I registered on here in 2020 when my husband was arrested and this is my first post. I'm sorry if this post is repetitive but just need to vent and some advice.
Quick run down - Husband arrested Nov 2020. Released under investigation, no conditions. SS came into our lives and we were put on CIN plan. Husband moved out but I dug my heels in and pushed for him to stay in the family home. By Feb 2021 SS closed their case and were out of our lives. We carried on with a cloud over our head for the next couple of years, discussing possible scenarios and planning what to do if husband was sent to prison, if it go out in the media, school etc.
September 2022 police finished their investigation and he was invited in for questioning, signed a statement, pleaded guilty. Online offence only of images.
April 2023 - he is convicted, SS back in our lives, no unsupervised contact with our child, and we end up on a child protection plan. He is not kicked out of the house
May 2023 - Sentenced. No prison, still has job, not in the media, we feel very lucky. We have had two conferences so far. Next conference is due Jan next year and we are hoping they will de-escalate to child in need.
In the mean time, he is doing his community service and the work he is supposed to be doing with his PO and offender manager and it is looking positive. However, meetings with SS seem to be the same, they are giving us hurdles to jump through, but nothing seems to be happening so every meeting there is no update and it's become a bit stagnant. They have offered to fund a risk assessment for both myself and my husband as i am not "acting protectively" but 3 months down the line and they are still waiting for the funding. They also keep pushing for a family meeting, we have told them that certain family members know what my husband has done, but they won't take my word for it an keep pushing for a meeting to confirm they know, even though quite franly, it is none of their business wha tthe family know. Every meeting they also seem persistent in going over what my husband was convicted of, almost like they are beating him with a stick all the time. I just want to get on with our lives and see an end to this, but I worry they are dragging this out for as long as they can because this is the only power that they have because they were unsuccessful in kicking my husband out of the house in the first place.
Husband has been voluntarily paying for a therapist from the foundation since his arrest up until now.
Husbands PO and OM seem to be scaling back their involvement already and its positive progress and they seem to show a road to redemption whereas SS seem to be going round in circles and keep repeating everything.
Between my mum and I we follow the plan and make sure my husband is supervised at all times. I do school runs now and work from home when my mum is not around. I even told a select few from my work so they support my WFH and going to meetings with no judgment and no questions.
I feel like compared to others we are lucky, we are over the worst and just need to keep our heads up, but the end is not in sight any time soon and its tiring.
Quick run down - Husband arrested Nov 2020. Released under investigation, no conditions. SS came into our lives and we were put on CIN plan. Husband moved out but I dug my heels in and pushed for him to stay in the family home. By Feb 2021 SS closed their case and were out of our lives. We carried on with a cloud over our head for the next couple of years, discussing possible scenarios and planning what to do if husband was sent to prison, if it go out in the media, school etc.
September 2022 police finished their investigation and he was invited in for questioning, signed a statement, pleaded guilty. Online offence only of images.
April 2023 - he is convicted, SS back in our lives, no unsupervised contact with our child, and we end up on a child protection plan. He is not kicked out of the house
May 2023 - Sentenced. No prison, still has job, not in the media, we feel very lucky. We have had two conferences so far. Next conference is due Jan next year and we are hoping they will de-escalate to child in need.
In the mean time, he is doing his community service and the work he is supposed to be doing with his PO and offender manager and it is looking positive. However, meetings with SS seem to be the same, they are giving us hurdles to jump through, but nothing seems to be happening so every meeting there is no update and it's become a bit stagnant. They have offered to fund a risk assessment for both myself and my husband as i am not "acting protectively" but 3 months down the line and they are still waiting for the funding. They also keep pushing for a family meeting, we have told them that certain family members know what my husband has done, but they won't take my word for it an keep pushing for a meeting to confirm they know, even though quite franly, it is none of their business wha tthe family know. Every meeting they also seem persistent in going over what my husband was convicted of, almost like they are beating him with a stick all the time. I just want to get on with our lives and see an end to this, but I worry they are dragging this out for as long as they can because this is the only power that they have because they were unsuccessful in kicking my husband out of the house in the first place.
Husband has been voluntarily paying for a therapist from the foundation since his arrest up until now.
Husbands PO and OM seem to be scaling back their involvement already and its positive progress and they seem to show a road to redemption whereas SS seem to be going round in circles and keep repeating everything.
Between my mum and I we follow the plan and make sure my husband is supervised at all times. I do school runs now and work from home when my mum is not around. I even told a select few from my work so they support my WFH and going to meetings with no judgment and no questions.
I feel like compared to others we are lucky, we are over the worst and just need to keep our heads up, but the end is not in sight any time soon and its tiring.
There is end in sight, I promise, but I'm sorry you're having that experience.
The family meeting is probably a family group conference. If you decided to go ahead you would be in charge of who attends, but you absolutely have a right to decline. The social worker would not be present for that meeting (they'd attend at the beginning and the end but it's chaired by someone independent)
They won't get legal threshold unless your person breaches or another risk is found, so will need to de-escalate from CPP eventually. You do need to push for the assessment to be done before the next conference as the chair might not want to de escalate without that assessment being done.
What do the other involved professionals think?
After it moves down to CIN I would keep that going for a couple of months to show willing and then decline further services
The family meeting is probably a family group conference. If you decided to go ahead you would be in charge of who attends, but you absolutely have a right to decline. The social worker would not be present for that meeting (they'd attend at the beginning and the end but it's chaired by someone independent)
They won't get legal threshold unless your person breaches or another risk is found, so will need to de-escalate from CPP eventually. You do need to push for the assessment to be done before the next conference as the chair might not want to de escalate without that assessment being done.
What do the other involved professionals think?
After it moves down to CIN I would keep that going for a couple of months to show willing and then decline further services
So his therapist (who used to be a SW) has said that they seem to be going over the top and doing it because it is literally the only power that they have. He told us to just keep our heads above water, keep doing what we're doing and they will have to de-escalate and then leave our lives eventually.
His PO is very much of the opinion that this stress in our lives is having a negative impact and its not helping so they want things to start progressing.
Everytime we bring up the fact this is stressful and negative in our lives they just turn around and say well its your husbands fault. Not helpful!
I may decline the family meeting as I don't believe it's necessary at all. And as for the risk assessment, I'm worried that they won't de-escalate in Jan if we don't get it done so I will keep pushing.
I have also made it clear I will continue to attend the review meetings via teams at work as I can go to a private room because taking extra time out of my day to attend face to face isn't ideal.
Thank you so much for your message. You have helped me a lot with my anxiety.
His PO is very much of the opinion that this stress in our lives is having a negative impact and its not helping so they want things to start progressing.
Everytime we bring up the fact this is stressful and negative in our lives they just turn around and say well its your husbands fault. Not helpful!
I may decline the family meeting as I don't believe it's necessary at all. And as for the risk assessment, I'm worried that they won't de-escalate in Jan if we don't get it done so I will keep pushing.
I have also made it clear I will continue to attend the review meetings via teams at work as I can go to a private room because taking extra time out of my day to attend face to face isn't ideal.
Thank you so much for your message. You have helped me a lot with my anxiety.
Hi Ceci
It feels very over the top to me as well.
Depending on how much you want to rock the boat you can complain, you can ask to speak to management, you can ask for them to assess the risk of their involvement on your children and you Vs the risk to your children if your person. You can ask to have access to your entire file to try to make sense of the rationale. You could ask for an advocate for your children. You could (pay for) a legal rep to attend (usually not done until plo but nothing to stop you bringing them to a CP or CiN meeting)
I have worked in a team where a family successfully argued that our involvement was a contributing function and we agreed to back off. I've also seen it backfire and cause higher levels of concern. Your therapists approach is probably the most pragmatic, distressing though it is
I think attending virtually is absolutely fine and is the norm in some local authorities and they need to get a grip on that tbh. They should appreciate your work is essential for income, routine, structure, normality, your relationships and forms part of your support network. Disrupting that can only cause harm and the fact you're attending at all is brilliant and shows good engagement and that you care about your children and family
It feels very over the top to me as well.
Depending on how much you want to rock the boat you can complain, you can ask to speak to management, you can ask for them to assess the risk of their involvement on your children and you Vs the risk to your children if your person. You can ask to have access to your entire file to try to make sense of the rationale. You could ask for an advocate for your children. You could (pay for) a legal rep to attend (usually not done until plo but nothing to stop you bringing them to a CP or CiN meeting)
I have worked in a team where a family successfully argued that our involvement was a contributing function and we agreed to back off. I've also seen it backfire and cause higher levels of concern. Your therapists approach is probably the most pragmatic, distressing though it is
I think attending virtually is absolutely fine and is the norm in some local authorities and they need to get a grip on that tbh. They should appreciate your work is essential for income, routine, structure, normality, your relationships and forms part of your support network. Disrupting that can only cause harm and the fact you're attending at all is brilliant and shows good engagement and that you care about your children and family
Thank you for your advice, I really appreciate it.
After today's review meeting, it seems very clear that the manager of our SW is intent on dragging out the process for as long as he can. 4 months after they said they were going to fund the risk assessment and got the ball rolling and they are still "waiting for funding to be agreed"
Also, the manager keeps bringing up at every meeting how we are going to deal with our daughter having friends round/sleepovers in the future. I am not interested in hosting our daughters friends in our home and never have been and right now we can't anyway because of our dog. I know that may seem mean but it's just something i have never been interest in doing. Every time I say this, it isn't good enough. We've also had an idea that because my husband works nights we can arrange sleepovers when he is working. That too seems to be not good enough.
He also asked how our daughter deals with SW coming to visit her. I explain that she thinks she is a friend of mine and seems happy. She is a very happy girl and gets excited when she has had a visit from SW. The manager isn't happy about me referring to SW as a friend of mine. He would like our daughter to know who they are and why they are involved in our lives. She is 5 years old! I do not want to tell her anything and what right do SS have to tell her!?
Any more thoughts or advice gratefully received.
Also where do I go to research into getting these risk assessments sorted and what can I expect?
Xx
After today's review meeting, it seems very clear that the manager of our SW is intent on dragging out the process for as long as he can. 4 months after they said they were going to fund the risk assessment and got the ball rolling and they are still "waiting for funding to be agreed"
Also, the manager keeps bringing up at every meeting how we are going to deal with our daughter having friends round/sleepovers in the future. I am not interested in hosting our daughters friends in our home and never have been and right now we can't anyway because of our dog. I know that may seem mean but it's just something i have never been interest in doing. Every time I say this, it isn't good enough. We've also had an idea that because my husband works nights we can arrange sleepovers when he is working. That too seems to be not good enough.
He also asked how our daughter deals with SW coming to visit her. I explain that she thinks she is a friend of mine and seems happy. She is a very happy girl and gets excited when she has had a visit from SW. The manager isn't happy about me referring to SW as a friend of mine. He would like our daughter to know who they are and why they are involved in our lives. She is 5 years old! I do not want to tell her anything and what right do SS have to tell her!?
Any more thoughts or advice gratefully received.
Also where do I go to research into getting these risk assessments sorted and what can I expect?
Xx
My children are of a similar age, I told them it's a lady who check that parents are looking after their children ok and making sure they are happy and safe. I had no idea what kind of questions she may ask them so I wanted to give them the heads up. My children are not aware of what their dad has done but I'm sure at some point I may need to touch on it. My children know about internet safety 'age approppriate' and they have trusted adults and know to make an adult aware of there is a problem online. I think I may then build on that when appropriate.
I teach my children no secrets only good surprises nothing should make you feel sad/bad.
Soo my question would be to a SW if you tell them this information you wouldn't want them sharing that with friends and teachers etc for her own welfare and wellbeing and family safety. So how do you share that ensure they keep it to themselves and in the process not make them feel sad thier father has done something really wrong? I don't think it's in the child's best interests to share this information what happened to children being children?
in relation to the sleep over saga, I also had this with a social worker it's written in our assessment becase she might not have friends if can't have sleepovers? that's what she thinks I'm worrying about sleepovers?!! I laughted at her! Really?! I was never into kids having sleepovers anyway and defo not now! My child will not be going to anyone's house for a sleep over? Nor will anyone come here it's really just not worth it! We know soo much more about this journey and with 80,0000 people on the SOR alone let alone other parents parenting ie excess alcohol or DV I might sound controlling but I'm not letting my child be exposed to a situation I'm not in control of until they are in a position to contact me independantly and life savy.
I teach my children no secrets only good surprises nothing should make you feel sad/bad.
Soo my question would be to a SW if you tell them this information you wouldn't want them sharing that with friends and teachers etc for her own welfare and wellbeing and family safety. So how do you share that ensure they keep it to themselves and in the process not make them feel sad thier father has done something really wrong? I don't think it's in the child's best interests to share this information what happened to children being children?
in relation to the sleep over saga, I also had this with a social worker it's written in our assessment becase she might not have friends if can't have sleepovers? that's what she thinks I'm worrying about sleepovers?!! I laughted at her! Really?! I was never into kids having sleepovers anyway and defo not now! My child will not be going to anyone's house for a sleep over? Nor will anyone come here it's really just not worth it! We know soo much more about this journey and with 80,0000 people on the SOR alone let alone other parents parenting ie excess alcohol or DV I might sound controlling but I'm not letting my child be exposed to a situation I'm not in control of until they are in a position to contact me independantly and life savy.
Post deleted by user
I have tried to have an independent assessment during a CPC and they said we had to look into it by ourself it is not something they offer and they didn't see anything wrong in their assessment (this was the independent chair talking, not very independent imo). Except that we moved from an area where SS had closed the case after their assessment, Offence happened before we even started dating, no restrictions on shpo, we were allowed for three years to live like a normal family and all of a sudden just because we changed post code they re opened everything and put us on the highest risk. This broke up the family and I moved away with our son as I have been targeted by ss and lost everything.
Today I discovered that children services should have paid for the assessment. In my opinion it should be mandatory above all when there is such a discrepancy of judgment and no further offence had been committed. We didn't have the money for it. We did the only possible thing to protect our son from a biased and prejudiced system. Some of the things they have done to me have been described by my therapist as straight forward "abuse". But when you complain they say you don't have insight and you are in denial and they need to protect your child from you.
Today I discovered that children services should have paid for the assessment. In my opinion it should be mandatory above all when there is such a discrepancy of judgment and no further offence had been committed. We didn't have the money for it. We did the only possible thing to protect our son from a biased and prejudiced system. Some of the things they have done to me have been described by my therapist as straight forward "abuse". But when you complain they say you don't have insight and you are in denial and they need to protect your child from you.
Bug146
This makes me feel so mad, it's like living in a dystopia society and they're messing with our heads. It seems so wrong how social work treat people and verging on manipulation.
Sometimes I read this stuff and start questioning myself and how I think. Maybe I've got it all wrong? Ive know my OH for over 30 years, I just know he's not interested in children, and I know he's not dangerous. Or I thought I did.
I start wondering whether it's actually me that's crazy, or is it social work, the police and the justice system. Somebody has to be wrong. I don't think it's me, but I wonder sometimes. How can it be right that partners have to pretend that they believe their partner is a risk, when their personal knowledge of them and common sense tells them that he is not, in order for their partner to be allowed supervised access to their own children?
This makes me feel so mad, it's like living in a dystopia society and they're messing with our heads. It seems so wrong how social work treat people and verging on manipulation.
Sometimes I read this stuff and start questioning myself and how I think. Maybe I've got it all wrong? Ive know my OH for over 30 years, I just know he's not interested in children, and I know he's not dangerous. Or I thought I did.
I start wondering whether it's actually me that's crazy, or is it social work, the police and the justice system. Somebody has to be wrong. I don't think it's me, but I wonder sometimes. How can it be right that partners have to pretend that they believe their partner is a risk, when their personal knowledge of them and common sense tells them that he is not, in order for their partner to be allowed supervised access to their own children?