Baby P's mother to be released

Iam64

Vintage jazz, I’m sure not spaghetti will respond but I made a comment earlier about the fact looked after children tend to do less well at school, more likely to have emotional behavioural problems, they’re over represented in the prison population
Simplistically, some argue this means care is bad and keeping families together a better option
If only it was so simple
The impact of substance misuse prebirth, the devastating impact of neglect and abuse in the developmental years isn’t always factored in the simplistic approach taken.
Also LAC will be compared with the general population rather than with the children left with parents like the ones they were removed from

This is what I understood had driven us to look at the removal/trying to work with families to improve, issue. I don't know how many children were left in very poor situations because of this idea. I'm not sure how ethical a longitudinal study of the outcomes of these children would have been?

I'm another with no straightforward solutions and hear Dickens cry for "root and branch" overhall - housing, education, health, everything".

Thank n you NotSpaghetti and Iam64.

nightowl

Do you think we’ve returned to this Dickens. I think things are as bad now as they ever were in terms of child abuse. I couldn’t go into social work now.

About 12 years ago, I had 5 visits arranged one day, in the inner city areas of Manchester. There was an hour’s break mid day. I was near The Whitworth art gallery, so called for a coffee. I spent time looking at the Hogarth exhibition. It was impossible not to feel Hogarth could have been capturing images from my day’s work. Every parent and some grandparents I was visiting had significant substance dependence issues.

It will probably be very unpopular, but I know of a large family, all with significant problems, and I would say that social services have done little to address their issues.
They spend a lot of the time "supporting" by picking up the pieces that this family leave in their wake.
Running around, collecting their neglected pets, knocking on their family's door at all times of the day and night, issuing them free bus tickets, collecting their prescriptions, arranging loans,
the list is endless.

I posted last week about a current situation that one of them is in, and it is a tragedy waiting to happen.

This person has been given the get out clause of "anger issues", which they use whenever things don't go their way.

I'm not sure the kind of "support" given is appropriate.

I'm not saying that support for families isn't a good thing. It is of course. However, when we were children living in a violent, abusive, chaotic household, we just had to get on with it. There was no one. I can remember as a very small child going to a local police station with my sister and asking the sergeant behind the desk 'Can you stop our dad from hitting our mum?' He said 'Go home girls, there's nothing we can do.' I must have been very small as I can remember looking up at the desk. No Social Workers to blame then.

NotSpaghetti

This is what I understood had driven us to look at the removal/trying to work with families to improve, issue. I don't know how many children were left in very poor situations because of this idea. I'm not sure how ethical a longitudinal study of the outcomes of these children would have been?

Good point - about longitudinal studies.

I've no experience in the field, so am not really in a position to make judgements or suggest solutions other than those based on my own personal reaction to the horror of child abuse. However, a relative of mine did short-term foster care and his and his wife's experience with one child left me rather shaken. I can't give many details - he was bound by a confidentiality clause - but the nub of it is that the quite young child they were fostering at the time was from what used to be described as a 'problem' family. He'd suffered some sort of abuse at the hands of, I believe, his father. Initially, the father was allowed only supervised contact with his son, but this changed to limited, unsupervised contact once a week.

After each contact episode, the boy came back in a state of some distress - not profound, but he was withdrawn, quiet, and sometimes wet the bed at night. My relative contacted the social services and told them because he was, naturally, worried. Unfortunately, he obviously broke some sort of 'code of conduct rule' because he suggested that the visits stop while they investigated what has going on. To cut a long story short, they were quite snippy with him and more or less told him that their policy for this child was none of his business. Not long afterward, they removed the boy from the care of my relative.

I'm afraid this has coloured my view of social services' policies on keeping families together. I don't know what kind of abuse the child suffered, whether it was 'mild' or profound, but whatever it was, his contact with his father distressed him. Perhaps the social services did actually investigate the case, I've no idea. And of course, there's always the possibility that the child was upset because he wanted to remain with his father and not return to his foster parents. But he appeared content in that environment, happily playing with the other children (the relative's biological child and another fostered child); excited about family trips out for treats, visits to zoos, museums, etc, I doubt this was the case.

There might be 'problem' families who are simply disorganised, living chaotic lives and who just don't have the practical or emotional tools / support to deal with the situation. And I'm sure these families can be helped to stay together.

But abuse is abuse, in whatever form it takes. And that means the child is at risk, possibly permanently. It's a completely different kettle of fish, IMO. But, it is just an opinion, as I have no real knowledge or experience in the field of child care - apart from being a mother, but that doesn't make me an expert, obviously.