‘Dishonesty, coercion and power’: how do social workers respond to social media criticism of care proceedings?

John Simmonds about the rising challenge that critical social media postings poses for care proceedings and the children, parents and social workers in them

May 31, 2018 in Children

Photo: anyaberkut/Fotolia

In her recent Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture, journalist Louise Tickle made a powerful case on the challenges posed to the role and processes of family courts, local authorities and social workers as the web provides increasingly instant and open means of communication for those subject to care proceedings.

The current debate about every individual’s right to privacy and control over their information – while at the same time highly valuing the opportunity social media creates to share personal thoughts, feelings and images – is a tense and unresolved question.

Tickle read posts from parents subject to care proceedings – undoubtedly one of the most challenging of processes when it comes to disputes between individual citizens and the State about the future care of children.

‘Fundamental threat’

Care proceedings must be experienced by all parents as a fundamental threat to their position, especially when the local authority’s evidence is that their care has become a threat to the child.

Information and evidence is absolutely at the centre of these processes and social workers are key to the management of that information – its accuracy, its relevance and its purpose. There is a core issue of trust that runs through cases when there is a fundamental dispute between the parents and the local authority about the child.

The over-arching theme in Tickle’s lecture was the strong evidence from social media posts from parents about their views and experience of the alleged dishonesty, coercion and power of local authorities to construct false evidence about their failure to provide safe and child centred care. This is compounded by further posts that strongly indicated the failure of the courts to properly challenge and test this evidence from the parent’s perspective, which reinforces their sense of injustice.

Disempowered

As a panel member at the lecture, I came to think of these posts as suggesting a form of social protest by disempowered members of the community against a State whose interests and motivation were located elsewhere – the oppression, marginalisation and exclusion of the disadvantaged.

It is of course the role of the court to fully and transparently assess and test the evidence presented by the parties drawing on the legal framework that determines these issues including procedure and case law. Whenever an individual is faced with a charge by the State about their breach of the law – whether this is a criminal or civil matter – they are almost certain to defend themselves.

This is also the case where the charge is against the State for their failure to uphold the law in relation to the individual. Resolving acrimonious disputes is a part of the role and function of the courts using the principles of justice, fairness and transparency.

Tickle’s presentation raises serious questions about the position of the courts when social media posts from parents and others strongly indicate that they do not feel listened to and they feel overwhelmed by a powerful inevitability in the outcome.

On one level, there is nothing new in this. On another there is a serious question for professionals in making sense of and giving credence to what parents and others have to say when they express their views on social media.

Continuous and public challenge

For every professional, maintaining integrity, respect for and engagement with parents in great difficulty is fundamental to the role. But doing so when there is a continuous and public challenge on social media to the accuracy, relevance and fairness of a social worker’s evidence can be overwhelming. And Tickle raises a troubling question about whether this could be resolved by social work interviews being recorded as they are in criminal investigations. There is also another vexed question about the use of social media posts as evidence against the parents.

Every one of these issues is troubling. But the one issue that is given little attention is the position of the child in all of this. We know that children can be seriously at risk when the adults in their lives continuously argue and are in serious conflict with each other with both immediate and long-term consequences.

From their point of view, they need their parents and any professionals involved ‘to get their act together’ and pay attention to them and their need for a safe, secure and loving home. This indicates a powerful cooperative venture by adults and services that are on the side of the child. But unfortunately, the challenge posed by the tide of social media postings results in the child rarely being mentioned.

By Dr John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF.

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3 Responses to ‘Dishonesty, coercion and power’: how do social workers respond to social media criticism of care proceedings?

Louise Marshall May 31, 2018 at 11:56 am #

If social workers use the neglect toolkit as an educational tool for families to empower them to make changes.This can help families who want to make changes have better relationships as they will feel they are supported rather than ‘done to’. A different approach is needed for compromised parenting or repeat offenders.
Christopher Patch May 31, 2018 at 5:09 pm #

The voice of the child is hardly central to the court either, luminaries no less than LJ Munby have bemoaned its absence. This links to his lecture ‘Unheard Voices’ https://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/Sir%20James%20Munby%20Annual%20lecture%202015.pdf

Your article states ‘It is of course the role of the court to fully and transparently assess and test the evidence presented by the parties drawing on the legal framework that determines these issues including procedure and case law’, as if this occurs; you must know that often it does not. Significant witnesses are not permitted,misrepresentative assessments are waved through, and too often neither the involved s/w(s) nor the Cafcass officer even appears in court.
You suggest that it is the parents responsibility to cooperate, but in the face of disregarded Article 6 (1) ECHR breaches, and little opportunity for the child’s voice to be listened to, can it surprise you that the family, including perhaps relatives who are not parties and so not allowed to know what is happening to their grandchild, niece, nephew or cousin, feel excluded and frustrated?
EJ June 7, 2018 at 2:31 am #

“For every professional, maintaining integrity, respect for and engagement with parents in great difficulty is fundamental to the role. But doing so when there is a continuous and public challenge on social media to the accuracy, relevance and fairness of a social worker’s evidence can be overwhelming.”

Your point implies that they are all maintaining such integrity (honesty) when so often they are not. Root out the rotten apples from social work, stop the lies and wrongful removal of children and trust and faith in the system will automatically return.

“And Tickle raises a troubling question about whether this could be resolved by social work interviews being recorded as they are in criminal investigations. There is also another vexed question about the use of social media posts as evidence against the parents.”

Why is it troubling? I’ll tell you why, that parents want (and are now secretly recording) evidence of the lies because otherwise they are ignored and the lies win out. Troubling that it’s needed at all. Troubling that for parents to want things recorded, that it really is happening that many social workers are lying and fabricating, otherwise it would be the last thing parents wanted.

“We know that children can be seriously at risk when the adults in their lives continuously argue and are in serious conflict with each other with both immediate and long-term consequences.”

Serious risk? Whilst far from ideal for a child:

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/06/15/council-radically-cut-support-mother-months-bringing-care-proceedings-relation-daughter/

“On the loud arguments which happened while T was present, the judge said while it could be seen as unpleasant, allowing that to meet the threshold for significant harm “would be a step too far and lowers the threshold to such a level that a very high percentage of children would be at risk of removal from a very high percentage of families”.”

So clearly it’s not a serious risk. Louise Tickle is doing a sterling job in rebalancing the scales, highlighting wrongs in the system and giving a voice to innocent parents.