Child protection conference

[BPDmummy]

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[Meerkat]

Sorry to hear all this. Social services are an absolute nightmare once they start. They have a tendency to blow everything out of proportion. Hopefully this time they will see sense, unfortunately a lot of people minimise domestic abuse and take back allegations. Unfortunately once your in the system you have to just work through it, they may make you go on domestic violence courses etc if they are taking it straight to child protection rarther than child in need. A child protection order is a minimum of nine months.

[BPDmummy]

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[Meerkat]

Sounds positive that the dv team have closed the referral. It may not go to child protection, at the conference: my partner had what I think is a false allegation and I still have no unsupervised contact not even with me 2 years on. But hopefully yours will go a lot smoother. You can of course ask for them to change social worker, have you actually been allocated one or is it just the duty team at this stage which I imagine it will be. Please don't be alarmed as each case is different but just read carefully with ss.

[Meerkat]

The problem with children's services is they work on the probability that something happened more than it might not have happened. And lots of people take back allegations when they realise the consequences, it seems to me that there is very little to go on, I'm surprised that you aren't allowed contact, as an adult. I have everything crossed for you let us know how it goes.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear BPDmummy

Thank you for your two posts and welcome to the forum. My name is Suzie and I will be replying to you today. I will, for ease, reply once to both of your posts.

I am sorry to hear of your situation, it must be a stressful time for you and your family. It is understandable and many people feel this way when Children’s Services become involved in their family life. I suggest you speak to your G.P. if you continue to feel overwhelmed by the situation. Talking Therapies also have a self-referral process should you wish to seek counselling support.

I understand your frustrations, that you want your partner to come home and from your perspective he is not a danger to you or your child. However, once a referral has been made Children’s Services have a duty to seek further information and to ascertain whether their threshold has been met for an assessment.

You contacted the police following an incident between your partner and your daughter. You say you ‘massively’ overreacted to the situation, following a build up of tension in the home due to your daughter’s aggressive behaviours to you and your partner. You say the incident was a ‘one off’ and that your partner is not a risk to you and your daughter. You informed the police that you did not want to make a statement or press charges. They told you that your partner would be released without further action, but this is not the case. Your partner has been charged with assault of a minor and is on Bail with conditions not to contact you or your daughter. He has moved out of the family home and is now homeless.

There are concerns that you are a victim of domestic abuse. You dispute this. A referral was made to a domestic abuse organisation, they contacted you to discuss your situation and following this they closed the case with no further support provided.

As per police procedures, they made a referral to children’s services following the incident. Children’s services contacted you and asked that you sign an agreement stating your partner would not come to the home or have contact with you, which you signed. You say they have sent you a letter requesting your attendance at an Initial Child Protection Conference (ICPC) .

Bail conditions have been pushed back. You are of the view that children’s services are waiting for the outcome of this before they decide on their course of action.

Understandably, you are feeling overwhelmed and are also concerned about how your partner is feeling. You are seeking further guidance on the procedures relating to an ICPC and whether you can request a change of social worker because you are not satisfied with their approach and communications.

We do not give advice regarding police matters. If you have concerns regarding the length of time they are taking to progress their investigations, then I suggest you go back to the allocated officer to raise your concerns. If you are not satisfied with this response, you may wish to seek support from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for further guidance.

In respect of Children’s Services, following the referral an assessment should have completed before sending you a letter to attend an ICPC. Given the circumstances this is likely to be a Section 47 enquiry. Once completed, you should have received a copy, had the opportunity to discuss the content with the allocated social worker and given your views.

If the outcome of the Section 47 assessment was a recommendation to an ICPC, then the local authority have 15 days to convene a conference and to follow their policy and government guidance relating to this process. It would be a good idea to ask your local authority for a copy of their policy. You can also check out the information we provide on our website regarding the process. We provide a step-by-step guide to how Children’s Services should be working with you when there are safeguarding concerns. We also have a short film which outlines the process of how most local authorities carry out these types of meetings. Please see HERE to watch the film.

You say your daughter is/has been aggressive to you and your partner. I have added a link HERE to a directory of services that provide support to families who are experiencing child to parent violence. Some organisations offer Non Violent Resistance courses for parents. These type of courses provide ‘tools’ to support parents to deescalate conflict with children. Please do check out the website for further information.

I am sorry to hear you are not satisfied with the allocated social worker. You can make a request to children’s services to change the worker, however, you would need to evidence why you are making this request as most are turned down by Children’s Services. I have added HERE a link that you may find helpful. It is to our guidance when working with social workers. It offers tips on how to work well and what you may wish to consider if things are not going so well.

I hope you find this information helpful. There are many ways to contact Family Rights Group, please do look at our website for further information about this or of course, post again here if you have further questions.

Best wishes, Suzie

[BPDmummy]

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[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear BPDmummy

Thank you for your further post.

You have now received the social worker’s assessment re-port, and you find it difficult reading because of what is stated. It appears your daughter has made additional allegations against your partner which you say are untrue. If there are factual inaccuracies in the report, you can ask for these to be changed but not if the social worker is expressing a professional opinion based on information she has been given.

You can speak with the Chair of the initial child protection conference about any concerns you have regarding the re-port.

In your post you describe your daughter of having several is-sues

“she is aggressive and she lies, she steals and she says what is necessary to gain attention. She speaks to me like trash, she speaks to my partner like trash. She is only polite and willing to accept 'rules/boundaries' when it benefits her”

You also state that your partner has issues he has to deal with as well.

Children’s services will be concerned about her behaviour and the reasons for it. They are likely to see this as something to be addressed and may be believe that you should have sought help and support for her to address these issues if you have not already done so.

I think it is important for you to understand that children’s ser-vices involvement came about because the police referred the case to them. The view is likely to be that if things were not bad the police would not have been called and, in addition, your daughter has spoken about how things are in the home. This will give rise to concerns for her emotional well being.

You say your partner has never physically harmed you but as you may know, domestic abuse does not have to be physical. You may find it helpful to read this information on our website related to domestic abuse.

Whilst I can understand your reluctance to engage with children’s services, it does not help your case if you are not engaging positively with them. It will be a further concern that you fail to work with professionals. May I suggest that you read the information in the links in the previous response to you.

I do not think there is any doubt that you love get daughter but children’s services expectation is that she is your priority and they may have the impression (wrongly) that this is not the case. However, sometime the way things are said to a social worker and the language used can be interpreted or misinterpreted as being supportive of the other party.

My advice is that you do your best to work with children’s services to have the best outcome for your family. Children’s services may carry out a risk assessment of your partner before he is able to return but a lot will depend on the outcome of the police investigation.

You may wish to speak with one of our experienced advisers and can telephone our advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3.00pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays).

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

[BPDmummy]

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[Skysie98]

Hi,

If your post reads how I think it reads not seeing it out is not the best solution.

Your children need you.

Please seek some help.

Skysie98