Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I am an autistic adult who is a parent. Since having my daughter I went through a terrible time with social services who set me up to fail and removed my daughter from me because I have a diagnosis of autism. It took me two years to fight for my daughter back and through this time social services and Cafcass used the so called deficits of my autism to justify the removal and to stop the return of my daughter. Thankfully the judge saw through this and returned my daughter concluding in her judgment that I parent my daughter to a high standard.
I want to know how many my adults will autism who are parents have been through a similar situation. How many parents with ASD and other disabilities and or impairments are being targeted by social services and having their children removed? If you have experienced this please tell your story because the current system is outrageously discriminative against parents who have a disability and or impairment and I would like to raise awareness of the current failures within the current child protection system which is targeting parents with disabilities and or impairments so that change can happen.
I have friends who work in Child Protection at Social Services, and it's an impossible job. If they remove children they're wrong, if they don't remove and then somethings happen they are wrong. There have been a number of high profile cases over the years where social services tried to leave kids in the home and work with the parents, only for the kids to suffer terrible abuse. The media only made this situation worse by over reporting with only half the facts.
Now, I'm not suggesting for one second that this would have happened in your case, I'm sure you are a good parent. I can't imagine what it would be like to have my children taken away, even for a short period. What you have to believe and accept though, is that social services don't do these things lightly. There would have been a number of discussions, that they have as a team, as well as with senior management, before they made the decision to remove. For what ever reason at the time they felt it was in the child's best interest, and that's all that matters.
Sueing an already stretched public sector organisation only adds to the pressure they are under, gives them a bad reputation, makes it harder for them to recruit, which increases their work load.....and so it goes on. I would urge you to just move on with your life, enjoy spending time with your family and forget winding yourself up about something that can't be changed now.
I hope you take this with the good intention it's meant with. I understand your emotionally involved, but when you see it from the other side, when you see a social worker curled up on their sofa unable to function because of their work, you understand the pressure they are under.
I wish you the best.
I would just like to clarify. I accept that there are procedures and processes in place for the decision making of removal.
I do not accept that those procedures and processes were followed in my case. Had they been followed, my case would not have been gone into the family courts because it had no merit nor would it had been escalated to removal because the threshold was never met.
Your assumption that the professionals involved followed all the procedures and processes is frustrating because not all case's are justified.
Child protection is hard but there are procedures and processes in place which have to be followed by social workers and the LA, you cannot just bypass these procedures and processes its an abuse of power, nor should you be allowed to cover your breaches/negligence up at the expense of an innocent mother and baby.
Thank you NAS50499 for your reply, the social worker we have is using private legal proceedings to escalate her "process" despite the other professionals involved being left completely in the dark and not being in agreement, if you wouldn't mind can i ask which solicitor you used/are using and if you would recommend them please
I would also love to know if anyone could recommend any solicitors to pursue a claim against a Local Authority for discrimination based on disability (ASD) by Social Services.
It's incomprehensible how Local Authorities are so blatantly ignoring the Human Rights Act, and are openly discriminating against autistic individuals and autistic parents.
I thought legislation, procedures, rules, codes of conduct, and etc would protect me. But the reality is that they don't protect you unless the SW (or whoever else you are dealing with) follows them.
And whether or not the SW (or whoever else) followed the rules becomes irrelevant once safeguarding procedures have started, because "complaints" cannot interfere with safeguarding procedures.
Once you are in it, you have no choice but to go through it all.
And unfortunately it's not going to stop until Local Authorities start to be held accountable.