Children are being failed! What can we do?

I hope this blog does not trigger you. But if it has please sit in a room on your own. Sit straight. Breath in deeply, through your nose and exhale with you mouth open. Continue until calm.

Photo by Charlein Gracia on Unsplash

How many of you have seen the following Channel 4 News Report, which I was made aware of yesterday.

https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-nearly-50000-babies-referred-to-social-services-every-year-due-to-domestic-abuse

Nearly 50,000 babies, aged 0-2 years, referred to social services every year due to domestic abuse. And 1,924 babies 0-2 years are removed and taken into care every year with domestic abuse cited as a factor.

The report says that these figures are the tip of the iceberg, usually due to social services ‘cataloguing’ it as something other than domestic abuse. For example - ‘Dysfunctional family’.

I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I saw it yesterday. This paragraph really got me!

“What you experience as a child, very sadly, often then impacts you for a whole lifetime and you can take that into your own relationships as you grow older.”

Sadly I know first hand that that statement is very true! Unfortunately, reading this report triggered me and I felt very tearful, low and guilty, for the rest of the day and all night. That is what domestic abuse and violence does to you, you see. I am 38 years out of it, and yet, being triggered by reading or seeing something that makes me remember, can and usually does bring me to my knees!

People reading this, that know me well, may be surprised by this. But watching a video in your head of an incident, that is often as clear as if it happened yesterday, can do things like that.

And my daughter! I am not going to go into detail, but it is true that she has been impacted by what she saw and witnessed all those years ago when she was between 0-3. She is 40 in August. God, I feel so guilty for not getting out sooner.

One such incident that this report triggered was when I took her into Social Services and sat her on the counter when they refused to support me or assign me a social worker. I took a big risk which I thought would work. I said “well, you had better look after her then because I have no money to feed her”. As I walked away, she started crying and the person behind the counter said, “I am giving you one chance to come and get your daughter otherwise we will take her, and you will never get her back”! I moved so quick that day and grabbed hold of her and ran out of the building. When we sat in the car, me sobbing, she started stroking my face and wiping my tears. What was I doing to my child?

I relied heavily on my parents in that space of time between him being imprisoned for two months for breaching the non-molestation order and him being released and stabbing me.

I got no help from anyone else. I would like to say that a woman would not need to do something as desperate as I did that day. But working co-located with children’s services, for 11 years, sadly I know it still does.

Being referred to social services can often be like Russian Roulette! There are overall, some fantastic social workers who have trained and provide a trauma based response to victims and survivors of domestic abuse and violence. I know loads of them. But my god, if someone pulls the short straw and gets one of the bad ones! their lives are not going to be made any easier! I remember one ‘bad’ social worker, I worked with over about 4 years. He would often be working with women who were experiencing or had experienced domestic abuse and the children were on a Child Protection Plan as a result. He was supposed to go and take the child to contact with his father. The arrangement was that he would pick him up after work and take him and supervise the contact. I live a long way out of London. I had just got home, and my client rang me. She said the social worker had not turned up and she didn’t know what to do. I said I would try and call him. I got no response. So I called her back and said to abandon the contact and stay at home as it was too dangerous for her to take the child to her violent ex partner.

The next day my first call was my client who told me that she had done the supervised contact herself because the social worker did not show up. She did the contact in a busy restaurant and all was ok. When I asked her why she went against me, she said she had to take her son as she was afraid of what her ex partners would do if he didn’t see his son and her son was excited and wanted to see his Dad. I was Apoplectic with anger! When I saw the social worker walk in I called him over and asked why he hadn’t gone. He very calmly said, Oh, I was out last night at a club and wanted to get ready”!. I told him she had taken the child herself and did he realise how dangerous that was?. He just said, “Well, she is ok isn’t she?, so no harm done”. Oh my god! I told my manager who agreed that I should put in a formal complaint about the incident. I told the client I was doing that and explained why I had to. His manager didn’t understand why I was making a complaint. She had looked at the system and he had attended the contact. Wow! So I said, “so not only has he endangered a child’s life and a woman’s life but he has also falsified official information on the official database”. The social work manager said “you know you need to be careful what you make allegations like this Sharon. It wouldn’t be good to make enemies here!”. Nothing happened. Oh, apart from him coming up to my desk some time later and shouting in my face, in front of an open plan office full of people! Professional ah?!

I am going to tell you about one more thing that happened whilst I was there. A little boy, not yet 4 years of age was referred to social services by his new school. He had only just started school and had not been at a nursery before. The school said he was wetting himself and soiling himself and also told his teacher that his Daddy was not nice to his Mummy. The duty social worker called me, I was with another client, and asked me if I could go to see the Mum after I had finished my current meeting, and that she as going to head there now.

As promised, I went to see Mum. The Duty Social Worker had gone. I was shocked to see the family were living in just one room! Mum shared a double bed with the child, and father slept on the floor. They had a shared kitchen and bathroom. At first, she didn’t want to tell me anything. She said there had not been any abuse or violence and arguments happened because if their housing situation and when he drank, which he did frequently. They both worked in a grocery shop, near to where they lived and worked alternate shifts. I remember thinking, dear god, this poor child can not get away from the abuse. He has no option but to watch it. He could not separate himself from his parents and go to another room because all they had was one room to do everything. The family were from Sri Lanka. Mum was the most lovely woman. By the time I left a good couple of hours later, Mum had admitted to me that her husband would throw food all over her if he didn’t like it. He was very violent to her. He would beat her regularly and she has suffered many injuries. He was also frequently sexually abuse to her and forced her to have sex, which her son also had to watch. She was so worried about what she had told me. She was on a spousal visa and he had threatened her if she told anyone about the abuse, he would send her back to Sri Lanka alone and he would keep the child here. I advised her to act as normal as she usually did and I promised I would help her.

I never break my promises! Ask some of the subscribers to this blog who know me and who I worked with many years ago.

I couldn’t work out why I had not received a call from the Duty Social Worker. This was a child protection case at least and more, I felt, an emergency care order should be applied for.

I went back to the office and was shocked when I saw the Duty Social Worker, at her desk. Calm, collected. Looking at her personal phone. She said she didn’t think there was anything wrong, and sure, the housing situation would need sorting and she would make a referral for that but the school had said that the little boy was always happy and helpful at the school and although he clearly had toileting issues, his mother had promised to help him with these. That was it. She had closed the case!

My God! Actually under my breath my language was stronger than this! I completely lost it with her. She told me, Mum had said there was no abuse and I told her that she had told me of plenty, all of which, the 4 year old had witnessed. “But he is happy at school. He has just not been toilet trained”! Well, I would say that was a concern on its own!

It is well known and well documented that when a child is wetting or wetting and soiling themselves, there is a reason for this. Yes, it could be laziness on the parents part, but put together with a disclosure of domestic abuse by the mother and the child that throws up a completely difference scenario. The fact that the child does appear to be happy in school and on his best behaviour, is because he feels safe in that environment.

In the past, when working co-located with social services, I became familiar with the traits of a child who was witnessing domestic abuse. They were always happy and well behaved. They were always early for school and stayed to help their teacher as often as they could. But there seemed to be very few social workers who knew what this could mean when that child was living in abusive household. The most scary scenarios?? Were when we got a case and the kids were usually around the 8-10 year olds and doing so well at school, yet we know they were living with high risk domestic abuse. These kids were so used to it that they thought it was normal! Kids of this age only realise it isn’t normal when they start getting invited to their friends houses and to have sleep overs. They then realise, their parent is not the same as their friends parent.

Now I am turning the focus on you, my subscribers. You don’t have to say anything, so don’t worry. But if any of you can think of a way we can keep kids safe, particularly at school. What early intervention can we deploy which will help all of you as a parent.