Parents and Carers

It’s Not Always Easy

We are grateful for the following contribution from an adoptive parent. We know that adoption can be a hard and difficult option and it is best for everyone to go in with their eyes open and with genuine communication about the potential problems. We hope to increase the information available here about post adoption support and attachment difficulties.

The Bubble Wrapped Child by Helen Oakwater contains a good discussion about some of the emotional difficulties adopted children can have. Her website is here.

We are adoptive parents. We have birth children who are older than our adopted daughter. We are probably a bit conventional.

We adopted our daughter aged 6. That should have flagged up a lot of signals but we were optimists, believing that love and care would be enough. It wasn’t.

We were not told the truth about our daughter when she arrived, and we gradually found it out over the next 7 years. We were naive, in spite of our professional experiences. Do not expect to be told the full truth – some of it will be confidential, and even though it would help to know it, you may not be told.

Things got worse with puberty, and our daughter started demonstrating the fight or flight symptoms (we learnt later that she had Reactive Attachment Disorder and this was natural), but it was very stressful and we didn’t understand it.

There were problems, when we adopted her we were told that one day she may “revert to type”. We found this awful at the time, but later it came back to haunt us. Beware though, you may be blamed for the problems, even though it may not be you that have caused them.

Advice for parents with mental health issues

I’m a parent and I have mental health problems and/or a personality disorder. What can I do to help myself?

You may also be interested in our post on parents with mental health difficulties in the ‘Mythbusting’ section.

Most people would agree that there is not an adequate amount of help available to parents with mental health challenges or a diagnosis of or the difficulties associated with personality disorder. Many parents feel very isolated, and often frightened. With feelings of isolation and fear can often come a sense of hopelessness or disempowerment. However, as a parent struggling alone with mental health issues, there is a great deal that you can do to help yourself;

Try not to panic about the involvement of Children’s Services. As the rest of this website explains, their main aim is simply to support you in looking after your children.

If you have difficulty understanding or following what is happening, ask your social worker, solicitor or advocate to explain.

Find out what support is available in your area and for people with your difficulties or diagnosis. Your GP, advocacy services, mental health charities and internet searches can be a good starting point. Do not assume that your doctor or social worker has already referred you to everything available – you may have found something they don’t know about.

Do not underestimate the value of family networks, informal support or social media. Think about what your family and friends can do to help. Try and get involved in your local community, perhaps by volunteering at your child’s school or by joining a local gardening club, or simply by looking for friends online through Mumsnet or Twitter.

Look after your health. Smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs and too much coffee and chocolate are bad for both physical and mental health. Exercise and plenty of water and veg and fresh air and friendship are good.

Look after your finances. Many families and particularly parents with mental health issues and other disabilities are seeing their incomes fall and outgoing rise due to benefit cuts, inflation and the bedroom tax. Citizens Advice and the Money Advice Service can provide excellent free advice. For those who are having trouble feeding their families, foodbanks can provide emergency parcels.

Learn to relax. Stress-management techniques can be beneficial to everyone, and people with mental health challenges have more stress factors than many. Mindfulness, self-hypnosis and other forms of relaxation can be learned from classes or from YouTube.

Enjoy your children. Certainly, parenting can be messy and stressful and tiring – but it can also be hugely fun and rewarding. Make time and save energy for trips to the park, finger paint and bedtime stories.

Stay positive. Trite and twee as it sounds, you have to believe that you will cope.

Court gives guidance on how to ensure fair proceedings for learning disabled parents

You may also be interested in this post about supporting parents with learning disabilities in care proceedings.

In the case of Re A [2013] the Court of Appeal had ordered a retrial due to concerns that a father with learning difficulties had not had a fair hearing regarding findings that he had inflicted an injury on his child.

At the re-trial, Mr Justice Baker gave the following advice on how to conduct proceedings where a party is vulnerable due to a learning disability.

(a) There is duty on those acting for the parent(s) to identify their client’s need for assistance in responding to questions and giving instructions, which must be considered by representatives at the outset of their instruction. Any need for support must be addressed at the earliest opportunity.

(b) When this is known prior to the outset of proceedings, on issuing, local authorities should draw the issue of competence and capacity to the court’s attention. In turn, on the day following issue, the court will give directions for the appointment of a litigation friend.

(c) When the issue of capacity and competence is not identified at the outset, it should be addressed fully at the case management hearing. At that hearing, those representing the parents should apply for special measures, where the case for such measures can be made out without any expert advice. Alternatively, where expert advice is necessary to identify the existence or extent of the learning difficulties, they should make an application in accordance with Part 25 of the Family Proceedings Rules for an expert to carry out an immediate assessment of the capacity and competence of the party.

(d) The legal representatives should normally by the date of the case management hearing identify an agency to assist their client to give evidence through an intermediary or otherwise if the court concludes that such measures are required. If the court is satisfied that an expert report is necessary to determine whether the party lacks capacity or competence and/or as to the extent of any special measures required, it may direct a further case management hearing to take place once the expert has reported so that detailed directions can then be given for the instruction of an intermediary and/or such other assistance as may be necessary.

(e) So far as funding is concerned, there is a distinction between the cost of obtaining a report from an expert as to capacity and competence, and the cost of providing services from an intermediary. The former will, subject to the approval of the legal aid agency,whereas the latter, as a type of interpretation service, will be borne by the Court Service. Those representing the relevant party should address these funding issues at the earliest opportunity. They should obtain prior approval from the legal aid agency for the instruction of the expert and, as soon as possible, give notice to Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service that the services of an intermediary are likely to be required.

A further important case is Re D (No 3) [2016] where the President set out the following as an Annex to his judgment.

Extract from the judgment of Gillen J in Re G and A (Care Order: Freeing Order: Parents with a Learning Disability) [2006] NIFam 8, para 5:

“(1) An increasing number of adults with learning difficulties are becoming parents. The Baring Foundation report records that whilst there are no precise figures on the number of parents with learning difficulties in the population, the most recent statistics come from the First National Survey of Adults with Learning Difficulties in England, where one in fifteen of the adults interviewed had children. Whatever the figure it is generally recognised that their number is steadily rising and that they represent a sizable population whose special needs require to be adequately addressed. The Baring Foundation report refers to national policy in England and Scotland committing government to “supporting parents with learning disabilities in order to help them, wherever possible, to ensure their children gain maximum life chance benefits.” Nonetheless the courts must be aware that surveys show that parents with learning disabilities are apparently more likely than other parents to have their children removed them and permanently placed outside the family home. In multidisciplinary jurisdiction such as the Family Division, it is important that the court is aware of such reports at least for the purposes of comment. It is important to appreciate these currents because the Children Order (Northern Ireland) 1995 places an emphasis on supporting the family so that children can remain with them and obligations under disability discrimination legislation make public services accessible to disabled people (including parents with learning difficulties). Moreover the advent of the Human Rights Act 1998 plays an important role in highlighting the need to ensure the rights of such parents under Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”).

(2) People with a learning disability are individuals first and foremost and each has a right to be treated as an equal citizen. Government policy emphasises the importance of people with a learning disability being supported to be fully engaged playing a role in civic society and their ability to exercise their rights and responsibilities needs to be strengthened. They are valued citizens and must be enabled to use mainstream services and be fully included in the life of the community as far as possible. The courts must reflect this and recognise their need for individual support and the necessity to remove barriers to inclusion that create disadvantage and discrimination. To that extent courts must take all steps possible to ensure that people with a learning disability are able to actively participate in decisions affecting their lives. They must be supported in ways that take account of their individual needs and to help them to be as independent as possible.

(3) It is important that a court approaches these cases with a recognition of the possible barriers to the provision of appropriate support to parents including negative or stereotypical attitudes about parents with learning difficulties possibly on the part of staff in some Trusts or services. An extract from the Baring Foundation report provides a cautionary warning:
“For example, it was felt that some staff in services whose primary focus was not learning difficulties (eg in children and family teams) did not fully understand the impact of having learning difficulties on individual parents’ lives; had fixed ideas about what would happen to the children of parents with learning difficulties and wanted an outcome that did not involve any risks (which might mean them being placed away from their family); expected parents with learning difficulties to be ‘perfect parents’ and had extremely high expectations of them. Different professionals often had different concepts of parenting against which parents were assessed. Parents’ disengagement with services, because they felt that staff had a negative view of them and ‘wanted to take their children away’ was also an issue, as were referrals to support services which were too late to be of optimum use to the family – often because workers lacked awareness of parents’ learning difficulties or because parents had not previously been known to services”.

(4) This court fully accepts that parents with learning difficulties can often be “good enough” parents when provided with the ongoing emotional and practical support they need. The concept of “parenting with support” must underpin the way in which the courts and professionals approach wherever possible parents with learning difficulties. The extended family can be a valuable source of support to parents and their children and the courts must anxiously scrutinize the possibilities of assistance from the extended family. Moreover the court must also view multi-agency working as critical if parents are to be supported effectively. Courts should carefully examine the approach of Trusts to ensure this is being done in appropriate cases. In particular judges must make absolutely certain that parents with learning difficulties are not at risk of having their parental responsibilities terminated on the basis of evidence that would not hold up against normal parents. Their competences must not be judged against stricter criteria or harsher standards than other parents. Courts must be acutely aware of the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination and how this might be relevant to the treatment of parents with learning difficulties in care proceedings. In particular careful consideration must be given to the assessment phase by a Trust and in the application of the threshold test.

(5) Parents must be advised by social workers about their legal rights, where to obtain advice, how to find a solicitor and what help might be available to them once a decision has been taken to pursue a care application. Too narrow a focus must not be placed exclusively on the child’s welfare with an accompanying failure to address parents’ needs arising from their disability which might impact adversely on their parenting capacity. Parents with learning disabilities should be advised of the possibility of using an advocate during their case eg from the Trust itself or from Mencap and clear explanations and easy to understand information about the process and the roles of the different professionals involved must be disclosed to them periodically. Written information should be provided to such parents to enable them to consider these matters at leisure and with their advocate or advisers. Moreover Trusts should give careful consideration to providing child protection training to staff working in services for adults with learning disabilities. Similarly those in children’s services need training about adults with learning disabilities. In other words there is a strong case to be made for new guidelines to be drawn up for such services working together with a joint training programme. I endorse entirely the views of the Guardian ad Litem in this case when she responded to the “Finding the Right Support” paper by stating:

“As far as I am aware there are no ‘family teams’ in the Trusts designated to support parents with a learning disability. In my opinion this would be a positive development. The research also suggests that a learning disability specialist could be designated to work within family and childcare teams and a child protection specialist could be designated to work within learning disability teams. If such professionals were to be placed in the Trusts in Northern Ireland they could be involved in drawing up a protocol for joint working, developing guidelines, developing expertise in research, awareness of resources and stimulating positive practice. They could also assist in developing a province-wide forum that could build links between the Trusts, the voluntary sector and the national and international learning disability community.”

(6) The court must also take steps to ensure there are no barriers to justice within the process itself. Judges and magistrates must recognise that parents with learning disabilities need extra time with solicitors so that everything can be carefully explained to them. Advocates can play a vital role in supporting parents with learning difficulties particularly when they are involved in child protection or judicial processes. In the current case, the court periodically stopped (approximately after each hour), to allow the Mencap representative to explain to the parents what was happening and to ensure that an appropriate attention span was not being exceeded. The process necessarily has to be slowed down to give such parents a better chance to understand and participate. This approach should be echoed throughout the whole system including LAC reviews. All parts of the Family justice system should take care as to the language and vocabulary that is utilised. In this case I was concerned that some of the letters written by the Trust may not have been understood by these parents although it was clear to me that exhortations had been given to the parents to obtain the assistance of their solicitors (which in fact was done). In terms therefore the courts must be careful to ensure that the supposed inability of parents to change might itself be an artefact of professionals ineffectiveness in engaging with the parents in appropriate terms. Courts must not rush to judge, but must gather all the evidence within a reasonable time before making a determination. Steps must be taken to ensure that parents have a meaningful and informed access to reports, time to discuss the reports and an opportunity to put forward their own views. Not only should the hearing involve special measures, including a break in sessions, but it might also include permission that parents need not enter the court until they are required if they so wish. Moreover the judges should be scrupulous to ensure that an opportunity is given to parents with learning disabilities to indicate to the court that something is occurring which is beyond their comprehension and that measures must be taken to deal with that. Steps should also be taken throughout the process to ensure that parents with learning disabilities are not overwhelmed by unnecessarily large numbers of persons being present at meetings or hearings.

(7) Children of parents with learning difficulties often do not enter the child protection system as the result of abuse by their parents. More regularly the prevailing concerns centre on a perceived risk of neglect, both as the result of the parents’ intellectual impairments, and the impact of the social and economic deprivation commonly faced by adults with learning difficulties. It is in this context that a shift must be made from the old assumption that adults with learning difficulties could not parent to a process of questioning why appropriate levels of support are not provided to them so that they can parent successfully and why their children should often be taken into care. At its simplest, this means a court carefully inquiring as to what support is needed to enable parents to show whether or not they can become good enough parents rather than automatically assuming that they are destined to fail. The concept of “parenting with support” must move from the margins to the mainstream in court determinations.

(8) Courts must ensure that careful consideration is given to ensuring that any decision or judgment is fully explained to such parents. In this case I caused a copy of the judgment to be provided to the parties at least one day before I handed it down to facilitate it being explained in detail before the attendance at court where confusion and consternation could be caused by a lengthy judgment being read which the parents could not follow at the time.”

Be ALERT!

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.

Helping a Family Member through Care Proceedings

One of our contributors shares her story of how she became involved with Children’s Services as a support to her brother

The sister’s story

My brother became a father when both he and his girlfriend were teenagers. Due to this they both stayed living in their parent’s homes (where I also lived). Not long after their child was born their relationship disintegrated, in part due to domestic violence towards my brother. At this point the child was living between both homes 50/50.

After they split my brother sought legal advice and was informed that as he had no proof of the living arrangements (child benefit had always been paid to the mother) or the violence it was inadvisable to pursue legal proceedings which would likely mean no contact until the case was resolved and then every other weekend and one overnight per week. At this point my brother thought it best to continue with the arrangements in place.

After 18 months or so things became more complicated, my brother was having contact more and more frequently and when the child was supposedly in his mother’s care he was staying with various family members and being taken out of bed at 11 or 12 at night to go and stay with the mother’s partner. We all noticed serious changes in his behavior, running away whenever the phone went, screaming and defecating whenever a member of the maternal family arrived and generally appearing withdrawn and worried whenever he knew he would soon be returning to his mother’s care.

At this point my brother and myself seriously considered contacting social services but were worried about contact being withheld (as had periodically happened before) and felt that as he was spending so much time with us it was better to bide our time. The maternal family also shared many concerns with us and one day his maternal grandmother turned up and asked my brother if he would look after the child full time if she could persuade her daughter it was for the best. My brother readily agreed and 3 days later his mother turned up, said she was too busy with her partner and his children and asked if my brother could have him full time and she would see him at weekends. He again sought legal advice and was told that he was best to leave things as are for now unless he could persuade her to sign over the child benefit.

For a year this continued and he grew in so many ways, was relaxed happy and settled. The weekend visits reduced and his usually saw his grandparents instead. During this time his mother had moved out and had a social housing property. Financially things were difficult; my mum is disabled and can’t work, my brother was prevented from working as a full-time parent but only receives JSA, which left me in a situation where I stayed in the family home much older than I perhaps would have liked in order to support the family. Ultimately though, we were happy.

However, his mother split up with her partner and one day just decided not to return him after contact and told my brother she never planned to let him see his child again. At this point he became angry and said that he would break her door down if that’s what it took. She then reported him to the police and he received a caution for threatening behavior. He again sought legal advice and went to court where her and her family disputed that she had always been the main carer. A joint residency order was made with her having the majority of time.

She then resumed her relationship with her partner. Around 3 months after the court date my brother received a letter out of the blue inviting him to a child protection review meeting. He was shocked and worried. When he managed to make contact with Social Services he learnt that his ex and her partner had had a domestic dispute with her child present which resulted in the police being called. It also came to light that she had downplayed the incident and that her partner had had several children removed from his care due to domestic violence towards other partners.

Since then both my brother and us as a family have worked closely with Social Services and have been able to show them proof of the child living with us and she has seen through working with the child how much he’s been affected by what’s gone on. They placed him on the Child Protection list due to emotional harm as well as risk from domestic violence. As time has gone on his mother has been told that he is to have no contact with the partner and that she is expected to end her relationship. This has not happened and more has come to light that she is bullying and coercing the child into telling the Social Worker certain things. The police have also been called several times due to violent incidents. We have all been so relieved that they have been able to see through the lies and listened to both us and most importantly the child.

We have recently reached the stage where we have had a pre-proceedings meeting. We are often aware that things are going on in the background that we don’t find out about until much later but we have found our Social Worker to be wonderful at listening and seeing the bigger picture. We haven’t always been perfect and she has brought to our attention things that we could do better for the child. What’s always been good is that we feel as if we’re working together to make life the best it can be for the child. Although as of yet there’s no resolution and there is naturally a part of you that always worries about the outcome I am confident that there are people with the ability to change things involved in safeguarding the child and ultimately making sure that he suffers as little damage as possible.

My advice to anyone involved with Social Services is to LISTEN to what they’re saying, they are not just out to get you, if they are saying it they’re saying it for a reason. And ENGAGE with them, more than anything I think they really appreciate if they see you working for the child’s benefit.

Views from a Disabled Parent about getting help and support

Being disabled doesn’t make you a bad parent.

You may feel very worried, or a failure or scared that ss will think you are a bad parent BUT anyone who says you are by definition a bad/ neglectful parent because you are disabled is discriminating against you. It’s not legal to say this.

ask for an assessment from adult ss before anything else takes place. You can self refer or ask your GP to refer (GP channels urgent referrals and get you seen quicker).

adult ss will send an assessor out to your home to do a thorough assessment of your needs. It’s important to find out your council’s criteria and levels for providing help.

after your needs have been assessed adult ss will decide whether you’re entitled to any help. It’s in their interests to score your needs as low as possible, as they are legally bound to provide help if you’re assessed as needing it.

its adult ss responsibility to meet your needs as a disabled person in all your roles (personal care, as a parent etc). This could be through direct help (providing council or agency carers), or via direct payments (where you have a budget to spend on your care). Sometimes they may refer you on to other services such as charities and home start organisations.

FACE assessment.

The budget for your care should come from adult ss but could in some circs be topped up by children’s services.

the theory is that if your needs are being met as a disabled parent, your child should have no remaining needs unmet. However there are situations where councils agree a shared budget.

Do find out very clearly on what grounds you are receiving help. Do not agree that your child is at risk of neglect just because of your disability.

Tougher rules to support missing children

There is welcome news from the Government about new reforms to ensure that every child who goes missing from home will have the chance to talk to an independent person about what made them want to run away.

The Minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson said:

For too long support for children who have gone missing has been patchy. Our new rules mean that every child will now have the chance to talk to a sympathetic, independent person. Only then will we find out why they ran away and if they came to harm, and help to make sure they don’t run away again.

Councils must now rise to the challenge. Within the next 6 months I expect all to have made dramatic improvements to the support they provide missing children, and for all to offer return interviews to every child that has been missing from home or care.

This is part of a package of reforms to children’s residential care, monitored by Ofsted, to improve safety and stop children running away. Children’s homes will now work much more closely with police and councils – and all will follow tighter rules when children are at risk of going missing.

Memoir of a Child in Care

On 30th January 2014, Jenny Molloy published her memoir ‘ Hackney Child: a True Story of Surviving Poverty and the Care System’. She describes her childhood of abuse and neglect and the reality of her life in the care system in the 1980s. She is still in touch with some of the social workers she met as a child, considering them ‘family’.

You can also visit her website

Jenny Molloy was interviewed on Women’s Hour on Feburary 10 2014.

You can also visit Jenny’s Facebook page which has a lot of useful information and discussion.

For another view of life in care and serious concerns expressed about foster care, please read this article

Blogs from Birth Parents

We are very grateful to the birth parents who have agreed to share their stories with us. We hope that their insights and experiences will be valuable for everyone who works in or alongside the system.

Here you will find a blog from a birth parent who was not able to keep her child.

She agreed to share with us some of her experiences of losing her child.

I am 32, and my birth daughter, who is now 7, was adopted a year ago. She was taken into care after 3 reported incidences of being drunk in charge of a child. I got her home 6 months later, but then it happened again. She never spent another night in my care, or even another hour unsupervised in my company. I continued with drinking binges after she was removed, until I conceded defeat and that I couldn’t get well for her, that Social Services should do as they were planning, which was that for her own best interests she should be placed with adoptive parents. Each of the initial incidences was reported to Social Services by my family members.

I am an alcoholic. I never signed up for alcoholism, in my life as a single parent with a successful professional career. Alcoholism is no respecter of gender, ethnicity, social class, education level or religion. It affects the way that you think. You think it won’t be that bad. This time I’ll be able to stop. It’ll never really happen to me. I’m in control, I’m not that bad, I can still take care of my child, no-one will find out. Lies, all lies, to justify that the drink is ok, and pretend that it hasn’t taken that primary place in my life above my girl, my career, my health, my finances, my God, and my self respect. I couldn’t even stop for my beautiful, creative, loving, and very special daughter. It is a madness of the mind, the emotions, the body and most importantly the soul. This is what proves incontrovertibly to me that I had become powerless to stop in my own strength.

This is the worst grief I have ever experienced. I was 9 months sober by the time she was placed. I never stopped loving her, and I have never stopped missing her, and longing that things could have been different, that my recovery could have started sooner, that I could have been the best person for her to be with. I have had to admit that, for her own best interests, it was better for her to be adopted and settled with loving and secure parents, than remain in the care system in the hope that I got well. Except that then, I did get well, and have faced losing her, in sobriety.

If I want peace, for and within myself, I must learn to live with the inconsistencies of Social Services. I know many women who are alcoholics who have done what I did who still have their children, either because Social Services never found out, or because they decided that despite the problems the children were still better off with their parents than removed from them. When I am crying “it’s not fair” I am trying to wriggle out from what I have done – and what I have done is extremely wrong and damaging to a young child who was powerless to escape from it. Children cannot and should not have to wait until their parents get well. This is the spirit of the law in this area of child protection and it is true and it was true for my daughter. However I do want to also highlight that she never missed school, was always fed and clean and bathed and we read stories, we spent endless hours making things, and there had been no other concerns at any times, Social Services could find no emotional or psychological problems, apart from the normal distress caused by separation from her mother. There is an assumption that children who are removed are unclean, unfed, absent from school, and there are concerns from all who encounter them. Not always.

And I must grieve in silence and in private. The world does not want to hear of my grief, the primal wound that results from a mother forcibly separated from her child, because it is an unpleasant story, and I am the villain in it. And yet I must grieve. In the midst of all this, I am hurting and I have relinquished the way I had learned to cope with pain, in substances. I miss her and I love her and this hurts every part of me and some days I feel like it will consume me. I cry out to God that I am hurting and that I am grieving in the midst of terrible guilt and shame and I can’t sort all this mess out. This isn’t clean grief – having lost my mum almost 3 years ago, I know that grief too – but that is right, in the natural order of things, because children at some stage should lose their parents. My mum was young, but still, it is a clean and acceptable grief. For my daughter these feelings are complicated. I love my little girl, and I miss her with a pain that is physical, in the way it eats me up, she is lost and she is gone. I am joining one of society’s most unwanted and disliked groups, but giving this process a voice, to bring my shame and grief and hurt out of the dark where it cannot resolve, into the light might help someone else, perhaps who is facing this threat. And as I continue to cry out in pain, in prayer, for my daughter, that she will grow up loved, and if at all possible secure, and healed.

Advice from birth parents

In this post, a number of birth parents share their views on how they made it through the stress of a child protection investigation and offer insights and advice to those in a similar position. Most of the contributors to this section have shared their stories on parenting forums such as www.mumsnet.co.uk

Relationships with Social Workers

“It IS hard to see the wood for the trees, and I think one thing that Social Workers don’t seem to realise is that when you add in the stress of a CIN [Child in Need] case, where you are at risk of losing your DC’s, it puts so much added pressure on a parent that is already under pressure and a victim of DV [Domestic Violence] too, and often EA [Emotional Abuse] that they haven’t yet realised, that it becomes almost impossible for the parent to stop being fearful and stressed for ling enough to see the truth of their situation. I DO feel that a gentler approach from SS would actually in the majority of cases like the OP’s resolve the CIN concerns much faster.”

Need for clear communication about what is meant by ‘abuse’ and why it is harmful

Clearly setting out what constitutes EA [Emotional Abuse} and DV [Domestic Violence] for the parent would open their eyes to things that they have often been minimising. With examples of each thing that can constitute abuse – including financial. Also stating clearly about the long term effects on a child of living in a DV situation, with possible issues it can cause for the children – NOT everyone knows this, it’s NOT taught about in schools.

Ask them to look at the list, and to answer it honestly, while the SW isn’t present, and going back for a second session with them, being clear about what they need done would also help.

It isn’t easy, as a parent who still loves their partner, to truly see an abusive situation for what it is. And it’s even less easy to know without being told, what you are meant to do to fix it.

It’s very easy for me now, as a 30-something adult, who has BEEN in a previous abusive relationship, to see what you are meant to do.

As a teenage parent, or a young parent, who has no experience of this, how in the name of hell are you meant to GUESS what you are meant to do??!!

And this is, I feel, where SS goes wrong, and stops putting the DC’s first. If SS were clear right from the beginning with handouts that explained everything that constitutes abuse, with examples, it would be far easier to spot when you are being abused. If they also gave clear directions on what is expected in that situation to protect the DC’s, many more DC’s would be protected from living in an environment with DV MUCH FASTER.

And parents who are in an abusive relationship would not feel so confused, fearful, and would be far less ‘obstructive’ in many cases, towards the SW’s attempts at helping.

It’s not always possible to find the time for ~~navel gazing~~ personal reflection to attempt to work out that you are in an abusive relationship andthat you need to get out of it pdq when you are actually coping with being in an abusive relationship, dealing with the day-to-day stuff that comes with having DC’s, AND are fearful of losing your children and not knowing why or how to fix it!

I think that a clearer picture from SS would actually PROTECT far more DC’s from living in a situation with abuse present.