Suing social services

vics_1982

Just a little input for you about what they are like.
I was adopted when i was about 11 (25 now), on all occasions the social worker assigned to my case was always over an hour late for our meetings, she told us that she was busy gardening and couldn't tare herself away(i know you couldn't make it up). She was very bolshy and literally didn't want to be with me/parents at meetings and had a real bad attitude. We complained to the social services and they said that there workers were very busy and that was why she was late, they never commented on the gardening bit, It makes me incencensed(sp) that back then their gardening was more important than my welfare. Luckily my parents were/are great so itr weren't a problem, but imagine if my life wasn't great. I'd have been in trouble.

I don't think you will get anywhere.They all seem to cover thereselves.

Vics

Bossyboots

vics_1982 wrote:

on all occasions the social worker assigned to my case was always over an hour late for our meetings, she told us that she was busy gardening and couldn't tare herself away

Again, not defending social workers but playing devil's advocate, she could hardly tell an 11 year old boy she was late because she couldn't leave a distressed little girl who had been raped by her father or she had just had to rescue a baby found lying in its own wee and poo or any other of the horrors that may have delayed her making the meetings. When they do visits, they don't always know what they will find or how long something might take but much as I dislike social workers, I think it highly unlikely it was true that they had just been doing their gardening.

vics_1982

Bossyboots wrote:

Again, not defending social workers but playing devil's advocate, she could hardly tell an 11 year old boy she was late because she couldn't leave a distressed little girl who had been raped by her father or she had just had to rescue a baby found lying in its own wee and poo or any other of the horrors that may have delayed her making the meetings. When they do visits, they don't always know what they will find or how long something might take but much as I dislike social workers, I think it highly unlikely it was true that they had just been doing their gardening.

Fair point, i had never thought of it like that, i still don't like them, the best person we dealt with in my whole case was the judge who was the only one who asked me on my own with no one about what i wanted and thought.
He was lovely. Luckily for me though the system didn't let me down and i am a happy healthy women now.

Thanks
Vics

Morglin

[/QUOTE]As the incidents are so serious, I think the complaint has to be more than just a letter, but I don't know where to begin, this thread has at least given me some ideas which are much appreciated.[/QUOTE]




If you just wish to bring this to official attention,then you can contact these people, and make a formal complaint about the council involved:


http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/make_a_complaint/index.html

Lin

Barcode

Morglin wrote:

I used to work for a Child Protection Unit (not as a social worker), and much as I sympathise with you, I think your chances of ever being able to sue anyone are negligible.

Unless you can prove total negligence/malice or total incompetence, a court will probably throw it out.

Social Services will always say "they had the best interests of the children" at heart, and acted in good faith.

Courts tend to support this view, even if mistakes were made.

Any social workers/managers involved in your family have probably long gone from their jobs, and files may be incomplete.

Most successful legal cases are where a child has been abused in a care home - and that's more a compensation issue than just suing them.

Still, it may be worth going to talk to a solicitor more experienced in these things.

Good luck.

Lin

And that's just it, it's hard to conclusively prove anything when I don't have access to all the relevant information.

It just incenses me that, in our case, social services have caused a great deal of psychological upset with the result that our family is rather fragmented. No, things were not ideal beforehand, but my mother has seriously derailed after social services intervened with the last three children. They do not always know what is best, and it worries me that similar things may have happened to others. And the worst is that some will simply accept it because the authorities allegedly know what they are doing, and are therefore not to be challenged.

Broken_hearted

Social services are very good at loosing information they don't want people to see and even better at covering their own backs. They can get very nasty when pushed. I spent years fighting them to get the help we were entitled to, in the end I gave up as the stress was damaging my health.

Bossyboots

Broken_hearted wrote:

Social services are very good at loosing information they don't want people to see and even better at covering their own backs. They can get very nasty when pushed. I spent years fighting them to get the help we were entitled to, in the end I gave up as the stress was damaging my health.

Thats why I suggested one of the children obtains their solicitors' file. This will contain all the papers that were present on social services files during the course of the proceedings.

thesaint

Bossyboots wrote:

Thats why I suggested one of the children obtains their solicitors' file. This will contain all the papers that were present on social services files during the course of the proceedings.

The Solicitor's file will not contain a lot of the information that Social services hold. Social Services will forward information that the solicitor requests.

Barcode

It's not looking very positive is it?

First, social services can omit 'sensitive' information, which may in fact, be crucial to somebody, or they may conveniently omit information which portrays them in a negative light.

Secondly, it's difficult to get hold of files.

In the past, our social worker alluded to information about our biological father on file, but I have not had a response despite several requests to see it. As my mother is not forthcoming, I thought I had a right to see this information. I don't think social services are intentionally covering anything up here, I think they are just lazy and should try to do things in a more timely fashion.

The way I see it is that those responsible in our case should be named and shamed, that method seems to be very effective, I dealt with a huge error of the local council by getting the MP and press involved, and it worked, prior to that point, they ignored me.

I can't undo the untold damage social services have done to my family, but I can bring it to attention, make a complaint to the ombudsman, and try to make some aware of their underhand methods that purport to be in the best interests of others, that are anything but.

thesaint

If your mother does not want to pursue it, then you don't have the right to by default. There may be things that your mum has not told you, hence why she feels it necessary to forget about it and let it be.

You say "Our Social worker",if you weren't in care, you would not have had one would you?

You say that you have asked for information. Does your local authority have a protocol like the one I mentioned earlier? All to often people do not follow the proper way of doing things and end up frustrated and give up.

There is no shortcut when social services are concerned. I have told this to many people, a year later they are still where they were previously because they knew better.