Ship of Fools: Essex Council? Come to Hell

Thread: Essex Council? Come to Hell Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

I'm surprised no-one's called Essex Council to Hell for this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25173794

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Well, let me give you a speculative scenario. A woman with bipolar disorder comes off medication because she is pregnant and lithium and other common mood stabilisers are tetragenic. She has a relapse of her mental illness.

She is sectioned, (and believe me, it is *hard* to get someone sectioned and would take more than a 'panic attack').

She becomes dangerously physically ill in pregnancy, perhaps she has preeclampsia - or perhaps the foetus is in distress - either way there is increasing risk to mother or unborn child.

Mother at this point is too mentally ill to have the capacity to make a decision re her medical care - especially if she has become psychotic she may not be fully aware of her condition.

So now what ? The safeguard is the court of protection, they have to take into account of what is known of her wishes and feelings and try to make a decision in her best interests. And there will be a court appointed person to argue whatever views she currently expresses. They are legally constrained to act to try to preserve *her* life. So they agree the Caesarean section.

Now she is still unwell and sectioned, the child will have to go into emergency foster care in the first instance. After that custody decisions would have to be made in the normal way.

I am nor saying it definitely happened that way, just that it would have been a hideously involved situation and we have only half the facts.

Note also, to be sectioned is a legal process involving the agreement of two doctors and an approved mental health practitioner. It is not something that can be somehow done on the sly. If you are sectioned, you are told your rights regularly and have access to an advocate and a lawyer - and you have the right of appeal. If you appeal there is a legal tribunal, at which you have legal representation and involving people independent of the hospital. If you don't appeal, after a set length of time an appeal is arranged anyway.

Meanwhile, if you are judged not to have capacity about something else, you will likewise get an advocate and access to a court of law if needed.

Then there is another whole set of legal checks and balances about taking children into care - which is also a legal process requiring court approval

All of which to say - a lot of people, with access to the majority of the facts - checked, and checked, and checked again before agreeing this.

So I don't think it is a case of, the nasty man stole the baby from her womb and ran away.

[ 02. December 2013, 20:36: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :

I should not be posting on a Hell thread. Too much going on in real life and it will raise my blood pressure and / or I won't be able to come back to comment.

There is a high threshold in the UK for children to be taken into foster care or adopted against their birth parents' wishes. The family court hearings in which such decisions are made are not open to the general public, as a means of protecting the privacy of the vulnerable children involved.

John Hemming has a long history of trying to portray UK children's social-workers as evil baby-snatchers whose goal is to break up families they take a dislike to. I can rarely find any resemblence between the picture which he tries to paint of UK children's social workers and myself and my colleagues. (He and Christopher Booker are allies in terms of their stance on UK children's social workers. By following the link from this article you can read a High Court Judge's thoughts on Mr Booker's commentaries on childcare court proceedings. They are not favourable.)

Actually Mr Hemming, Mr Booker and their likes raise considerable anger in me. They give the UK public an unceasing message that children's social workers are nasty baby snatchers who should not be co-operated with at any costs. Actually, do you know how much bloody hard work a children's social worker needs to put in when taking a child into foster care / starting Care Proceedings / advocating that a child be placed for adoption? If I get a referral about your child, I would much rather work with you to resolve any concerns about the child's care whilst the child remains with his or her parents - you. If I can talk to you about anything which is putting your child's safety or welfare at risk whilst s/he is in your care, then we've got a much better chance of sorting things out whilst the child remains in your care - but if you've been listening to Hemming, Booker et al, you'll refuse to ever talk to me and refuse to let me see your child, at which point I'll worry more because I can't meet your child and know s/he's actually doing okay, at which point I'll apply for a court order to let me actually assess your child because a referral was made about suspected child abuse / harm to your child, at which point you'll hate me even more and the idea that I'm out to snatch your baby will be re-inforced ...

I said I shouldn't post on a Hell thread (particularly about this topic) ...

Bottom line. As far as I can tell, John Hemming vehemently dislikes all UK children's social workers and tries to paint us all as nasty, stupid baby-snatchers. I work bloody hard for the welfare of children on my caseload and I only advocate taking them into foster care or placing them for adoption as a last resort (i.e. I work with a lot of families where I do not take the children into foster care or recommend a plan of adoption). I do not find Mr Hemming's depictions of UK children's social workers at all accurate or helpful.

I should probably stop ranting now as it is way past my bed-time ...

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Similar antics happen in the US, with certain politicians painting Child Protective Services as family-wrecking villains. The fact is, though, that removing a child from its natural parent(s) is a long, exhaustive, drawn-out process, particularly when the issues are complicated by a parent's disability (psychiatric or otherwise).

In the US, it's also very difficult to get a full picture of what went on, since the privacy of the child and the parent (esp. if she's under medical care) must be held in confidence.

Doublethink is likely right: there's a lot more here than meets the eye, and this politician is capitalizing on the situation for the sake of publicity and/or re-election.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

My social work days are long gone but I agree completely with DT and Zoey - the process for such actions is complex and exhaustive and cannot ever happen on a whim. I would never accuse an Honourable Member of lying but sometimes their relationship with the truth is a little on the loose side.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I've worked with Essex Social Workers professionally, mostly from secondary schools. The last time I was involved they were so overstretched that there were more likely to be problems from them not acting because there aren't the social workers to do so than from overreacting and becoming "evil social workers snatching babies". I doubt that the situation has improved much. One informal comment at a conference coffee break was "Priority is for the babies in arms as they can't run away".

When I heard the report I was astonished that there was the capacity to do anything unnecessary and wondered what the real story was because all my experience has been of a very slow process working with the family and supporting them to make improvements. And that involvement was mostly where there were babies and toddlers in the family. The older teenagers I have worked with have mostly not been supported or, if in care, were placed there as babies or young children.

I have only seen or heard about three cases where children were removed from families and I have worked with hundreds of children over a number of years, and I get to work with the complicated kids. One was the 13 year old girl who moved to live with another relative after her stepfather started offering her sexually to all his friends. The second was a neglect case and the young children were removed from a mother whose many other children were all in care under a number of different local authorities. That took years and for most of the time I worked with the children, they were in foster care near enough to regularly visit home. The third I met a few years later at an after care youth session - that one followed family breakdown, new stepfather who abused the daughters, so the children of that marriage ended up living with dad in a one bedroom flat with additional complications - and when I'd worked with him, social care were trying to support them to live with dad or an aunt. All the other cases have kept the children with their families with regular social care visits.

Posted by chive (# 208) on :

Why anyone would let the truth get in the way of a story is anyone's guess. This response from Essex council suggests that it was all done in the appropriate fashion.

No one is saying this isn't a tragedy. But hard cases happen and demonising the people involved and making up things about them isn't going to help anyone.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

The one bit of the story I worried about on first reading (and nearly posted about) was why the case was being dealt with in the UK after all this time, rather than being transferred to Italy.

The fact that the council state that the Italian courts ruled that the child should remain in the UK lays that to rest.

There is a difficulty in public scrutiny of child protection cases for obvious reasons. Lack of information breeds fear and these sorts of stories can then acquire legs. I don't know what the answer to that is though, maybe going through the loop on this sort of story is a necessary evil (hard as that is on everyone in the system doing their best) to reassure the public that even in the hardest cases things are being done properly.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

Yeah, I looked at this and thought "that's horrific". And then I thought, what's more likely?

a) that a right-leaning newspaper publishes a completely misleading story that suggests that social services are evil baby snatchers - knowing full well that the council will be unable to reveal their side due to client confidentiality or
b) overstretched, underfunded public service decides to fling a ton of money and resources at hacking a baby out of a uterus and kidnapping him/her for no apparent reason.

and I found a) about a million times more likely. I'm as susceptible as the next person to confirmation bias, of course.

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

The Judge's consideration has been released, and paints a rather different story - albeit an excruciatingly sad one.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Never let the facts get in the way of a good outrage.

Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :

You could never convince me to be a social worker. I have so much admiration and respect for people who do it well.

I have an equal depth of contempt for the quality of 'journalism' in much of our national press.

I think the judge summed it up very well and very movingly with the final statement of the judgement:

quote:
HIS HONOUR JUDGE NEWTON
If in later life P reads this judgment, as she may well do, I hope that she will appreciate that her mother in particular loved her and wished for her to return to live with her and to bring her up. It is not her fault, nor P’s that that was not possible and that a predictable home could only be secured by way of adoption. P should know that the mother very much wished to parent her and bring her up and I hope that that is some small comfort both to the mother and also to P.

There may be an argument that the judgement is wrong. That is fair. Although, personally I would be very hesitant to criticise. Fine, that is why there is a legal appeals system. What there is no grounds for is the allegation of incompetence or malice on the part of Essex Social Services. I have no direct knowledge, of course, but the evidence in the public domain is that everyone involved is working extremely hard with due diligence and professionalism for P's welfare and best interests.

Anyone who thinks it's ok to attack such people with misleading reporting or non-facts in beneath contempt as far as I'm concerned.

But for P... (and her mother): [Votive]

AFZ

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :

The people who deserve the hell call here are the journalists who are not only adding to the pain everyone involved is going through, but also, by misrepresenting the facts, discouraging any woman in need of perinatal psychiatric support from seeking help.

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

As a social worker myself, I understand that children are only taken from their parernts as a last resort, and my initial thought was that the case would harm the reputation of those who work for children's services - I am very glad I workede with a very different client group. I was surprised that the woman was not allowed to give birth naturally however.

Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on :

Another link to this story.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

dear lord the Ship is heavy with social workers and those in related careers.

and yet, we're still sitting here all dysfunctional and fucked up.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

quote:
Originally posted by St. Gwladys:
As a social worker myself, I understand that children are only taken from their parernts as a last resort, and my initial thought was that the case would harm the reputation of those who work for children's services - I am very glad I workede with a very different client group. I was surprised that the woman was not allowed to give birth naturally however.

Presumably they can't release her medical information- maybe there was some physical reason she couldn't have a natural childbirth? There are a lot of doctors in the States who won't do a vaginal delivery when the patient's had a previous c-section, for example.

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :

Meh. The reason we become social workers is because of all the fucked-up-ness and dysfunction in our own families. (Not an entirely flippant comment.)

Cross-post: replying to comet.

[ 03. December 2013, 20:06: Message edited by: Zoey ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

It seems to me that if you're not experiencing dysfunction to begin with, social work will encourage you to experience it. After all, you're surrounding yourself with it on a daily basis.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I'm sorry, but you are all MOST noble practitioners.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

This case, along with most others in the area, shows that the care authorities are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If an authority intervenes, as it did in this case, it is said to have acted arbitrarily and without proper consideration of the needs of the child. If no action is taken, and the child later suffers, the authorities are accused for their inaction.

Of course, when you turn to the decision of the judge, made after hearing the evidence, the interventions in this case and that of L, are fully justified. The hell call should have been of Mr Booker and his ilk, basing a political campaign on the sufferings of others with no attempt to obtain and examine the evidence.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I note that the NHS Trust has gone so far as to make a brief statement (scroll to the end).

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

According to the BBC News tonight, the baby was born by Caesarean section because the two half sisters were also born by section and there were fears that the mother's womb would rupture if she went into labour. From experience, when there are risks from going into labour to the mother, baby or both, the C-section tends to be performed early enough to ensure that a natural labour does not occur - at around 36 to 38 weeks gestation.

Posted by Badger Lady (# 13453) on :

The judgment giving permission for the C-section has now been published. It is clear that the judge made the order first, on the application of the hospital (not the social workers)and to protect the mother's physical and mental health.

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :

Of course, flagging up the fact that the health trust and Children's Services are two different organisations responsible for two different aspects of this case does not sit well with the 'evil social workers will even rip your baby from your womb' message, hence why it didn't happen clearly enough in the initial coverage.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I notice she is described as having a diagnosis of schizophrenia (not bipolar disorder) and that she was psychotic at the time these decisions needed to be taken.

The poor woman would have been in a truly terrible situation if she had a complex labour - stress exacerbates psychosis and the experience could well have been traumatic and terrifying.

Posted by passer (# 13329) on :

This is an interesting deconstruction of events, from a slightly different angle, focussing somewhat on Mr Hemmings. Neither Essex Council nor social workers are mentioned.

▲

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It's quite scary that so many people were willing to go with the story of 'evil social workers steal baby', with very little information.

Apparently the radio phone-ins and Twitter were ablaze with outrage and hysteria. Fortunately, there were some journalists and writers who began to do factual reportage rather than outrage.

It reminds me of that guy who was killed the other week, on suspicion of being a paedophile, which he wasn't. Why have we become so prone to instant judgment and hysteria? I don't know. Some kind of scape-goating, maybe.

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

And, as a point of information, the Family Court is open to journalists. However, despite many invitations none of them have ever bothered to visit even the largest designated family court in England. Why bother when John Hemmings can make it all up.

Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's quite scary that so many people were willing to go with the story of 'evil social workers steal baby', with very little information.

Apparently the radio phone-ins and Twitter were ablaze with outrage and hysteria. Fortunately, there were some journalists and writers who began to do factual reportage rather than outrage.

It reminds me of that guy who was killed the other week, on suspicion of being a paedophile, which he wasn't. Why have we become so prone to instant judgment and hysteria? I don't know. Some kind of scape-goating, maybe.

Was that story of the paediatrician who was killed because of the name similarity with paedophile actually true?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I suspect quetzalcoatl meant this story of a disabled man killed in Bristol because he was a suspected paedophile - recent as in dates from October 2013.

The paediatrician came home to find her house daubed with "PAEDO" - suspected to have been carried out by a gang of teenagers. There is some debunking of that story here.

and crosspost with Firenze

[ 08. December 2013, 09:49: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Francophile:
Was that story of the paediatrician who was killed because of the name similarity with paedophile actually true?

Not killed. But her practice was attacked by a mob - 'cos it said 'paedo' on the door innit?

It was, I think, during the infamous NoW campaign, which lead to several other innocent people being terrorized.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Not attacked by a mob, I think. That is part of another legend.

But the story of Mr Ebrahimi being killed is true, and his killer has gone to jail.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

For completeness the story from a reputable newspaper. If you google it you can find others.

Jengie

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Or from today's reported cases:

http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/action/PJUDG?jgmtid=168737

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Or from today's reported cases:

http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/action/PJUDG?jgmtid=168737

Now that is worth a Hell call. [Mad]

No prospect of parole until he's in his 70s. Sounds like a damn good decision to me.

EDIT: Dammit, I'm starting a Hell call. There's been so much of this I've read in the last week.

[ 09. December 2013, 07:46: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

posted by Francophile

quote:
Was that story of the paediatrician who was killed because of the name similarity with paedophile actually true?

No.

A paediatrician who worked at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport left her home after local "vigilantes" painted the word "pedo" and various obscenities on the brickwork and doors. She lived in the village of St Brides with her brother, who also left because they felt (and the police agreed with them) unsafe and threatened.

The web, of course, gets is all confused with another vigilante attack near Portsmouth on the homes of families accused of harbouring a paedophile - in fact good neighbours looking out for a vulnerable special-needs adult.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Essex Council case:

The original case for in the Court of Protection which ruled that the medical case for a caesarian was made, having already determined that the woman didn't have mental capacity.

She had previously been sectioned (or the equivalent) in Italy and her older two children (born in the USA) live with their grandmother.

The Italian relatives do not feel they can look after any more children - why should they.

As for why the UK courts have decided that the UK is the place for the baby to be fostered/adopted: well, since the baby has a Senegalese father - who hasn't shown any interest in the child - it could be that someone has decided that sending the child to Italy to be put up for adoption in a country noted for its widespread racism might not be in the child's best interests.

The sad fact is that simply being able to reproduce doesn't make someone good mother material. In this case, the long history of the woman taking herself off the medication that regulates her bipolar disorder and the condition of her first two children when she was their only carer mean the prospect of this child being well cared for by the mother aren't good.

And she was in the UK because, having taken herself off her medication in Italy, she flew to the UK to go on a course for prospective air cabin crew. At home in Italy, when able to, she works as a carer.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Orfeo, I might add that R A Hulme J has a lot of acting for legally aided persons in criminal cases.

I agree with you about the sentence. It is very heavy but is an appropriate one for a senseless and extremely violent assault. What could the victim have been thinking while this was going on?

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