h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just reading from HAVOCA, an organisation geared towards stamping out child abuse, and in their News section on their home page, I found an article entitled, “An end to witch hunts”.

Here is the exploration of public services, such as hospital staff, being somewhat zealous in lodging a complaint of child abuse with social services, with the following:

“The number of potential cases of abuse taken seriously and investigated by social services in England and Wales has stayed largely constant. Last year, some 39,000 child protection conferences were initiated,…”

One of the case conferences would have been mine.

Last year, after a hell of a confusing time for my family, including myself, I asked social services to help me.

I received little help and began making noises of proceeding along the legal route if they did not help me with my real concerns in regards to what was then happening.

Instead what I received after much ‘investigation’ and sympathetic jargon was a summons to attend a case conference concerning my youngest child. I, unsuspectingly, thought I understood why the conference was put forward but was dismayed that only my youngest child’s name was brought forward.

Three days before the ‘trial’ everything became clear. I received a visit from the social worker involved, who was accompanied by a colleague, and given the paperwork which spelt out the reason for the conference.

Upon the ‘evidence’ which was to be submitted, were items which had been totally taken out of context from prior conversations with the social workers; past history which was presented as being the fruits of their investigation, but which once again took pieces of past history out of context and wrapped together to make another completely different picture. Unilaterally it seemed the overall view was that I was neglecting my daughter and this subject of neglect was the only issue to be confronted at the conference.

I felt betrayed and hurt and angry. I felt powerless especially when the colleague of the social worker abruptly informed me that they would embark upon the legal process of taking my youngest child from me.

It took four child care conference sessions before social services took a stand down.

At the first conference, I was met by many strangers representing different areas of public bodies, including the police, doctors, child psychologists, team leaders, specialists in child abuse, teachers, head masters and what have you.

As I didn’t have much time to prepare my ‘defence’, I could only bring forward a haphazard document to serve as some kind of legal rebuttal and therefore recorded.

During the process of these case conferences, in which all but the first were attended by the chair, social workers and the headmaster of the school my youngest had attended, I found such a dogmatic attitude that nothing I could do or say was deemed adequate in itself to have them just take a look at the evidence before them, and then at the evidence I was later able to supply, to prove their evidence was flawed and their charge wrong.

Although I had approached a solicitor to represent me at the time of the second session, he was of the view that there was no smoke without fire and even though I gave him copies of all the evidence I could muster to prove my innocence of the charge, neglect, I was left to fend for myself.

Many times I was threatened that I would lose my child.

At the last but one session, I grew angry enough to take them on and followed my gut instincts. Fear of losing my child had hampered my thought processes, fear can be everything at times like these, and I realised there was the very real scenario that because of my fear, the very thing I did not want, would indeed happen and Social Services would file with the courts to take my child into care.

So instead of continuing along the emotional path, I stepped back and looked at it from the purely logical and analytical point of view.

I checked their evidence again and saw the flaws but concluded that overall, in the way they had presented their reports, anyone judging me by them, would have no other choice but to conclude I was guilty as charged.

So all I had to do was to show the flaws in their case. I got the evidence which proved their own incompetent. I provided this in a report of over 40 pages. Alongside this were photocopies from the very sources the case workers had provided to supplement their own evidence but had failed to copy in the entirety so offering a biased view. I also explained the reason why I would pursue legal action if they did not drop their charge of neglect.

I researched the web and other sources, spending long hours learning more about the legalities and formalities of child and other similar case conferences. I learnt that social services have only civil rights, in that the child case conference is a civil procedure and has nothing to do with the actual law in regards to children.

At the last case conference, there was a new addition to the panel, one of their solicitors. It was only then I found out why I had been charged with neglecting my child.

The panel, including the chair, were of the understanding that because I had withdrawn my child from school, I was neglecting her education. As far as they were concerned, the law stated that every child must attend school who were of a school age.

The fact that I had withdrawn my child from school because the child was unhappy had nothing to do with the situation, they felt. The fact that I and the headmaster found ourselves at odds with his lack, as I saw it, of teaching and managing skills, were presented as being part of my ignorance of teaching rather than fact.

The fact that they insisted on having the said head master to every session to declare his professional view which ran along the lines that I would damage my child by not sending the child to school, that I was ignorant of teaching, that I had no skills as a teacher, etc, etc, was deemed worthy of being not only noted but duly recorded as having received unanimous agreement by the panel bar one, me.

I was allowed to give my speech, and speech it was. To sum it up here would be difficult however, the main point was taking a fact of law which had been totally disregarded by this panel of professionals.

The law states quite clearly that all children of school age must receive an education, be it at school or otherwise. What that simply meant was that I was within my rights to withdraw my child from school as long as I was providing my child with an education which would be considered suitable for the child’s age and understanding.

The solicitor attending had to agree that this was indeed the law and the charge of neglect was dropped.

However during the process of their investigations I had learnt that the social workers involved had tried to challenge my skills of parenting as a whole, they also included veiled references to my possibly sexually abusing my child, that this abuse probably had started with my first, now adult child, all without actually being specific you understand, just alluding to certain conflicts they thought existed, and actually it was a child psychologist who unwittingly gave me the information, during her one brief meeting with me and my child.

My own solicitor not being of help, when I finally brought home the verdict, told me I should feel vindicated, and adjured me not to take matters further, along the legal route, as this would elicit funds from the public purse to be spent on defence rather than on children who are at risk. He also concluded that I could create a loophole in which parents who did abuse their children could follow through – the ramifications of which were not lost upon me.

My problem now is that I have a ‘record’ for abusing my child. The last case conference forgot to send me the minutes and I only received them recently, after my doctor alerted social services that they had not seen my child in a while and, as the social worker put it on her unannounced home visit, where she saw my child and me, to find out ‘if my child was still living’ – so now I am to be followed by a false claim of abuse.

Why?

Because in my asking for aid, I stupidly informed police and social workers about an alleged rape, and in uncovering the details of this, found there was a lot of under age sex where bullying and rape seemed to be taken as a matter of course as well as drugs at a school which serves a very affluent part of the community, and the school my youngest child attended is one of the main feeders, serving the same community and, I suppose, my opening my big mouth about what I found and threatening to go public with it, alerted the public services and caused them to attack first.

This is the first time I have ‘gone public’ about this. Yes I still teach my child. Yes it rankles that somewhere on my doctors notes will be ‘child abuse or neglect’ registered, although I shall not be allowed to see this of course as it would be detrimental to my health.

I’ll just throw in one last observation, which may or not be related to the above, since the case conference, my child’s and mine medical papers appear to have gone missing which means that we are no longer registered with a doctor’s, despite my returning forms for registration as well as provision of national health service numbers – strange that, isn’t it?

As of today I still do not know whether I should try to clear my name or let it rest. I know that if I wanted to work for any public service where children would be involved, this record of mine would probably make such prospective employers look elsewhere to recruit, but then again what if, as the solicitor suggested is true, there is a loophole made by confronting the whole process, because this would mean a judicial review and other factors coming into play – so maybe, someone, after reading this, can offer a suggestion?

How would you feel and what would you do in a similar situation? Anyone been in a similar situation?

Good God. No-one should have to be in that position. No-one should have to go through all that to prove their innocence. Unfortunatley it happens every day, to too many of us being hounded by a system we don't understand. I won't go into details, but yes, I've had similar experiences.

Well done for being so bright, so brave that you held the welfare of your child at the forefront of your mind. You had to fight for your child, and it's left some scars, but you won. Well done.

Thank you Mojo. You've had similar experiences? I really would like to hear them if you would care to share? Maybe this is not the best place for sharing, being public and all, so I will offer you my email here, [email protected] and hope you will share the experience with me.

I don't think I have won in the sense that I now have a spurious accusation still marked very much on record, although I have won the right to educate my child, which the law already gave me, and this aspect of law seems to have finally sunk in with Social Services own law advisors.

If I went further however and solicited the judicial review of how social services execute their powers, this would be a test case, or so the solicitor said, hence the ramifications.

I also have to wonder how far will social services go before admitting they were in the wrong. The only apology I ever received was from one social worker in a private conversation, the public service as a whole has never acknowledged their error of judgement in this case.

Although I was swift to run in an official complaint, it was taken no where, and has this case took six long months from start to finish, I really was neglecting my child as I sought to find some answers and gather my own responses in my rebuttals. I have no wish to travel such a harsh and unyielding road again but I do want my name cleared.

When I was a baby, I was almost taken away from my parents by Child Protective Services (I'm American). My dad was in the Navy at the time, so I was born in Hawaii.

My parents once took the to the beach with the, and they put sunscreen on my arms and legs, but not on my face cause, hey, I was a baby and it would have ended up in my eyes, right? They also put me on a towel under one of those huge beach umbrellas.

Turns out the sunlight reflected off the sand and the umbrella, and half my face was sunburned pretty badly. It didn't look bad at first, but that night my face got so swollen that it looked like someone had put golf balls under my skin.

They rushed me to the hospital (or called an ambulance? I don't remember, obviously) and got me taken care of. The doctor came out to them in the waiting room and told them something like, "I really should call Child Protective Services for this." Somehow they managed to convice him of what happened, that it was not in fact abuse or neglect.

But for a moment there, I *almost* escaped...

Seriously, though, it is annoying/bureaucratic/dumb, but I suppose the intentions are good.

Hi ya Jesso,

I think that good intentions also mask bureaucracy and a tendency to go overboard.

If education applies to the young, how about educating our public services to acknowledge when they go wrong and retract their accusation.

I was an abused child and it was very difficult to get any help in my childhood from any source, however these days I suspect there are a lot of parents who have done nothing to deserve the title of abuser – and for the life of me I can not accept this growing situation as being anything other than immoral.

Your face must have really hurt, and how close to being taken from your parents for a mistake.

My mother once slammed my hand in the door on purpose in a temper one day. My middle finger was virtually severed. It took her a while to realise that her own ministrations were not doing me any favours and that I probably would lose the finger if she didn’t act quickly. She explained the injury as an accident and that was accepted. But oh boy did she have a hell of a vicious temper and how she explained, over the years, all my injuries to the medics at the hospital, I shall never know but I would have thought that it would have been plain to see that abuse was taking place, even then.

It must be difficult for social workers today and I can sympathise with their lot, however it does not mean that through ignorance and stupidity they must be allowed to point a finger without correctly applying intellect to evidence put before them – this shows that at least some idiots are masquerading as intelligent officials who all have the power to take away our children.

Ameuc still ranting…

Oh my, that's terrible.

Yes, the entire thing does need to be fixed, but it would be a very hard thing to do; I think that no matter what you do something is always going to slip through. That's just the nature of it, because they are trying to keep an eye on all the children in the country. Unfortunate though it is, that's how it is. It does need serious reform, though.

And don't worry about my face hurting... I don't remember it ^_^

I agree, reform the whole service.

Glad to hear you don't remember it and happy to think your skin suffered no more adverse effects.

Hey Ameuc, you have had a rough ride, but well done for fighting in the way you did

It's the biased views that are the problem, in these cases, social services very rarely supply the judgement panel with all the information, as you've found out.

My mum took us out of school because she didn't agree with how we were being taught. We had social workers round, telling her it was illegal for a child to be out of school, and she'd tell them No, it's illegal not to provide an education to your child

You've probably already heard of these people - Education Otherwise. We were members years ago, and I remember that mum had a lot of support from people in similar situations. http://www.education-otherwise.org/

Well, my skin suffered no long-term adverse effects...

To help soothe the pain, my parents put lots of that green aloe vera gel on it... and when my skin started to peel, it peeled green, so it looked like half my skin was green.

I desperately want to see pictures of this, but my mom never let anyone near me with a camera while I was green. My grandma managed to get one, when my mom wasn't looking, but I haven't seen it cause we never visit her anymore (*light bulb goes on in brain* hmm... maybe now I know why...).

Yes, EO are a good bunch. I have friends who home educated all six of their children! They have had (and continue to have) a great deal of support from EO, so I'd agree with queeglesproggit here.

I had a pretty bad experience with an absolute idiot of a social worker. The social services have kept an eye on my family for as long as I can remember as they had very real concerns for the safety of myself and my siblings. For a long time they were excellent and managed to help in so many ways including one Christmas when the staff of our local unit went out and bought us all presents because they knew my mum wouldn't. However soon after the worst happened and I was very nearly killed in a violent incident between myself and my brother. With the help of my school I got out and stayed with friends and arrangements were made to deal with social services at my new address. In moving I'd crossed a beaureucratic (sp?) boundary and was assigned a new social worker who didn't have a clue who I was or what my problem was so she couldn't help. The workers who'd dealt with me previously were fighting to try and help me but because I'd crossed this boundary they weren't allowed to. The end result was I didn't get any help when I really needed it and got so frustrated I just stopped communicating with the social services and dealt with things alone

Now *that* is just ridiculous. Boundaries? I can understand assignments being made in areas, or being reassigned if the move it to a far-away place, but if you were still in the same school it can't have been *that* far. That's just insane.

*hugs*?

*hugs* much appreciated. The thing that got me I'd moved less than 3 miles, I can cycle it in 5 minutes. Anyway this badness happened a good three years ago and things are very much improved

Hello queegles,

I feel honoured that my rant inspired your first posting. Yes you are so right, unfortunately a lot of people in the position to know, remain ignorant of the law and terrible consequences result. It doesn’t excuse them at all.

Your mother certainly sounds brave and indeed EO can help when it comes to push and shove.

I too have been a member of EO for many years, and there are good and bad people in there. I believe the organisation itself remains true to their initial goal of children receiving the kind of education their parents want. However I have met and corresponded with some whose main criteria appears to be askance with the idea of providing anything for their child, much less an education so although I keep contact with the group, I find myself at odds with those who would use the law to escape caring for their children.

I know I sound pompous and judgemental, but hopefully the example I illustrate will show the depth of my concern. When I moved here as a member of EO, I found that the co-ordinator allowed her then 14 year old daughter so much freedom that the girl was staying with friends and her boyfriend in his London home as much as with her parent, smoking, shopping, and pretty much doing anything which did not involve one on one education. On one occasion my own daughters were invited for a sleep over with this girl’s cousins, they were appalled to see this girl hit a small child of around 5 years old, over her bottom and legs with an empty cola bottle. Apparently the aunt was out with her boyfriend leaving the cousins, all in their mid teens and my daughters to look after the younger children. To sum up that visit, nappies were not changed, food offered were sweets and abuse of the small child the only means of reprimanding when the child wanted company.

My daughters tried to get involved and were threatened to be turned out into the street for the night if they persisted, so they kept their mouths shut and remained until morning offered them the means to escape. When the aunt rolled in she was awake long enough to greet everyone before going to bed, leaving the teens in charge of the small children once again. I informed social services, offering as much information as I could but their response was that they did not have the man power to check it through.

This is not the kind of provision I would expect from a public service and it is this which has put me off seeking more contact with the EO’s, as this was just another incident of inappropriate parenting, in my view, that I have witnessed or heard about during my membership. So while I would hope there are many parents belonging to this group who do care enough about the welfare of their child, I would suspect there are equally as many who only use the group to shield them from the law and I would be loathe to have such people in my home again as obviously I do not have the means to vet them beforehand.

Hi Honest,


It was a shame that the very organisation which was meant to protect you failed but I am glad to hear this is all in the past now.

I think that Social Services have many demands thrust upon them, and yet with all the resources they can muster, they still manage to get it wrong, time and time again.

The people they hire appear to have no more skill in dealing with any given situation than the ordinary lay man in the street. I think there are many in the job which should look elsewhere to earn a living as their inappropriate handling creates an even more dangerous scenario evolving.

Unless this workforce is provided with the kind of education they need to support their own interpretation of any given situation, forming the judgement which appears on record as factual evidence, in all the fields of law this pertains to, which pretty much covers it all from Family Law to Civil Rights, then the service should be restricted into what it can do in terms of removing children etc.

Let the social services provide their workers with on going training in practical work situations, such as accompanying solicitors to police stations where a youth is held in custody and following it through to the trial; such as having the minimum years of training that specialists in Family Law need before they can enter into legalities in a court of law. It is not much to demand from a service which has made so many mistakes in the public domain, and it should be a pre-requisite for anyone entertaining the idea of joining the ranks.

Social Services should live up to its name in every single county, unfortunately this is not so and reform is long over due.

I'm very much glad things are better now, Honest