More bad social work reporting from the Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232611/Mother-boy-snatched-social-workers-refusing-doctors-advice-feed-chocolate-crisps.html

 

I would say the 'reader' comments are even worse that usual this time.

• Filed under: stand up for social work, daily mail, bad reporting

it's hard to judge from one side of a story but from the evidence put in front of us it's seems like the nanny syate and child protection gone mad.

we'll never know the full story.

"It's funny how these one sided stories are spun.

Let's take a step back and look at what probably really happened.
Attempts were made to manage this child at home for several months. He still failed to put on weight. The professionals were concerned that there may be a problem so wanted to admit the child to investigate. The family then refused the admission.
What were the professionals supposed to do? The child is failing to thrive despite best efforts and the parents refused to allow investigation/treatment.
Can you imagine the headlines if the child was allowed to go home and then died. I'm sure that would be blamed on the medical profession as well"

 

perhaps the only sensible comment made

 

oh and this comment made me smile

 

"Gee, they don't LOOK like health nuts"

 

think this comment was written by titchmagoo

 

"I consider most social workers to be pretty useless, inadequate individuals and this case does little to make me change my mind"



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232611/Mother-boy-snatched-social-workers-refusing-doctors-advice-feed-chocolate-crisps.html#ixzz0YZrE2oJR

I see the Daily Mail use their favourite word again... One would have thought that after so many years they would have done their homework and learnt that Social Workers do not snatch children. I know there have been cases, but they are extremely rare - the baby from Nottingham is the only one that bore any resemblance to snatching and even there we do not know the full story. 

Let's unpick this case. So baby fails to thrive for whatever reason. Baby is taken to the GP  who recommended a higher calorie intake. We'll never know what they fed the baby before, but they rejected junk. Fair enough. There are other high calorie foods that are not junk. Honey springs to mind. Olive oil. Ripe bananas. Don't jump, they are regularly on offer at my local sommerfield so they are not just "posh" food. 

Baby goes to hospital for 2 week and at the end of it mum is told by social worker and nurse that the baby needs to go to accommodation for assessment. Right. So Children's Services were either involved before this and the doctors recommended it needs to progress to accommodation or the hospital deemed the case so serious that they referred to Children's Services. Either way, it looks like the medical profession has provided the evidence and Social Workers followed specialist advice. It's called working together. Mum is told her options - she claims not she was threatened. And no, a Care Order does not remove the parental responsibilities (interestingly they use the word "rights"). Mum had the option to say no, but she agrees. She could have asked to have her baby back at any point until the ICO. She may have done that, as a Local Authority would not go to Court if the parents cooperate as there is a no order principle. 

Mum gets legal advice, everybody meets in Court. The fact that it was adjourned suggests to me the hearing was contested - I may be wrong, but that's what usually happens. So the Local Authority met the threshold criteria, demonstrated it in Court and then a judge ordered the ICO - judges decision, no snatching. 

It may be that after that some expert assessments were commissioned and maybe somebody did some work with the parents. We do not know what happened there but then Children Services apparently obtained the evidence that the child can be safely parented at home and the ICO was not renewed. I still don't see the snatching.

Titchmagoo - Social Services were criticized when the little girl from Birmingham starved to death and they were not even involved!!! If they would have left this child at home and the Child Protection Plan was not working and even worse, if they would have gone against medical advice and the child ended up dead, they would have made front page news again! 

RP:

I see the Daily Mail use their favourite word again... One would have thought that after so many years they would have done their homework and learnt that Social Workers do not snatch children. I know there have been cases, but they are extremely rare - the baby from Nottingham is the only one that bore any resemblance to snatching and even there we do not know the full story. 

Let's unpick this case. So baby fails to thrive for whatever reason. Baby is taken to the GP  who recommended a higher calorie intake. We'll never know what they fed the baby before, but they rejected junk. Fair enough. There are other high calorie foods that are not junk. Honey springs to mind. Olive oil. Ripe bananas. Don't jump, they are regularly on offer at my local sommerfield so they are not just "posh" food. 

Baby goes to hospital for 2 week and at the end of it mum is told by social worker and nurse that the baby needs to go to accommodation for assessment. Right. So Children's Services were either involved before this and the doctors recommended it needs to progress to accommodation or the hospital deemed the case so serious that they referred to Children's Services. Either way, it looks like the medical profession has provided the evidence and Social Workers followed specialist advice. It's called working together. Mum is told her options - she claims not she was threatened. And no, a Care Order does not remove the parental responsibilities (interestingly they use the word "rights"). Mum had the option to say no, but she agrees. She could have asked to have her baby back at any point until the ICO. She may have done that, as a Local Authority would not go to Court if the parents cooperate as there is a no order principle. 

Mum gets legal advice, everybody meets in Court. The fact that it was adjourned suggests to me the hearing was contested - I may be wrong, but that's what usually happens. So the Local Authority met the threshold criteria, demonstrated it in Court and then a judge ordered the ICO - judges decision, no snatching. 

It may be that after that some expert assessments were commissioned and maybe somebody did some work with the parents. We do not know what happened there but then Children Services apparently obtained the evidence that the child can be safely parented at home and the ICO was not renewed. I still don't see the snatching.

Titchmagoo - Social Services were criticized when the little girl from Birmingham starved to death and they were not even involved!!! If they would have left this child at home and the Child Protection Plan was not working and even worse, if they would have gone against medical advice and the child ended up dead, they would have made front page news again! 

 

i think you need to read my comment again.

In 95 per cent of cases the doctors  never see the need  to involve social services.

titchmagoo:

it's hard to judge from one side of a story but from the evidence put in front of us it's seems like the nanny syate and child protection gone mad.

we'll never know the full story.

 

 

 

Good thing we professionals are not foolish enough to trust "the evidence put in front of us", but have the brains and experience to question and delve more deeply.

 

 

 

 

Sorry Titchmagoo, can you be a bit more specific? I am not sure how this looks to somebody unrelated to Child Protection, I do not dispute it may look over the top, but for a Child Protection social worker with some Court experience the title, the article and the evidence do not match together!! Not sure whether you are suggesting that everyone involved with this case has gone Child Protection mad and are victimizing and innocent family, but if you do that you are likely to be questioning the professionalism not only of Social Workers, their managers and legal advisor, but also of the medical professionals, the judges, the solicitors (including the parents' solicitors), the guardian and whatever else expert would have been involved. Also from the evidence, it is very unusual for a child to be admitted for 2 weeks assessment in hospital unless there are serious concerns - we are fighting battles to keep new born babies in hospital for another day or two until their discharge plan is finalized. Hospital always complain that they need the beds so I doubt anyone would keep a child in unnecessarily.All that is from the evidence in the article. But, as you said, and that's where I agree with you, we will never know for sure what's happened.     

surfer:

titchmagoo:

it's hard to judge from one side of a story but from the evidence put in front of us it's seems like the nanny syate and child protection gone mad.

we'll never know the full story.

 

 

 

Good thing we professionals are not foolish enough to trust "the evidence put in front of us", but have the brains and experience to question and delve more deeply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT'S HARD TO JUDGE FROM ONE SIDE OF THE STORY. conveniently ignored i see. the daily mail article is all the evidence we have, the rest is about drawing reasonable conclusions.

RP:

I see the Daily Mail use their favourite word again... One would have thought that after so many years they would have done their homework and learnt that Social Workers do not snatch children. I know there have been cases, but they are extremely rare - the baby from Nottingham is the only one that bore any resemblance to snatching and even there we do not know the full story. 

Let's unpick this case. So baby fails to thrive for whatever reason. Baby is taken to the GP  who recommended a higher calorie intake. We'll never know what they fed the baby before, but they rejected junk. Fair enough. There are other high calorie foods that are not junk. Honey springs to mind. Olive oil. Ripe bananas. Don't jump, they are regularly on offer at my local sommerfield so they are not just "posh" food. 

Baby goes to hospital for 2 week and at the end of it mum is told by social worker and nurse that the baby needs to go to accommodation for assessment. Right. So Children's Services were either involved before this and the doctors recommended it needs to progress to accommodation or the hospital deemed the case so serious that they referred to Children's Services. Either way, it looks like the medical profession has provided the evidence and Social Workers followed specialist advice. It's called working together. Mum is told her options - she claims not she was threatened. And no, a Care Order does not remove the parental responsibilities (interestingly they use the word "rights"). Mum had the option to say no, but she agrees. She could have asked to have her baby back at any point until the ICO. She may have done that, as a Local Authority would not go to Court if the parents cooperate as there is a no order principle. 

Mum gets legal advice, everybody meets in Court. The fact that it was adjourned suggests to me the hearing was contested - I may be wrong, but that's what usually happens. So the Local Authority met the threshold criteria, demonstrated it in Court and then a judge ordered the ICO - judges decision, no snatching. 

It may be that after that some expert assessments were commissioned and maybe somebody did some work with the parents. We do not know what happened there but then Children Services apparently obtained the evidence that the child can be safely parented at home and the ICO was not renewed. I still don't see the snatching.

Titchmagoo - Social Services were criticized when the little girl from Birmingham starved to death and they were not even involved!!! If they would have left this child at home and the Child Protection Plan was not working and even worse, if they would have gone against medical advice and the child ended up dead, they would have made front page news again! 

 

i'm afraid all this is just your opinion, no facts to be found. invalid point of view.don't bother people with this again.

Is it possible that fabricated or induced illness (FII) was thought to be a factor here by the professionals??????

Just a thought as if so, then, the protocol for safeguarding is somewhat diffrent to other child protection concerns as in these cases it is deemed best practice to not involve the parents in case this places the child at more risk of harm.

Just looking outside the box.....please don't let me get berated now as I am still a student!!!!! 

You started it when you said that from the evidence it looks like nanny state and Child Protection gone mad. Maybe that's how it looks to you -= not to me. It is my opinion, I do not dispute that, but I used the same evidence from the article to support it. You didn't. If you disagree, fair enough. There's plenty of space in the world for both of us. As far as who bothers whom, I could say the same about you, but I was taught better than to speak to people in this way.

 

 

RP - don't worry, titch is "bothered" by anyone who has the audacity to challenge his unsubstantiated assertions.

 

 

 

 

 

ha, what 'bothers' me is derision for speculation you don't agree with and a smug, online nod of heads for speculation you do agree with. hypocrisy bothers me.

When children fail to put on weight it is either because of a medical issues or parenting issues.

This child was admitted to hospital for assessment, the only reason the child would then be moved into a foster placement is because there was no medical cause found for the weight loss. Im guessing (and this is an educated guess given that im currently involved in a similar case) that this brief spell in foster care was for assessment to see if parenting by the local authority/ foster carers had any impact on the child's weight. Im guessing (again an educated guess) that this parenting didn't improve the child's weight which in turn would exonerate the birth parents of any wrongdoing hence the child being returned and social workers agreeing that they are good parents. I would hope they're now looking down the medical route again..

This may seem like a right song and dance over nothing to your average person on the street but as professionals we know that when children fail to put on weight, or actually lose weight this can be a significant indicator of neglect or abuse. It is completely unnatural to lose weight as a child unless for some underlying medical reason.

an educated guess is all we have when we have little or no facts. 

A guess is a guess! The person guessing may think its educated; others may take a different view.

Sigh....CPS is the same the world over.... Fire the social workers- they stole the kids and ruined the family! Fire the social worker- they left the kids and they were abused!! 

 My first instinct on reading a referral like that- Failure to Thrive.  And just because the other kids are healthy doen't mean much- it makes things seem a little better, but I've run across many families that target one particular child for maltreatment. (One may look like the boyfriend that never pays child support, or mom forgot to take her pill one day and the baby "just happend", etc, etc).

  I know the laws are different between countries, (what's the difference a solicitor and a barrister? Over here it's just "attorney"...although we often call them things far less nice....), but if I had a situation with a failure to thrive infant and parents not complying with medical orders- that would be a removal!  It's a life-threatening condition. And as I explain to parents, "Neither I nor my staff are physicians, and we lack the authority to second-geuss a doctor's orders; you can seek a second opinion, but until you get one, you lack the credentials to challenge the doctor, too."   And, if  the evidence was gathered and there was proof it was medical failure to thrive and not neglect caused by parental maltreatment, the child would be returned home, too.  Seems logical to me... the press just seized on "feed the child chocolate cookies" to make the situation look silly and the social workers over-zealous.  

The story should have read, "Parents of very ill child failed to follow medical advice, Social Services had to remove child due to this refusal, and was then able to rule out parental neglect-  child returned.  Thank you social services for clearing up this situation and ensuring the safety of the child."

 
    

surfer:

A guess is a guess! The person guessing may think its educated; others may take a different view.

 

i could not agree more, i just could not agree more. keep guessing my dear.................

Ok enough you lot. Your all right. Titch your right that from what we have in the article it paints a grim picture of an overbearing social services and bad practice, and your also right that we may never know the full story. And Rp your right that if you pick the story apart its easy to see how this story has been spun to focus on negatives and ignore other factors, such as consiquences of sw not acting.

I say that this sort of story should be of no suprise to have come from a paper which peddles horror and focuses on negatives to feed its subscription base made up of the ill-informed and ignorant.