Issues with Social Worker

[finaldj0]

Hi everyone, I could really do with some advice as I'm feeling increasingly frustrated with how things are being handled regarding our daughter.

CAMHS have agreed to assess her for OCD and asked us to provide a list of her behaviours in bullet-point form to help them understand what she experiences day to day.

I spent a full day compiling a temporary draft and sent it to our social worker, making it absolutely clear that it was only a draft, that my wife hadn't had a chance to read it yet, and that I wanted feedback on whether the format was suitable before we finalised it. I specifically asked them not to send it to CAMHS until we had both approved it.

Despite that, they ignored my request and sent the incomplete draft to CAMHS anyway.

The second issue relates to a psychological assessment. Last Thursday, the social worker emailed us three CVs for psychologists and invited us to choose which one we wanted. We were also encouraged to submit our own questions for the psychologist before making a decision, with a response requested by Monday.

Because of my working hours, I didn't see the email until Sunday evening. My wife contacted the social worker straight away to explain this and asked if we could have a little more time. She said we would come back to them by the end of this week.

I had Wednesday and Thursday off work, so we took the time to read through all three CVs carefully, chose the psychologist we felt was the best fit, and drafted a list of our own questions. We planned to send everything back by Friday, exactly as we had said we would.

When my wife emailed, she received an automatic reply saying the social worker had been off on Monday and was on annual leave. She also doesn't work Fridays.

Then, at 4:00 pm today, right at the end of the working day, we received an email saying that two of the psychologists were no longer available and that we would have to use the one they had selected. Ironically, this was the psychologist we didn't want.

I can't help but feel that they had already decided who they wanted from the beginning. No appointments had even been arranged yet, so I genuinely don't understand how the other two psychologists suddenly became unavailable before the extended timeframe they had agreed to had even expired.

What is upsetting me most is the pattern that's developing. We are consulted, given choices, or asked for our views, but then decisions seem to be made regardless of what we say. Our draft was sent despite us explicitly asking for it not to be. We were given a choice of psychologist, asked to provide our own questions, then had that choice taken away before our agreed response date.

At this point, I feel like they're just pushing ahead with whatever they want to do without properly involving us as parents.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Would you raise this first with the social worker's manager, or would you take it to the Child Protection Conference Chair/Manager? I'm not looking to create conflict, but I do feel that our views are being ignored, and I'm wondering what the appropriate next step is.

Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated.