One of our contributors suggested ALERT would be a good acronym for us to use
I thought of the acronym ALERT standing for.
Attention
Listen
Engage
Respond
Trust
Attention draw Social Services attention if you feel that there are children at risk or who need additional support.
Listen If the Social Worker is telling you something no matter how hard it is to hear, try to really listen and take in what is being said.
Engage Always attend meetings, allow Social Workers access to you and the child/ren involved. Show you realise how serious it is and engage with each step of the process.
Respond If you are asked to do something then act on it. If Social Services raise concerns about the state of your house, clean-up. Your drinking, seek help. A violent relationship, make steps towards ending it etc etc.
Trust trust that Social Workers aren’t involved as they want to steal your child, trust that they are working within a legal framework and most importantly trust that they are working in the best interest of your child, even if you disagree on what that is.
What should you do if you get stuck with the case workers from the Fiona Anderson tragedy? Is there some process to alert their managers if you feel that the case workers lack qualifications? I know the answer to this problem is better funding of SS for proper training and sufficient staff, however is there a short term solution to this sort of thing.
I am not denigrating all SWs by any stretch just curious to what the procedure is to handle the small percentage that is not up to par.
All I can suggest is that you use the LA internal complaints procedure if you are unhappy with what is going on; get your complaints in writing and push for a response within a reasonable timeframe.
I think sometimes it is difficult because the first reaction is probably to think that you are complaining just because you don’t like the decisions made by the social workers, not because you have serious grounds to complain about their conduct. So you may get fobbed off if you aren’t persistent.
But any decent organisation must be alert to the fact that not 100% of its staff are going to be 100% on the ball all the time and they must have responsive procedures in place for dealing with complaints.