Who can I contact about social workers rights?

In terms of your question regarding who you or your sister can contact, it sounds like you want somebody like the Family Rights Group charity. See particularly their webpage for parents: http://www.frg.org.uk/need-help-or-advice/parents/information

In terms of the reasons why a referral to a social-work team may have been recommended - our backgrounds, particularly our childhoods and how we were parented, affect who we are and how we ourselves parent. This does *not* mean that any aspect of a person's behaviour or parenting automatically comes out of their childhood. There are people who receive very poor parenting themselves, who can reflect on this and go on to give excellent parenting to their own children. However, having had poor parenting or experienced abuse or neglect during childhood can have significant impacts on a person's mental health and parenting capacity. If I were the social worker for your sister's baby, I would be interested in knowing - how long you and your sister were in foster care and what that experience was like for you, whether your sister still has a relationship with your mother and whether your mother might pose any risk to the baby, whether your sister is together with the baby's dad, whether baby's dad is supportive and whether his extended family are around for support and so on. (I'm not suggesting you answer these questions on this forum.)

Children's social workers are massively overworked at present. They will want to be coming out and doing an Initial Assessment which says, for example, "X spent time in foster care as a child because of concerns A, B, C about her mother. X states that she didn't like being in foster care and found this very difficult. X has had episodes of depression, but has worked well with her GP to manage these. X shows good insight into children's needs. X has support from her sister, the baby's dad and the dad's extended family. There is no evidence that baby will be at risk of harm. Therefore, no ongoing social-work involvement is needed. Baby's health visitor will be asked to visit more regularly than normal during the first six months of baby's life in case X develops post-natal depression and needs extra support."

Refusing to talk to a social worker at all will actually look worse for your sister. Regardless of the other details in a social-work assessment, it always looks better when the assessment says:
"X was always on time for pre-arranged appointments, co-operated fully with the assessment and was polite towards the social worker" than when it says "X refused to talk to the social worker and did not appear to be able to listen or take on board explanations about why a social-work assessment had been requested". Anybody whose children are subject to social-work involvement is always entitled to take legal advice about their rights and the social-work department's actions (and even though legal aid has been slashed horrendously in the past couple of years - if there is any suggestion of a child being moved from their parent's care without the parent's permission, the parent will still get legal aid). Plus, as above, you or your sister may find it helpful to contact the Family Rights Group.

However, my advice (as a children's social worker) would be to agree to meet with a social worker and talk to them honestly. If your sister doesn't think she needs any help or support with the baby, and there is no evidence the baby is at risk of significant harm, then the social workers will go away again pretty quickly. (If your sister and the social workers were ever to disagree about whether the baby was at risk of significant harm, that would be a time when getting legal advice would be very important for your sister.)

we had this before our LO was born as hubby was abused as a child we got on with had reports done before the baby came about how prepared we were and stuff and then we had 2 meetings with them after baby was here 1 at our house 1 at his 1 year check with health visitor and never heard from them again

make their job nice and easy and they wont bother your sister for long

squirrelchops wrote: »

It may also be due to querying what contact your mother ie baby's grandmother may be having with the baby and could similar concerns re: fabricated or induced illness be a factor now for this child.

I was about to say this.

I was referred to a social worker when my first child was born due to my childhood/my parents. Their primary concern was ensuring that my father was going to be nowhere near my child (my mother was already dead by then).

I had 3 meetings - one when I was pregnant, one at home when she was small and then one when she was about a year old. I didn't find them negative in any way, they were very much 'we're just making sure there is nothing we can do for you' in mindset.