Lambeth social services. Survivors of the care system
Heres is a situation on how Lambeth social services have dealt with a survivor of historic abuse in the care system
Update 23rd February 2007
The mother has now returned home, social services aparently blamed the mental health team and others blamed the GP.
A female survivor whom has scraped by to survive the abuse she suffered in care requested her files. She got her files along with other survivorsand became upset. Because she had no support she went to her GP and requested support. During the consultation with her GP she said she felt depressed and suicidal due to her files and wanted support to address the contents of her files, her feelingsand about her time in care when she was younger. She also said she wanted support to sort it out once and for all. The health visitor andpsychiatrist became involved. She saw the psychiatrist and a plan of action was reached. One part of the plan was to get childcare for her children so she could see the psychiatrist a couple of times a week. To do that she rang social services to explain the situation. One morning the psychiatrist, someone else from that field, and two from the social work team visited her home. The woman was happy to sort out a plan of action. Social services went off and had other plans. They came back that afternoon and told the mother that if she did not co operate withwhich included psychiatric care and hand her children over voluntarily to the social services they would take her children from her against her wishes and get a court order out. The social services aparently took out of context the mothers feelings and someone somehow came to the conclusion that her children were at risk if left alone her with her despite numerous liasons with social services telling them she wouldnt harm her children which has been ignored. She was forced to flee from her home with her children as a result and fear of having her children taken away.
Social services have told her that if she goes home with her children they will be removed from her.She has been forced to stay with her family and not been able to go home where the childrens things and baby things are. She cant get accomodation where her family live because she still has an existing flat. She cant give up the flat because she will effectively be making herself homeless which will exempt her from being rehoused but she is not allowed to live inher homewith her children alone.
I contacted the social services out of concern and my calls ignored and not returned despite the mothers consent.
I eventually got through to the emergency team of Lambeth and spoke to a social worker tonight as the situation is unacceptable. She seemed fine at first and when she asked me who I was and I told her and that I too had been in care her attitude changed. I tried to explain that doing my book prompted the mother wanting her files so others will naturally want to see their files. She talked through me constantly and refused to allow me to speak as she was like a robot that was programmed to be rude and talk constantly through me. She even laughed at me and at the situation with the mother. I was not amused and pointed out I will be highlighting this situation on my site. I questioned why she found it funny and she then said she didnt laugh and yet my visitor was in shock because I had the phone on loud speaker so the conversation was heard and notes were being taken. I got so frustrated and thats not me having any issues, thats a natural response to someone being blatantly rude to me.
This social worker is not someone I would allow near my children given her attitude and appauling behaviour and her agressive tone of voice towards me. I found it hard when i was constantly interupted and spoken over. I sometimes wonder if these social workers are trained in inciting reactions as apposed to actually doing their job or does that come as part of the job description? Perhaps some social workers seem to feel like they are God and can treat people how they like and on a power trip which does undermine the good social workers out there whom are trying to work towards improving situations like this as apposed to making them worst. If a mother is already down and loves her children, taking them away from her and taking control of her life again like she is an object and not a person is highly likley to add too and cause even more problems to a mother already distressed for abuse by social services as a child and social services now she is an adult are still trying to take control of her life and ruin it. Is that help and support? It certainly wasn’t help and what ever happened to keeping families together?
I pointed out again that I have my book coming out and why the mother had got her files etc and this social worker really didn’t believe me. She asked me for my websiteamused as she clearly didnt believe me about my book or my website.
So Yvonne of Lambeth social services emergency team, I welcome you to my website and do hope you buy and READ my book when it is out and hope you learn something from it because clearly your training is not up to standard and your people skills are dreadful.If you feel that you have a problem with survivors from the care system then your clearly in the wrong job because being a social worker is about helping people and NOT about judging them. If you feel you can so easily judge people then again your in the wrong job because peoples situation should be merited on thier situation and not based on the shoddy branding of survivors that social services have inflicted on us when we were children and also now we are adults.
Just because we were in care doesnt mean we deserve no respect as adults and to be talked too like dirt on your shoes because after all…. It WAS social services that abused me and many others and notus abusing people so who is more of a risk to children? survivors or social services? I go with social services and thats my personal opinion because children have died from social services mistakes, children have ended up abused because of social services mistakes and children have suffered because of social services mistakes and we are not talking the odd one, we are talking THOUSANDS upon thousands and nothing has changed from the 70’s and 80’s and we are now in the year 2007. We only have to see documentries like Beckys story to see how social services work and that was in 2006.
How many abusers are still in the system? Too many. Why does the social services when someone is accused of abuse allow that person accused move to another unsuspecting social services unoticed? Bring on the use of ID cards and root out those abusers so they can’t hop from one area to another. ID cards should be issued to social services before most other organisations as they are in need of them the most.
Depression affects every walk of life and social workers, teachers, doctors, surgeons, supermarket workers, surivors of the care system, survivors of abuse, police etc Everyone gets depressed or low at some point in their life. If social services were to take away every child of every mother that gets depressed or feels low then imagine how many children would be in care.
When a mother asks for help she wants to improve her life. These children are not sexually abused, beaten or deprived of love in this situation. They are loved, well looked after, cared for, fed, clothed well and happy. For a social services to take away the children, make the mother feel inadequate and useless, break up the family unit, drive them from thier home andupset the children bywanting to takethem away from their mother whom they love is not apropriate and is not help or support. This negative impact would in fact make the mother feel lower, has made them all homeless and added much more problems to the original situation. Not to mention adding yet more children to the care system and anotherfamily damaged.Is this what social services calls support and help? I think not. Its totaly inapropriate.
Yes I will be monitoring and posting the situation of the mother whos permission I have to post it on here.
Not every social worker is bad and those whom do a good job need to speak up about those whom dont because the bad ones in the system reflect on the good ones. Whistle blowers should come forward and speak out about what they see. They should speak out about senior workers who mess things up too.
Social Services needs a huge shake up
I would like survivors of abuse in the care system to email me your experiences with the social services.
Please email to sservices@no2abuse.com
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On 17th Dec 2010 at 08:22 PM mary said...
i think your so real.im fighting the system right know.trying to get my kids bak right know.from what they failed my life as.the blood of jesus i am a suvivor and so r my kids.....no matter what.
On 5th Dec 2011 at 11:39 PM Sussie said...
I have to say, I am so glad I read this. It is so true. I have a granddaughter and they took her away. I was previously in care. My granddaughter would so be better off with me. We all loved her too pieces, she was happy and now I am fighting to get her back. The social workers who done this are Sally Moran and Jocelyn Cruwagon from Lambeth social services. They came with 3 van loads of police. I am the only adult who lives in my property. I never hurt my three year old granddaughter but since she has been in the care of Lambeth social services I have seen bruises and scratches on her face and body to many times too count. Alway's a feeble excuse if any of how they came too be there.
On 7th Feb 2012 at 09:36 PM Livinghell said...
I totally agree with what has been said here about Lambeth Social Services. They are out of control. They have taken my two young daughters from our care. My baby daughter has never been home since been born last year. They took us to court with hardly any notice, bullied us into agreeing what they wanted and as a result they now want to adopt our children. We have done nothing wrong. Our only crime in Lambeth Social Workers eyes is not to agree with them. They convinced my partner to under a Psychiatric assessment and say beacuse she may have a personality disorder she cannot look after our children. Anyone reading this beware of the Social Services fascists at St Thomas' Hospital called Geraldine Joyce, Rachel Green and their manager Nana Amoo-Gottfried