Grandchildren Taken into Care

Thanks for replying SPF. Sometimes avoidance is the only way, sad to say. Look after yourself and I do hope things improve for your little grandchild.

I have realised that the dd wont see till she is ready but that might be forced on her as she accused someone and that person is not one I would cross. Sad but I need to protect my health. Works are going on at propety and that is my key to leaving
Thanks

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Things are moving slowly and we have been told very little. We finally got to see the grandchildren last Wednesday (although we had to move heaven and earth to accommodate this as it was the oldest grandchild's first day at school and we did not want him to come out of school early and SW wouldn't budge on the time of the meeting!)

Anyway, as I say, we met with the two grandchildren at the Contact Centre (and what a depression sterile place it was too). We did not have the 3 o'clock meeting and were kept waiting until 3.45 (so we could have brought 10 year old with us after all).

The 6 year old was very subdued and not his usual cheeky happy monkey self that he once was and the 3 year old was her usual carefree self (we think she's built up a barrier to what has gone on/been going on over the last few months).

The mother has had numerous warnings about the children being taken offer but this idiot bf of hers kept telling her it wouldn't happen and as far as court went he just kept saying "bring it on". We know some of his past and it is not good.

They came straight from school and they were hungry. As we had not been given any information we did not have anything with us or even knew whether we could bring anything or not.

This week we will be taking the 10 year old with us to see them and we are going to have a little late birthday party (it was the eldest's birthday on 2/9).

We are having a meeting with the SW tomorrow (Monday) I think for the next part of the viability study (although he has already been round once to speak to us before they were taken into care.

We have not heard anything from the daughter either (not even for the 10 year old's birthday).

I am perfectly healthy now and can do everything I could do before I was ill so my health is not a problem.

If the kids came to us they would not be treated any differently (and were not treated any differently when they visited us).

I will take all of your comments on board and thank you all so very much for your help in a situation that we did not think we would ever find ourselves in.

Oh I forgot. To answer your question about the eldest. SW was not involved in us having the eldest. She wrote a letter to say that he looks on us as his mum and dad and that he would be living with us as we did everything for him from day one. He came everywhere with us (even through my illness and out the other side).

Thank you everyone xx

Hopefully you are on the right road now to seeing the grandchildren regularly and building up time with them. I have absolutely no idea why these young women are so stupid as to take the word of these useless men. They don't seem to realise that they are putting themselves and their children at risk of all sorts. I have been told by Womens' Aid that some of these women carry on listening to these controlling men until such times as their family are tired of the troubles.
I wish you every luck with continued visits with the children. I notice that they created the visit just at the same time as schools all over the country come out and then held you back for 45 minutes. Make no mistake these are the crappy games social work play. It happened here to someone I knew. I wonder if you are dealing with the same local authority.
Good luck

SW are far too busy to 'play games'! They have a thankless task in trying to keep children safe while still having to be fair to all concerned.

Agree Jane 10. I'm not sure how else contact can be arranged, other than at a neutral venue, that is a contact centre, after school. I feel for the children who are often drive significant distances to see family members, then drive back to their foster home which may be many miles away. It isn't always possible to find suitable foster parents near where family members Iive, sometimes even if it's possible, it's inadvisable.
It's understandable that relatives feel distraught about the children being away from them, but the logistics of arranging regular contact have to be acknowledged. Especially now that so many family centres and contact staff have been lost
due to the cuts

My views on the actions of social workers are firmed from my personal experiences. My most recent experience was when a report came from NHS practitioner of having treated the damages done Social Workers stated that they were glad it was the first time damage was done and they would do nothing. Further damage has happened to someone else exactly the same damage but this will never get to the ears of social worker. They had already stated they would do nothing about the first event likely they would do nothing about the second event. They dont know when to take action hence there are baby P repeats all over the country and they dont safeguard anyone.
This is the truth but wonder how social work would state the same situation

Que?

I m not a social worker and don't have any in the family so not biased but I feel very sorry for some social workers as they are completely dammed often for things done by the family or by the system itself where their hands are totally tied At the end of the day there is only so much 'mending' of dysfunction they can do and yet they always get complete blame I have not ever been involved with social workers with children only with the elderly and I ve found them in my own experience to be nothing but kind and helpful
I do feel you have to work with authorities even when you don't want to be to get involved in fighting them makes it difficult for both sides and mostly for the little ones in the middle
This is all totally hyperthermia all to original poster as even with the information given we really know nothing about the situation and only hear one side

In reply to SPF s comments about young women 'who are so stupid' and ' listen to these controlling men until their families get fed up' I do have experience of this so feel I can speak from the other side That is so difficult to hear and shows no understanding of how people can be controlled with no knowledge of the fact they are being controlled and also that their confidence and self worth is usually eroded to zero and they are fed the fact that they are the ones to blame A woman gets hit and told. ' now look what you ve made me do ' if you didn't do a b or c you wouldn't have made me do that' so they then carry blame on top of all time the other negative feelings. Nothing is so cut and dried as just being 'a stupid girl'

Sorry my iPad decided I wanted to say ' hypothermic all' instead of hypothetical

I can only speak from what I have seen. 16 years age a child was born into a violent relationship. I told SW what was happening for 4 years by which time there were 2 children. SW denied it. They could hardly dent it when the child nearly died. SW wrote about an elderly person in their 80s that there was nothing wrong with this person 37 years after retiral on medical grounds and a week before 2nd heart operation. I have already said what happened more recently. I would have thought that even if by accident they could have got something right. There is more but that should be enough to show why I have no faith in them.
As I said myself to them I know they will do nothing. Nothing is preferable to making a mess

Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Says it all. Who'd be a SW? Not me.

Damned if they do or damned if they dont is their excuse for not getting it right. Degrees are fine but common sense is much better

Clearly you have a personal problem with SW.

I expect professional people to act in a professional manner. I have indeed found Social Workers very bitchy and back covering. They are cowardly in that they expected a teenage mum stand up to a violent man when not even a male social worker could do it. They also fail to admit it when they get things wrong. Such are not the type of people I want around me or mine. Admitting an honest mistake is not wrong but covering up ganging up to excuse errors which caused dangerous situations is not decent or professional. I would have had more respect for anyone who admitted a mistake. Social wirkers have a problem with people who dare to speak out and keep tecords.

Faced with a violent person the police are the people to involve not SWs.

The expectation was wrong. Dont expect another to do what you cant or wont do yourself.
The violent man stole a carpet fom the police station and a car they had already confiscated from him. He was beyond anyone's contol.
He hit me and I hit back. Then I thought that is very unladylike. Now I wish I had done him a lot of damage and saved ALL my loved ones years of further violence. Neither police nor social work were effctive.
On another side I was heaving a 6ft 15 st man up and down stairsfor for 7 months before SW put in a stair lift.
I have not been impressed

???

There are ways of working with professionals, bringing people on side and getting things done.

Most times I find these professionals very helpful, understanding and obliging. The one and only time I had problems with a reluctant Duty Officer, I asked for his name and informed him I was logging the time of the call, his name and his response, and if the situation deteriorated then I had the details of my call which I would bring to the notice of his line manager Mrs X.

I found out the call had been escalated with the hour.

There are a lot of social workers around. You drew a couple tou didn't think much of. That doesn't mean that ALL of them are completely useless.

You can get some advice from Coram children's legal centre and some solicitors will offer a free half hour for public law (ie issues involving social services) enquire at your local citizens advice

There is no point in contacting Coran or citizen's advice. You can catch a thief but not a liar. They just tell more lies. It wan horrific time for me dealing with a violent horror who was battering 3 of my loved ones and caring for elderly at the same time. It was no wonder I had a heart attack. I am not arguing the bit. Something happened recently information was sent to social work by a professional social work are doing nothing. I am well aware I am on my own fighting my way through this. I am never rude, I never raise my voice. I do not demand or issue threats. I just expected to be treated as the honest person I am. I have no wish to ever by dependent on people who do not believe the obvious such as a very elderly person is more than likely to have health problems and not have "nothing wrong with them" as stated by social work in writing.
It appears to me that there are a few here who are or were social workers. I have had two professional occupations and I had a very successful career for 25 years which involved speaking to persons previously unknown to me at a rate of 10 to 50 or 75 people per day. It seems that social work are the only people who fail to understand what I am communicating to them or perhaps they do not wish to understand.
I believe that there must be decent people working in social work somewhere just not in this local authority

My comment about Coram was aimed at the lady with the grand children issue not you Sugarpuffairy. I don't think you have been fair to the profession of social workers! My eldest daughter is a child protection social worker and is hard working and conscientious! She and her colleagues are severly under resources and over worked she has 2 little ones herself and is now giving up work because of the strain on family life! She works evenings preparing court ordered documents and weekends and often doesn't leave the office until 10pm none of them are paid over time for the long extra hours and they are given huge case loads all of which involve complex families often extremely hostile and with court and legally imposed time deadlines! It's a thankless job but a necessary one and people like yourself making sweeping generalisations about the entire profession don't help. I for one get fed up with social workers being blamed everytime something goes wrong no one looks at the work loads, the lack of resources and the constant changes in legal time limits imposed on them!

Sorry SPF but the tone and syntax of your post somewhat contradicts the content.