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We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

Has anyone been told they're not good enough to parent their children?

AmyRainbow76

My children were removed from their home mid September.

I asked social services to do an assessment around 18 months ago, because I was worried that I wasn't meeting all their needs and that they needed support.
I have multiple (non epeleptic) seizures a day along with a functional neurological disorder and varying other issues that I won't bore you with.
My boys have varying degrees of autism.

Firstly the wrote saying we didn't meet the criteria for help. I wish I'd left it there, but I didn't I asked to see the criteria, and for them to reconsider.

That's when the witch hunt started. She (their social worker) has turned everyone against us.
Everyone who comes to our house is shocked it's so clean because in every report she depicts an episode of hoarders.

Exhausted my husband and I employed a childminder to move in and went on holiday re group and plan for the future. We also hoped that lowering my stress levels would improve my health.
How wrong could we be?

The very day we left she came to the house and bullied our childminder, she came again the next day with their father, who they have no contact with (and tried to persuade him to remove the children), and then the next day with the police who she got to remove them under a police protection order. Meanwhile we were stuck on holiday desperately trying to get home.

Since she's taken them she's put every possible obstacle in the way to me seeing the children, and so far I've only seen the youngest for 2 90 mins supervised contact sessions.
She had to give in with her order against my eldest as he's 17, but she still argued that against the judge, and my 17yr old is too upset to return home.
I've not seen my 15yr old since 17th September, and she won't let me speak to him, and has had his mobile phone removed.

I'm not sure if I can keep fighting this.
Halloween was awful without them, I'm not going to make through Christmas without them.
How am I supposed to carry on?
ive been trying everything to get them back, asking to be assessed, and go on parenting courses, anything to prove I'm a good mum, but she just says it's not a priority of hers.

Meanwhile I'm living in a huge empty house, with memory's all around me, that reminds me of what I lost. On top of that without them living here I can't afford to pay the bills and keep the house. It's a complete nightmare.

If anyone can offer advice I'd be so grateful. It feels like my life is over.

Thankyou

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AmyRainbow76

Thank you so much for your reply. The fact that you read it through to the end, and gave me so much advice means the world to me.
You've given me hope that I will get the right people to listen, maybe not straight away, but one day.
Thank you again
Amy

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Zeezee

Hi Amy,
I am so sorry you and your family have been put through this horrendous ordeal by the social services. Do you have a solicitor? If not you need to get one.
I was put through a similar witch hunt when I was pregnant and the first few weeks of my daughters life. It was because of very different circumstances but the social worker (qualified 2 months previous to taking my case). Was determined she was taking my daughter from me once she was born. She lied continually, refused to listen to other professionals, withheld her assessment which contained hideous lies including that an application I made via the hospital social worker 18 years before for respite care for my older daughter when she was being discharged from hospital with a tracheotomy tube was a referral from the hospital because they had concerns that I was unfit to care for my daughter because I was using drugs. Which was ridiculous. As she withheld the assessment until the day of a child protection case conference which she did not inform anyone including me about until the day of the CPCC. Nobody had time to look into her lies and had to vote for my daughter to be placed on a child protection plan. She was taken off 11 weeks later once all the lies came out. But the social worker did everything legal and illegal to try and take my daughter.
I made sure every meeting and conversation was witnessed by another professional. You can request this even if it is a health visitor or anyone who has been involved in yours or your children's care.
You are entitled to request a different social worker.
Please don't give up you will regret it for the rest of your life, I know it feels impossible and you feel helpless right now but the truth will come out. Write everything down and you phone other agency's to get involved. The more people involved the harder it is for her to lie.
I spent hours phoning other professionals and explaining the situation and inviting them to meetings, I should have been concentrating on expressing milk and recovering from nearly dieing during a C-section and caring for my 9 week prem baby who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, but this social worker was determined to take my baby. I was more determined to keep her and because there were so many other professionals involved who all thought she had lost the plot and could see I am a great mum and many of them put professional complaints in against her. Eventually I got my baby home and got a new social worker who was great, she advised me to put a complaint in against her and discharged my case.
Unfortunately my daughter now needs a social worker to access help, funding and services but I am terrified of putting a referral in because of what happened last time. So I do know where you are coming from.
It doesn't sound like the social worker had grounds to take your children that is why she did it when you and your husband where away. There is things you can do. You really do need a solicitor and if you have one change them. I was advised by an amazing solicitor when I was having problems I will try and find her name, she was not officially involved therefore was not getting paid with my case as we didn't go to court but her bug bear is social services bullying and intimidating people so she advised me for free.
If you need anything even just a rant just message me anytime.
Stay strong your children need you to be, and a mum needs her kids, you will get them back but unfortunately it takes time.
Speak soon and take care of yourself Amy xxx

Pippa_Alumni

I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been through recently, @AmyRainbow76. Do you have a support system around you? If you ever feel as though you are struggling and need to talk to somebody, you can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.com.

AmyRainbow76

I have a social worker who couldn't care any less, and was only allocated to me when my previous social worker left private information relating to me in his car last month, and the car was subsequently broken into and the information was stolen!?
i think I need to write a novel about my life at some stage, but then again who would believe it?!
My family are not at all present in my life, but that's no great loss, as they have never been a positive influence.
I have no friends.
im waiting for an autism assessment, I'm on a waiting list for wheelchair services, I'm on the waiting list to get an advocate. So I just keep waiting, and meanwhile I'm losing all hope of ever having a normal life, or of ever seeing my children again.
i have texted the Samaritans number quite a bit in the last few weeks, but there's little they can do, and I struggle to get to the toilet let alone get to A&E, and I'm frightened that if they know how much I'm struggling it will be twisted and used against me, and I will lose all hope of ever getting my children home.

Pippa_Alumni

I'm so sorry @AmyRainbow76. I can imagine that the waiting time is particularly difficult, especially when things are out of your own control.

All I can say is keep us updated on your situation and we'll do our best to advise and support you wherever we can: at the very least, I hope you find some comfort in knowing that there are people you can talk to and who are rooting for you on here.

Jean_OT

Hi @AmyRainbow76

Sorry to hear about the difficult situation your family is facing. Here are some sources of specialist information that might be of interest:

Family Rights Group - 0808 801 0366 - https://www.frg.org.uk/

Family Lives – 0808 800 2222 - http://www.familylives.org.uk/advice/your-family/social-services-and-your-family/coping-with-the-aftermath-of-having-your-children-removed-by-social-services/

Parents Against Injustice - http://www.parentsagainstinjustice.org.uk

Best Wishes

Jean

mossycow

Hi there, could not read this thread without lending my support and sending hugs. Glad @Jean_Scope could post some good places to get support.

Don't know if it helps but I have a few friends who have been through similar and are now looking back on that experience while hugging their kids who are back with them.

You will get through this, you are a strong mum and you've already got through so much to give your boys a good life. This is a horrible, traumatic bump in the road and I truly believe you will come out the other end.

Do do do rant and vent on here, don't disparate as there is plenty of hope. A fight ahead, but plenty of hope.

feir

two things i learned about social services. they don't seem to have anyone who has a clue about disability or specialises in that, and never ask them for help.

my son couldn't talk, so his school and SS said i must be abusing him and telling him not to talk, they spent over a year giving me grief (and i've got cPTSD now, pretty sure they are the main cause of that), turned out his uvula muscles were not in the right place and needed moving. also he learned sign language, don't see why they nobody classed that as speaking, quite ignorant of them not to really (they also forgot to teach me sign language, i had to ask them to do that).

hope you're coping OP or getting the help you need. i always recommend SS only as a last resort for anything, and even then i don't like to.