My child has been reported to social services

Heart_Shaped_Diamond

Are these the same social services that allowed a child such a Baby P to be beaten to death by his mother and partner? Yet your child has a minor fall and there are people calling them in alarm. I just don't get it. The whole thing is backwards. If she was seriously coming in with lumps and bumps over her then there might be reason to ring the alarm bells. In my opinion what you have said is justifiable and you have a normal little girl and a normal family life. What is the world coming to?

roadiegirl

As a 20 year old and still an extremely clumsy lady, I felt compelled to reply to this. Obviously, I'm unsure of anything that happened before my 5th(ish) birthday, but I remember very clearly falling over in my back garden at home onto the paving slabs, cracking my head open and having to go to hospital for stitches. I remember then being took in a room with a lady asking me if 'Mummy or Daddy did this', and I remember saying no. Roll on a year when my little brother threw a plate at my eye, cutting open underneath and it bleeding pretty badly. My Mum took me to hospital and explained what happened, then the next thing I remember is being kept away from my Mum with various adults asking if my Mum had done it. After crying for my Mum and wanting to go home for my tea, they let me go eventually, but my Mum said very recently that SS and the HV for my younger brother came round very frequently to check up on me...until they saw my school records of cut knees/head split open/bruises/teeth knocked out and just seeing that I was a very clumsy child. Unfortunately, I've never grown out of it! Please try not to worry OP, I think it might just be a formality! x

jess1974

My 8 year old daughter fell of a scooter 2 years ago and fractured her arm, i was terrified we would be questioned, i sent my hubby to the hospital with her, and he let her answer all the doctors questions, she is an articulate little girl and told them exactly what happened, but it was still a scary time.....

bestpud

jess1974 wrote: »

My 8 year old daughter fell of a scooter 2 years ago and fractured her arm, i was terrified we would be questioned, i sent my hubby to the hospital with her, and he let her answer all the doctors questions, she is an articulate little girl and told them exactly what happened, but it was still a scary time.....

That means the balance has tipped IMO.

When parents are afraid to seek medical advice after an accidentsl injury, for fear of being accused of child abuse, there is some problem with the system!

You took your child but I wonder how many parents are more reluctant to seek advice about minor injuries now...

Some of the most vulnerable families wil be the most frightened and that cannot be good for the children involved.

nottslass_2

Every organisation that deals with children has to have a safeguarding policy and there is a statutary duty to report any concerns in line the policy.

After the death the death of Victoria Climbie in 2000,Lord Laming was instructed to undertake an enquiry into the circumstances leading up to Climbie's death and make recommendations on how the system should change,as a result of this report the government published a green paper entitled "Every child matters" and consequently passed theChildren act 2004. The changes it put in place included scrapping child protection registers in favour of child protection plans and creating an integrated computer system to ensure information was more routinely and robustly collected.


Just because concerns for a child has been reported it doesn't mean there's going to be someone banging on your door accusing you of abuse. I work for the NHS and for example, one of our policy's is to follow up children who repeatedly fail to attend appointments - there could be many reasons for this, including,lack of funds for fares etc,caring responsibilities for an elderly relative,mum could be suffering from mental illness etc or indeed it could even be because the child has been abused,but if safeguarding procedures are followed hep can be given to protect the childs well being regardless of the reason.

flutterby_lil

Not read all replies - I used to work at a sure start and for one bruise we would not report to social services. Wow, seems a bit extreme to me.

Social services will come round and investigate, when they find nothing they will close the case.

Good luck, it can be such a worrying time - toddlers are toddlers and inevitably will bruise.

I really feel for you x

Bufger

Our 1 year old regularly comes back from the childminders with some kind of bump or small scratch. She looks after a 2 year old and a few 4-10 year olds all within the limit shes allowed. Its just part of growing up! even if the 2 year old scratched him it wouldnt bother me as long as the situation is handled. Without any prior context i dont think its right for someone to contact social services, they should at least ask the child how they got the bruise! if the child looked scared, out of character or said 'dad whacked me' then fair enough.

pauletruth

good grief with the number of visits ive made to the a & e with my 6 im surprised ive never been bothered. getting the ss onto you for forgetting a birthdate they must be laughing. i can never remember the birth years always having to ask the kids, once the middle daughter dislocated her elbow by dropping and twisting whilst having her hand held luckly it was in the middle of a church service so we had over a hundred witnesses. but the doctors never batted an eyelid.

BugglyB

Heart_Shaped_Diamond wrote: »

Are these the same social services that allowed a child such a Baby P to be beaten to death by his mother and partner? Yet your child has a minor fall and there are people calling them in alarm. I just don't get it. The whole thing is backwards. If she was seriously coming in with lumps and bumps over her then there might be reason to ring the alarm bells. In my opinion what you have said is justifiable and you have a normal little girl and a normal family life. What is the world coming to?

In all likelihood its probably not the same social services as in the Baby P case. Although, I dont know where OP lives.

sarahevie

I've decided to take DD2 to the doctors tomorrow, as they know us very well, as I had a really tough pregnancy with her due to her congenital lung and heart problems and she has very frequent inspections. I would like them to examine her to prove she doesn't have any other bumps, injuries and to put my mind at ease as I feel very tearful about the whole thing.

I agree that if I'd known this would happen, I wouldn't have taken her, and I know of parents who don't take children ANYWHERE with bruises for fear of accusation, but as it was a minor incident and there wasn't anything to hide, I took her and didn't think twice about it.