Children's Services complaint

[Razbert]

Does anyone have any experiences making a complaint to the Local Authority when a decision by Children's Services forces the matter into court rather than being solved by discussion or other forms of intervention such as a Family Group Conference?

Examples are where Children's Services give the mother advice to leave the father based on her false allegations or to seek a non-molestation order. It is often this course of action that leads to family breakups which could have been avoided had a different choice been made by Children's Services. In addition, because of the stereotyping of domestic abuse of mothers and children by fathers, the resulting erroneous decision leads on to the granting of legal aid based on false allegations, the application for which is endorsed by Children's Services.

 

[Fiji107]

Yes I have. My complaint is currently with the ombudsman as children’s services just lied in both their responses. In the second response they basically admitted to lying but called it a “misunderstanding”.
They were court ordered to disclose any reports and assessments that had been made. They refused then lied in court saying that 1- they hadn’t done any and 2- the information I’d asked them to disclose (when I followed up on the order because they hadn’t disclosed anything) was private and confidential information about the mother. Absolute lie. It then turned out they had done an assessment 6 months before which contained some alarming information and yet more false allegations by ex.
CAFCASS also made 2 referrals to them for safeguarding concerns and they ignored them then denied any referrals had been made. It literally says in the safeguarding report that 2 referrals were made and dates.
In their assessment it says things like “mothers ex husband is to be a positive role model in child’s life”, “Fathers safeguarding concerns have been fully investigated and no evidence of concerns found” and “we support mothers decision to move back closer to family in northern England to be closer to support networks and flee fathers abuse”… mother claimed to me and others that ex husband was abusive to her throughout their relationship, that was one of my concerns. They didn’t investigate any of my concerns bar ask the mother who obviously just said they were lies, even states in the report that they didn’t feel it necessary to speak to father due to me abusing mother. Mother constantly told me that her mother (support network up north) abused her and her siblings as kids and is now abusing her foster kids. I literally have a message from her stating that…
They basically took everything mother said as gospel and didn’t even attempt to ask my side. They have literally enabled parental alienation and fully support mother in cutting me out of our child’s life completely.
I actually bumped into the support worker outside of court one day and she scowled at me and muttered something under her breath. I think she called me a c word but can’t be sure if that.
My complaints have just been brushed off then used in court against me citing controlling behaviour and saying I complain about anyone I see as a threat.
I’m hoping the ombudsman actually looks into it but they’ve said it’s at least 16 weeks

 

[Ash]

I think @JC83 might have some tips with this and did make a formal complaint to social services.

 

[JC83]

@Ash funny enough I have just had a response back from my stage two complaint this afternoon! I’m still digesting the contents, but, as expected, it was a total fob off, defending the social worker in my case and basically giving a typical political type response - a lot of waffle and not really answering my questions fully.

In my case I referred to specific areas of the local authority children’s services procedures which I felt they had not adhered to, as well as a the Government’s children’s social care framework:

Children's social care: national framework

Statutory guidance on the principles behind children’s social care, its purpose, factors enabling good practice and what it should achieve.

www.gov.uk

That’s how I’d approach my complaint, base it on evidence and try and show how the social worker in your case has failed to adhere to local and national policy and procedures, not that it’s been of use to me so far!

I feel your pain @Razbert, I have been in exactly the same position and i have evidence to indicate the social worker in my case even helped my ex get a non molestation order. If social services hadn’t got involved, I honestly think my family may still be together, or at least not had such a bitter and acrimonious divorce. As I’ve posted before, I HATE social services with a passion and I have nothing but contempt for the social worker who was involved in my case. Fortunately, social services are no longer involved and the judge dismissed a fact find in my case and at present, by some miracle, did not order a section 7. My next hearing could be my last one God help me if that social worker got involved in producing a section 7, and for that reason I will probably refrain from escalating my complaint to the local government ombudsman at this stage. I just want to try and focus on getting a decent CAO first which could be a 50/50 lives with both order if I can work on being amicable with my ex.

Feel free to PM me buddy if you need any more advice.