Social services onto me about not having child in nursery! Advice needed

johnnyl

elantan wrote: »

Can I suggest, you know there is no need to raise concerns but the health visitor felt there was, she is doing her job, you may not like it, but part of her job is to ensure the safety of your children, to her your behaviour sends a red flag up so she quite rightly acted upon it, for all she knows you are an illegal drug user with a partner that beats you up

How many times have situations like that happened and no intervention happened only to find a child swallowed its mothers drugs ( I'm thinking of the one in the paper recently here)

Obviously this is not the case for you, and you have my sympathy, but this woman doesn't know you so you have to be more understanding of that and grin and bear it till they realise their mistake

The OP gave very clear and reasonable excuses for not wanting involvement. It is supposed to be a support service and if the OP felt that she had enough support then she would not reqyuire that SERVICE (key word)

Rather than look at the blindingly obvious (a valid reason) the so called proffesional chose instead to make an accusation, albeit an indirect one. If I were in the OP's position, I would hound these authorities until they provided me with the EVIDENCE that made her believe that the OP was doing something untoward.

In the absence of evidence, the baseline stance is that the OP had a valid reason for not wanting the service and the so called proffessional had no reason to disbelieve this.

FBaby

johnnyl wrote: »

and making indirect accusations that they can not back up.

Accusations, what accusations? Why are so many people acting paranoid and assuming that they are accused of something just because they are being investigated. The HV is probably 99% confident that there is nothing to worry about. She is accusing no one of anything. What she is doing though is raising a POTENTIAL safeguarding issue that justifies investigations.

I really don't understand this 'I'm being treated as guilty' just because some questions are asked and why people feel so defensive about it. Surely if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, so who cares if you are being investigated as anyone else would do because in another family, it might indeed raised serious concerns and potentially save the life of a child????

betsie

Hi
just wondered why you don't want your little one to go to pre-school?

I work at a small village pre-school and all of the little one love mixing with each other and having a few hours to explore and do lots of messy things they probably don't get to do indoors. I also think it gives parents a few hours to catch up on all the chores so when your child comes home you have more time to devote to them.
You do not have to send them every morning either.

I know it is a personal choice and you do not have to send them to school until the term before their 5th birthday, but I really think pre-school helps prepare them as it is a big change going from being home with mum 7 days a week to suddenly being at school for 5 full days.

chickywiggle

i again think it has nothing to do with whether your child is in nursery or not OR your support network.

i don't know your living arrangments, home circumstances etc but there must be a reason you felt you had to tell your HV you didn't need her if your child is 7 weeks old and still having regular visits.

when my youngest was born (2011) the midwife came in the first few days.
then then came a couple of weeks later due to his weight after that it was "see you at clinic".

being a working mum of 2 myself i think i took him to clinic to be weighed once in his first year. no-one said anything.

The HV did her 1 year check that they now legally have to do after the baby P incident. then it was "see you next year unless you pop to clinc"
I wouldn't have even had an HV come to my house before the 1yr check.

perhaps talk to SS - i work for them, they are human beings. if there are no concerns then they will happily not follow it up. I feer by telling SS what you think of them will only make things MUCH worse for you.

p.s. my only support network is husband and work collegues. Both sets of family's live hundreds of miles from either of us.
p.p.s. my 4yr old LOVES nursery school and his childminder. He can't wait to start 'big school'. I love it because it means that for 2 days a week my youngest child gets quality 1 to 1 time with mummy or daddy instead that he would otherwise miss out on.

Carl31

johnnyl wrote: »

The OP gave very clear and reasonable excuses for not wanting involvement. It is supposed to be a support service and if the OP felt that she had enough support then she would not reqyuire that SERVICE (key word)

Rather than look at the blindingly obvious (a valid reason) the so called proffesional chose instead to make an accusation, albeit an indirect one. If I were in the OP's position, I would hound these authorities until they provided me with the EVIDENCE that made her believe that the OP was doing something untoward.

In the absence of evidence, the baseline stance is that the OP had a valid reason for not wanting the service and the so called proffessional had no reason to disbelieve this.

I imagine to most people, the decline or refusal of a free, official service that could result in the authorities intervening would raise eyebrows

A health visitor call can take as little as 5 minutes, hardly a massive inconvenience to show the authorities all is well at home

johnnyl

Carl31 wrote: »

I imagine to most people, the decline or refusal of a free, official service that could result in the authorities intervening would raise eyebrows

A health visitor call can take as little as 5 minutes, hardly a massive inconvenience to show the authorities all is well at home

It shouldnt raise suspicion at all if they dont want that service. The only thing that should ever raise suspicion of such things are evidence of these things.

The authorities here have ignored a valid reason for not wanting it, instead choosing to raise suspicion based on NO EVIDENCE.

johnnyl

FBaby wrote: »

Accusations, what accusations? Why are so many people acting paranoid and assuming that they are accused of something just because they are being investigated. ??

It is an accusation. If you are being investigated then there should be a reason to do so. Some evidence.

lindsaygalaxy

As a parent you have a choice to send yoru child to nursery/playschool if you want to. BUT as a primary school teacher I REALLY recommend you send them somewhere as it helps to develop their social skills as well as their academic knowledge. You can more often than not tell the children who have been to somewhere before they come to school to those that haven't.

When people hear the words social services they instantly panic ( I blame the TV!). They are not looking to take children away or anything but are there for support too. Maybe your HV is worried that you don't want any support and feels thats you may need it. Is there a history of postnatel depression or anything?

FBaby

johnnyl wrote: »

It is an accusation. If you are being investigated then there should be a reason to do so. Some evidence.

You don't get it. OP is being investigated because they stating they didn't want visits from the HV and her oldest child not attending pre-school has triggered a button. That's the reason and it is a good one. It's not a personal one. It's not OP that triggered the button, it's the choice she is making. These choices are ALSO those made by child abusers, hence the investigation.

FBaby

johnnyl wrote: »

It shouldnt raise suspicion at all if they dont want that service. The only thing that should ever raise suspicion of such things are evidence of these things.

Again, you don't make sense. How are they suppose to gather evidence without investigating?