Child in Need plan - lack of communication from Social Worker

[Lozie#210]

Hi, I have been married to my husband for fifteen years and we have an eleven-year-old daughter.
Back in March, the police turned up at our address with a warrant to seize devices that connect to the internet.
I was told by the police officer at the time that they had evidence indecent images of children had been accessed using our Wi-Fi.
They seized our devices.
Then in June, my husband was arrested because the police have said they found evidence of indecent images of children on his phone.
He was released on police bail for three months and one of the stipulations of his bail is that he cannot live with me or our daughter and he's not allowed any unsupervised contact with our daughter.
I have been told by our social worker and the police that our daughter is not allowed any contact whatsoever with her father until a strategy meeting has taken place and a child in need plan put in place.
I understand why this is all in place and have no argument with that.
However, I am having the following issues with our social worker listed below.
*I have been in contact with her since April and have still not received anything in writing from her such as meeting notes or copies of assessments etc.

*She has not informed me what a child in need plan is or explained it at all and I have had to find this out from Googling it.

*My husband found out that our child was on a child in need plan half an hour before our first child in need meeting took place.

*I sent her an email with a list of questions and she has still not responded to me.

*My husband has had very minimal contact with her even though she's supposed to be there to support all of us as a family.

*My husband has lost his job due to all of this because the police turned up at his workplace in order to arrest him. We informed the social worker of this and her response to that was, well, are you looking for another job then? He explained to her that he wasn't sure what job he was allowed to do given his bail conditions and also he does not know what information he must disclose to an employer.
She did not answer any of his concerns and changed the subject. This happened in our second child in need meeting.
*I have been given very minimal information from the police in regards to the evidence against my husband and as such at the moment have decided not to end my marriage. I feel our social worker is judging me heavily for this and ahe accused me of "minimising the situation".

My daughter has not seen her dad for over five weeks now. She's really struggling with this emotionally and our social worker does not seem to be any further along in the process to get this sorted.
We have given her the names and contact details of our parents who she has agreed could be supervisors of contact, but she has not done anything to contact them or arrange contact. I am completely out of my depth with this entire process. I have never had any involvement with the police or social services before and have no idea what to expect. I am trusting my social worker to guide me through this process and give me the information and advice that I need. However, that does not seem to be happening.
Thank you.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Lozie#210

Welcome to the parents’ forum. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear about your difficult family situation. I hope my reply will help.

You explain that your 11-year-old daughter has a child in need plan. Children’s services were contacted by the police following your husband’s arrest for alleged online child sexual images offences. Your husband is now on bail with conditions that he does not live at home with you and your daughter and that he has no unsupervised contact with her. Unfortunately, your husband lost his job recently too.

I can see that you have had a lot to deal with. You are caring for your daughter while coping with the aftermath of your husband’s arrest and the involvement of two statutory services: police and children’s services. You may still be trying to process what has happened. I would encourage you to access support from specialists such as Talking Forward or Stop it Now; they advise and support partners of those under investigation for online sexual offences. Stop it Now also have a family and friends forum which offers a supportive space for anyone affected by the arrest, caution, or conviction of someone they know for online sexual offending involving children. You can access their forum here.

It sounds as if you feel that children’s services have not shown empathy or understanding in their communication with you to date. You are worried about your daughter’s wellbeing as she has not seen her father for some time. You are unable to provide her with reassurance about this. You are not the alleged offender; you are trying to do your best in a difficult situation. As communication is one of the main issues, this guide to working with a social worker may help.

You understand why children’s services need to assess your daughter’s needs and ensure that she has a temporary safety plan due to the nature of the criminal investigation. However, you are unhappy with the social worker’s response and communication. You and your husband are both worried that supervised contact arrangements have not yet been put in place for your daughter to see her father.

A child in need plan is now in place, but was poorly communicated to you and your husband. We have detailed advice materials on child in need which you can find here. It is voluntary. But it is important to continue to cooperate so that the right support is in place. If parents do not want a child in need plan but children’s services worry this will not be safe or the child’s situation will deteriorate, they may think about starting child protection enquiries or recommend a child protection conference.

As the social worker has been involved since April, her assessment of your daughter’s needs should be completed and a copy of the assessment shared with both parents. She should also provide you with a copy of the current child in need plan. As you have not had any documents yet, I would suggest that you email the social worker directly, copying in their manager, requesting a copy of each of these documents, as soon as possible.

Children’s services’ role is to support and protect vulnerable children, and they should work in partnership with parents to do so. But the child’s welfare is their primary concern. The social worker should work with both parents but as your daughter lives with you as her ‘protective parent,’ their main contact will be with you. You explain that the social worker and police have said there is to be no contact until there has been a strategy meeting and a child in need plan in place. I would suggest that you email the social worker to ask them to confirm if the strategy meeting has happened and if so, what the meeting decided about supervised contact between father and daughter.

Once you know the outcome, I would suggest that your husband takes the lead in pursuing his request for supervised contact with your daughter to begin, as he is the parent who cannot see his child at present. It is good that you have both already put forward your parents as potential supervisors. Your husband should email the social worker asking them to confirm if they are now going to proceed to assess your daughter’s grandparents, the timeframe for this and what the proposed supervised contact arrangements will be.

I understand that your husband lost his job in distressing circumstances. This may have put your family under additional financial pressure. It is not the social worker’s role to advise how your husband’s bail conditions impact on his employment – unless he works with children or vulnerable adults - it is best for your husband to confirm with the police or a criminal lawyer how his bail conditions might affect him applying for work. However, the social worker should consider the impact of your husband’s job loss on your family situation.

It is difficult for you having limited information from the police to inform your decision making. This must add to the uncertainty. You can ask the police to update you as much as they can but unfortunately data protection laws and the nature of the ongoing criminal investigation may prevent them from sharing much information. Stop It Now has a flowchart which provides an overview of the criminal justice process which might be useful.

Your daughter’s plan must be reviewed when there is an outcome to the police investigation.

If you continue to be unhappy with children’s services response and you cannot resolve this, then you can consider making a complaint. However, I would suggest you remind them that you are cooperating fully and that your daughter’s welfare is your main concern but that you would like them to communicate more clearly with you (with written information) and update you about the progress of arrangements for your child.

Please post back or seek advice via one of other advice options.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie