damage the court cafcass officer did.

My question is after all of this ( bearing in mind now my children and I couldn’t be closer or happier) how on earth did this happen and what went wrong?
Should I be suing them for the financial harm and emotional ?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Cacw

Welcome to FRG’s parents’ discussion board and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie, FRG’s online adviser. I am sorry that I was not able to respond to your query sooner.

I am also sorry to hear that you and your family have had some difficulties and that you have been though a stressful court case. I am glad though that you say at the end of your post that that you and your children couldn’t be closer or happier.

You are very dissatisfied with the involvement children’s services’ had with your children in the past. I think, from what you say, that social workers may have placed your children in their father’s care or asked him to keep caring for them following an incident or concern and that he (who you describe as abusive and controlling) then retained care of the children, leading to a private law court case about who the children should live with and have contact with. I am sorry if I have misinterpreted anything that you have said.

You explain why you are so unhappy with the social worker and their manager’s practice and you dispute information contained in a social work assessment which you describe as biased and fabricated. You think that children’s services were negligent and ask should you be suing them for financial and emotional harm.

You are also dissatisfied with one of the CAFCASS worker involved We are not able to advise about CAFCASS but they have their own complaints procedure which you can find here.

When you disagree strongly with what children’s service do or say and you cannot resolve this the best thing to do usually is make a complaint within a year of the action/decision you want to complain about. Complaints will not address issues that were looked into and decided in a court case. It is usually best if any concerns about information provided to the court are addressed in the court proceedings. Complaints can usually look into problems with the social worker, how the department communicated with you etc.

Suing children’s services is not an easy thing to do, proving negligence is difficult and a court case (as you know) can be very costly and complicated. I don’t think it would be a wise course of action and would definitely recommend you get legal advice from a solicitor specialising in this area of law if it is something you are considering. You can find out more here about the different ways of challenging decisions and making complaints .

All of the above is the current procedure. However, at the moment due to the current coronavirus (Covid 19) crisis there are major changes taking place. The Department for Education has just published new guidance for children’s social care and it is not yet clear if they will start to do things differently (in relation to complaints) so please do post an update if you go ahead with a complaint and find that it is not being dealt with in accordance with the current regulations.

Parents who have exhausted their local complaints process and proceeded to make a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman should see their coronavirus update which states that they have:

‘.. Suspended all casework activity that demands information from, or action by, local authorities and care providers, in light of the current Coronavirus outbreak.

The Ombudsman has taken this step in the wider public interest, to protect the capacity of local authorities and care providers to deliver vital frontline services during the current outbreak.’

I hope that this information has been helpful to you.

With best wishes

Suzie

[Sofia]

All I've had is lies lies and more lies from social services, the father a new school where my kids started.funny before I moved I had nice comments by the old school then once I got a new social worker she was pure evil...all because I got a personality disorder they used it against me.i had 2 happy children living with me and they took them..the social services even paid for the father's solicitor. Disgusting how I been treated.total discrimination. Slander.

[SevernTrent]

Social Services cannot be trusted as they are like a cowboy organisation which doesn’t deal with the serious problems some children experience because they are too afraid of the consequences; but they interfere wherever possible poking their noses in trying to fault find and look clever where there are vulnerable children creating some disturbance for the children who were quite safe and happy with their parents before social services interfered. Social services interfere to try to prove they are doing their job - ruining lives and not protecting lives.
Many parents are treated as guilty until proven innocent, which means that because they are assumed a risk they are treated inappropriately by social services as well as degraded and insulted - which can get anyone worked up.
I know of numerous families who have had their children’s lives ruined by social services when nothing wrong had been going on.

[LP9801]

Social Services cannot be trusted, my 2 children were from a good home where they were kept safe and secure but because I was a single parent I was an easy target.. My 2 children were removed by the courts because of vicious, vindictive lies by the local authority, I will tell anyone that does not believe they are capable of doing outlandish things "Wake Up" out of denial and hope that it's not you targeted next. The power they believe to have goes to there head, all they care about is targets and bonuses they do not care about the families they destroy, there not human! Do not trust a word that comes from their mouths its all lip service.. They are all in it together, local authority, solicitors, barrister's, health professionals, cafcass, even judges. It's easier for them to destroy decent human beings rather than concentrate on the children who are in actual danger, everyone can't be wrong about them.. I hope to get all the families in the country who have been through the same as me all together and take it to parliament because I know fine well these families would be there in a heartbeat it just takes someone to get it going. I'm not going to give up and I will expose these monsters for what they really are.

I’m in an awful situation with them now! Definitely should be taken to parliament !!!! These people think they are above the law

[Smilingsnakes]

No not at all.

I have just been offered compensation by ss following a 10 month battle. They wrote a report which was based on total nonsense from my abusive ex.
Thank goodness I kept very careful and detailed records of every interaction and was able to prove most of their report was utter nonsense.
Sadly my DS is the main loser his allegations of abuse were ignored. My battle continues and I will not rest until all involved are held to account. My DS was injured and this was entirely avoidable had SS done their job properly.

[HH_Dad]

In a nutshell, no. Categorically no.

Long story short; in November 2018 my wife and I noticed our 14-month old son was holding his left foot a lot. As our doctor's surgery was shut for staff training we took him into A&E to be looked at and 48-hours later found ourselves arrested and slung in cells all because one doctor alleged he had multiple fractures. Fast-forward three months and it transpired he did not have multiple fractures thus the Local Authority withdrew and the case was over. BUT, Social Services couldn't wait to get started on us. Here are just some of the things they did to us:

- They told blatant lies about me and my wife.

- We informed them we do not drive and asked if the 'contact' sessions could be in our town or close by (where there are plenty). But, instead, they made us travel 20-miles to a small town that has no rail links (£66 return taxi fare - thanks Social Services).

- They did not follow protocol when they got us to sign a Section 20 form; only one member of SS came round (it should be two), they did not allow us the opportunity to get legal advice and they did not give us a copy of the form

- They sent us documents for another case/family which included their names, address, mobile numbers, date of births etc. A slight breach of data protection, you could say.

- They told me phone contact with our 3-year old daughter “must cease” and when I complained after the saga was over they denied this ever happened and said they “actively encouraged” me to continue phone calls. A total lie!

- They refused to let me do an audio recording of a meeting with them in my own house which I was informed by my solicitor afterwards they have no right to do. It's almost as if they have something to hide.

- They read out what they called a ‘Danger Statement’ at a family support meeting with 16 friends and family where they accused my wife and I of harming our son. They insisted afterwards that they gave a copy of the statement to everyone but, in actual fact, they did not. Yet another blatant lie.

- Before our saga began our son went to a childminder twice a week. Social Services seemed to overlook her but all of a sudden, 3 weeks after the dreadful ordeal started, they phoned her at 2:00pm one afternoon telling her all children she was looking after must be collected immediately because there were safeguarding issues. She was suspended through no fault of hers and was so upset by it all quit childminding after doing it for 12-years. But, once again, Social Services were just doing their jobs, right?

I have evidence of all of the above and my wife and I complained to everyone; the Local Authority, our local MP and we even had the BBC round to our house. But three years on, I doubt anything has changed.

I am afraid to say that many social workers are drunk on the power they have. They think they are above the law (let’s be honest, in effect, they are) and they treat everyone as if they are lowlife scum. I always knew they had a bad reputation but having been on the wrong end of their antics, I can say for certain that they are vile people.

[Messyhair]

My eyes have been well & truly opened since my family became involved with our local authority SS, they're a nightmare.

I tried to follow procedure following their poor intervention which only served to divide the family, & I complained but they refused to accept the complaint & when pressed didn't give a reason, just said because it 'wasn't their remit'. I tried twice to get them to look at how the local authority social workers had handled the case. They had definitely been dishonest, colluded with other family members - saying blatantly that they had no mental health issues when they had current & historic diagnosis, recorded by GP. I thought they were behaving in a way that was immature themselves throughout the process.

We were asked to look after children & they were with us for several weeks, & told not to hand them back to other parent until they'd had a mental health assessment, other parent took the children, then there was no record of the SS telling us to hold the children, basically they said this had never happened.
Following this, the Social worker stated in a report that the children were held against the parents wishes, even though it was on the advice of them that they were with us in the first place.
These people need to remember that children's lives are impacted, often irreversibly by their poor decisions & actions. Not to mention blown a great big hole through our lives, we though as adults can make some sort of sense of it, but the children can't do this so easily
We even wrote to the head of the council, who kept saying they'd get someone to look at our complaint but then we got a letter from someone else just saying they won't look at it, again no reason, they just said we could take them to court & sue them?! Which is an odd response, why would we just do that without going through a complaint process?!
The local services didn't follow their own procedure.

This side of the family don't see the children at all, basically we took it to family court but unfortunately the very same Social worker was appointed to write the S7 report. & If your social worker seems to just want to gas light, create division, be child focussed rather than child centred, rather than do some good work then you have no chance. All I can say is what a nightmare & even though they must know about the attachment of children to caregivers & how damaging it is to remove these suddenly & in an unplanned way, they still do this daily, and this harms children & families.
They are known as 'children & family social workers',

[Messyhair]

In a nutshell, no. Categorically no.

Long story short; in November 2018 my wife and I noticed our 14-month old son was holding his left foot a lot. As our doctor's surgery was shut for staff training we took him into A&E to be looked at and 48-hours later found ourselves arrested and slung in cells all because one doctor alleged he had multiple fractures. Fast-forward three months and it transpired he did not have multiple fractures thus the Local Authority withdrew and the case was over. BUT, Social Services couldn't wait to get started on us. Here are just some of the things they did to us:

- They told blatant lies about me and my wife.

- We informed them we do not drive and asked if the 'contact' sessions could be in our town or close by (where there are plenty). But, instead, they made us travel 20-miles to a small town that has no rail links (£66 return taxi fare - thanks Social Services).

- They did not follow protocol when they got us to sign a Section 20 form; only one member of SS came round (it should be two), they did not allow us the opportunity to get legal advice and they did not give us a copy of the form

- They sent us documents for another case/family which included their names, address, mobile numbers, date of births etc. A slight breach of data protection, you could say.

- They told me phone contact with our 3-year old daughter “must cease” and when I complained after the saga was over they denied this ever happened and said they “actively encouraged” me to continue phone calls. A total lie!

- They refused to let me do an audio recording of a meeting with them in my own house which I was informed by my solicitor afterwards they have no right to do. It's almost as if they have something to hide.

- They read out what they called a ‘Danger Statement’ at a family support meeting with 16 friends and family where they accused my wife and I of harming our son. They insisted afterwards that they gave a copy of the statement to everyone but, in actual fact, they did not. Yet another blatant lie.

- Before our saga began our son went to a childminder twice a week. Social Services seemed to overlook her but all of a sudden, 3 weeks after the dreadful ordeal started, they phoned her at 2:00pm one afternoon telling her all children she was looking after must be collected immediately because there were safeguarding issues. She was suspended through no fault of hers and was so upset by it all quit childminding after doing it for 12-years. But, once again, Social Services were just doing their jobs, right?

I have evidence of all of the above and my wife and I complained to everyone; the Local Authority, our local MP and we even had the BBC round to our house. But three years on, I doubt anything has changed.

I am afraid to say that many social workers are drunk on the power they have. They think they are above the law (let’s be honest, in effect, they are) and they treat everyone as if they are lowlife scum. I always knew they had a bad reputation but having been on the wrong end of their antics, I can say for certain that they are vile people.

I'm just wondering if you're in the same social care area as us, south west by any chance? Or are there multiple SS departments as bad as our local one!

[HH_Dad]

In a nutshell, no. Categorically no.

Long story short; in November 2018 my wife and I noticed our 14-month old son was holding his left foot a lot. As our doctor's surgery was shut for staff training we took him into A&E to be looked at and 48-hours later found ourselves arrested and slung in cells all because one doctor alleged he had multiple fractures. Fast-forward three months and it transpired he did not have multiple fractures thus the Local Authority withdrew and the case was over. BUT, Social Services couldn't wait to get started on us. Here are just some of the things they did to us:

- They told blatant lies about me and my wife.

- We informed them we do not drive and asked if the 'contact' sessions could be in our town or close by (where there are plenty). But, instead, they made us travel 20-miles to a small town that has no rail links (£66 return taxi fare - thanks Social Services).

- They did not follow protocol when they got us to sign a Section 20 form; only one member of SS came round (it should be two), they did not allow us the opportunity to get legal advice and they did not give us a copy of the form

- They sent us documents for another case/family which included their names, address, mobile numbers, date of births etc. A slight breach of data protection, you could say.

- They told me phone contact with our 3-year old daughter “must cease” and when I complained after the saga was over they denied this ever happened and said they “actively encouraged” me to continue phone calls. A total lie!

- They refused to let me do an audio recording of a meeting with them in my own house which I was informed by my solicitor afterwards they have no right to do. It's almost as if they have something to hide.

- They read out what they called a ‘Danger Statement’ at a family support meeting with 16 friends and family where they accused my wife and I of harming our son. They insisted afterwards that they gave a copy of the statement to everyone but, in actual fact, they did not. Yet another blatant lie.

- Before our saga began our son went to a childminder twice a week. Social Services seemed to overlook her but all of a sudden, 3 weeks after the dreadful ordeal started, they phoned her at 2:00pm one afternoon telling her all children she was looking after must be collected immediately because there were safeguarding issues. She was suspended through no fault of hers and was so upset by it all quit childminding after doing it for 12-years. But, once again, Social Services were just doing their jobs, right?

I have evidence of all of the above and my wife and I complained to everyone; the Local Authority, our local MP and we even had the BBC round to our house. But three years on, I doubt anything has changed.

I am afraid to say that many social workers are drunk on the power they have. They think they are above the law (let’s be honest, in effect, they are) and they treat everyone as if they are lowlife scum. I always knew they had a bad reputation but having been on the wrong end of their antics, I can say for certain that they are vile people.

I'm just wondering if you're in the same social care area as us, south west by any chance? Or are there multiple SS departments as bad as our local one!

I'm not in the South West. However, I'm not that far away (trying to be careful what I say on here). When the BBC reporter came to see us she was stunned at what she was hearing. Our Local Authority's Children's Services was assigned to another nearby LA temporarily because it was in disarray and when I spoke to the BBC journalist about this she said that the other one (who I really can't name here) was almost as bad. She suggested it's a big problem nationwide.

PM me and I'll explain more.