Family and Friends Forum

We had a child in need meeting. Im glad we took an independant witness to the meeting for support. I wish i had taken my own minutes of the meeting as we went through it. We did a lot of reading and asking advice before hand. The stop it now helpline were great for advice. I asked lots of questions and had my list of questions written down.

Hi

i have a social worker coming tomorrow to speak to me and my daughter and do an ‘assessment’ she called it, is this the same thing? My husband was arrested over a week ago now, he assured me they won’t find anything but obviously we have to wait for the investigation and in that time my husband can’t be here unsupervised, we’ve spent the weekend sorting out a flat for him to rent during the process as we don’t want to put on friends or tell anybody else, I just want this nightmare over and I’m concerned about what they will speak to my daughter about as she knows very little and she’s only 13

jb

Jb72. It will be an assessment of your family and your ability to keep your daughter safe. I didnt realise at my first assessment that really it was me they were assessing (luckily that didnt matter as the kids are fine and i look after them well, but i wish i had known before the meeting that i was in the spotlight!). My kids are young so it was all play based assessment. I would ask to speak to them first without your daughter present, i did because i wanted to know what they were gonna do and make sure everything would be hidden from the kids so they dont know anything is wrong. As your daughter is a teenager i would definitly speak with them first and remind them she doesnt know much of whats going on and you dont want her to be fightened. Its an ongoing process with child services depending on what you say and the situation. Just relax, prepare and remember yoi have done nothing wrong and this is not your fault.