Jail Social Workers

[Kaz]

Oh god Debbie their poor baby brother - I'm so shocked and sad to hear about him

Your girls are sooo bloody lucky to have you!!! And to have had the caring and vigilant SWs that saved them xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Kaz]

I do so agree that the rights of the child should be paramount xxxxx

[miasmum]

Completely agree Deb and as I said, some of those girls wouldn't be in psychiatric care today had they been removed from their parents. They didn't physically abuse them, they were far more insidious than that

But I do also agree with a lot of what Frank says too

[debih]

I also agree with some of what frank says z

I just got on my high horse as the tarring them all with the same brush annoys me.

[shazsha]

And you speak about the rights of the parent. I say fuck the parents

I totally agree, Deb. Obviously parents must have rights but, at some point, those rights must be curtailed and the child's welfare must take precedence.

Of course SW have made mistakes and some children have been taken into care when they shouldn't have been there. However I strongly believe that the majority of children taken into care should be there.

I have personally seen situations were a child has been left in hell until SW could work through the system before taking a child into care. One case was a child born to two addicts.
They lived in a 2 bedroom house and the only furniture was a double bed. There was no carpets, no cooker, no fridge, no cot,etc because the grant they had been given was spent on drugs. There was rarely any heating. The child's nappy was rarely changed and I know for a fact that sometimes the only way she saw a nappy change was when another addict would see the state the child was in and change her. Sw were involved pretty early on but had to work through the system before they could remove the child to safety whereby it was found that the parents had been letting her suck on the spoon they used to prepare their drugs!

SW hands are tied by the system and, imo, possible jail sentences could make a SW hesitant and would just be another way of curtailing them from acting.

Of course there are bad SW out there but the majority of them do a decent job with little, or no, appreciation.

[debih]

The system is very long and drawn out - too long in some times.

It dictates that SW's should work with the family to keep them at home where ever possible.

Sitting on the adoption panel I see child after child come through from the same parents. Drugs and domestic violence are always involved and the drugs always come before the child's well being.

The SW's can only work within the parameters of the law. Take the child away too quickly and they are accused of snatching children, taking them too late and untold damage is done. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't !

[Workingman]

I hoped that I had made it clear that tarring all with the same brush, regardless of occupation, was not acceptable: ever. I also hoped that I had made it clear that the system needs to be changed as it is about as nimble as a supertanker and it can be used to protect those who not do their jobs to the standards expected. And finally, I hoped that it was clear that removing the bad ones would benefit the service overall and especially the motivation and esteem of the good ones.

If any of that is wrong then I apologise, but I do not think it is.

What I will not apologise for, though, is my disgust that the likes of Shoesmith can use the system for great personal financial gain arising from the bad management of that same system, resulting in the death of a child.

[KateLMead]

These are the ones who are responsible for the system the Shoesmiths of this world.
I will not apologise for my views, and as I Have Written, "there are good workers in SS" but far too many who are not fit for purpose, I have equally witnessed unjust removals of a child, the doctor unjustly accused respectable loving parents of sexual abuse, the children were bereft,old enough to understand what their parents had been accused of unjustly, their protestations meant nothing, the trauma was unbelievable.
The idiot of a doctor was sent south, now the head of a department. The family was reunited a year and a half later.
No I won't apologise the children as I stated traumatised.

[cromwell]

I can't see much point to child social services and think that they should be abolished.

What are they supposed to do? Try and reverse-engineer society? They can't save every child, it's not possible. If you spent £100 billion ever year you couldn't do it.

But the State pretends that they CAN do it. Lessons have been learned... this must never happen again..... if it saves just one child... etc etc.

In parts of this country the old fashioned family is broken. The fall-out this causes is immense, but society just accepts it because there is always The State to come along with it's dust pan and brush to try and sweep up the debris.

Social services are being asked to do a job that is not doable. Are families any better off or happier now then they were before the SS existed?

[debih]

I can't see much point to child social services and think that they should be abolished.

I doubt the thousands of children who now no longer live in fear of being beaten, starved or raped on a daily basis would agree with you.

Nor the thousands of children and young adults who are alive today because if them.