Awful social services experience
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Hi. My OH (who I am now divorcing) got a suspended sentence for viewing images. He also went in chat rooms fantasising about abusing girls. I was told by his visor contact that as there was no contact in real life that unsupervised contact with my 12 year old son would be allowed. Social services came to talk to my son today and were totally unprepared. They asked my son how much he knew about what his dad had done. I had told my son that his dad viewed inappropriate images. But the social worker told me that I had to tell my son the whole story, before unsupervised contact would even be considered. because she was probing him he then asked me lots of questions when she left. So now he knows as I was backed into a corner. I am so upset. He was devastated and I really don't think at this point he needed that level of detail. Now I am stuck with supervised contact with my horrible ex and also have a son processing the awful details of what he did. I understand SS want the kids to be vigilante about possible abuse. But they are causing so much mental damage elsewhere. All my son wants is to be able to text his dad about football gossip and even that's not allowed! I don't know if it's worth complaining? I hate the way these random strangers turn up not even knowing us and causing so much damage
I hope you're ok anxious mummy. I feel that was totally inappropriate conduct. As a SW I would expect to be more compassionate and empathetic and also come up with a plan with a parent to tell a child bad news, if it was necessary, rather than just plough on in an unplanned way. I don't think that's acceptable and I can understand why you'd want to complain
Hope you and your son are as ok as can be. Night be worth ringing the helpline to gain advice on how to further support your son's understanding of what he's been told
Hope you and your son are as ok as can be. Night be worth ringing the helpline to gain advice on how to further support your son's understanding of what he's been told
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Hi, I'm afraid I don't have any advice. We have not got to trial yet but did manage to get bail conditions changed by a judge to unsupervised contact with SS permission. This is a communication offence and the judge was more than willing to change it as they were aware of how long these cases go on for and we should, as a family be able to move forward.
SW on the other hand had no idea about us as a family, what my OH was accused of and quite frankly wasn't prepared to even consider unsupervised, and kept phoning up the police officers to check with them! They obviously said no, and told her my OH could end up on the SOR for 15 years- I'm pretty sure this isn't going to happen.
I really wish that SS were better educated, they seem to cause more harm than good sometimes. I ended up having to explain things like how he was able to get a job, and how dbs checks work. I gave up in the end it was too stressful, and I was left with shingles and her advice was to have less contact with him. I'm still bitter about it 6 months later! Can you tell...
Anyway, I will be in the same situation, at some point, and I'm dreading it already. My eldest is 11 so a similar age and he is definitely not ready, he is too young to understand. Some kids that age might be able to but for many it will be more traumatic than actually do any good. I'm sure there are apps that can monitor text messages, then maybe your son and his dad can at least text each other.
Take care
SW on the other hand had no idea about us as a family, what my OH was accused of and quite frankly wasn't prepared to even consider unsupervised, and kept phoning up the police officers to check with them! They obviously said no, and told her my OH could end up on the SOR for 15 years- I'm pretty sure this isn't going to happen.
I really wish that SS were better educated, they seem to cause more harm than good sometimes. I ended up having to explain things like how he was able to get a job, and how dbs checks work. I gave up in the end it was too stressful, and I was left with shingles and her advice was to have less contact with him. I'm still bitter about it 6 months later! Can you tell...
Anyway, I will be in the same situation, at some point, and I'm dreading it already. My eldest is 11 so a similar age and he is definitely not ready, he is too young to understand. Some kids that age might be able to but for many it will be more traumatic than actually do any good. I'm sure there are apps that can monitor text messages, then maybe your son and his dad can at least text each other.
Take care