"What Day is It?"

I understand that because my son has admitted to openly using drugs at home and there are younger children in the home, the professional responsibility of those who this had been disclosed to is to report their concerns to social services.



Now those of you who have followed this Blog from the beginning may remember our initial interactions with social services and the impression it left on me. For those who have not read those entries, I will let you catch up here if you like.

First it was, http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/from-sublime-to-about-two-months-ago-we.html

Then there was, http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/nonesense.html

Finally we had the "meeting", http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-plan.html

So our last meeting which was 6 weeks after the first "Children in Need Meeting", was uneventful and unremarkable. The only interesting information was that it was our social worker's last day and he did not know when we would be allocated another social worker, nor did he know who that social worker would be. The student social worker who had sessions with my youngest daughter would also be leaving in two weeks. Without knowing who would be our social worker, and therefore who would be running the next meeting, another meeting was scheduled for early September.




So I was thinking what an interesting meeting that will be with a social worker running it who has never even met us! However, this won't be the case any more as the new social worker called me Monday requesting to see me and the children on a home visit. He wanted to come Wed however that was inconvenient for me, so I suggested Thursday. Yes, he said that would be fine. So we expected the social worker to come at 10:00 tomorrow.

This morning my daughters and I made some muffins from a mix we received from our last visit to the food bank. Thank God for those food bank visits and that I put some things aside, without it we would not have eaten the small amount we have been able to eat this week. A sacrifice I knew I was making when I put my housekeeping money into the mortgage in an attempt to save our house and thus my children from being made homeless.....but I digress now!

So we had breakfast, were getting ourselves ready for my daughter's counsellor to arrive for his home visit at 11:00, when there was a knock on the door. It was 10:30 and I looked out my window, no deliver van, no car I recognised, in fact NO car in front of the house at all. I assumed it was a door to door caller and ignored it. The knocking become more insistent so I decided to go and answer.



A man with a familiar I.D. "necklace" and briefcase stood outside my door and I knew instantly he was our new social worker. After a few awkward moments and mumbles from both of us,  I had to say that he was here on the wrong day, it is Wed today. Even though I had already made his mistake clear, he was still baffled and asked "What day is it today?"...SERIOUSLY?! I had to keep saying to him that it is Wed, he was meant to come on Thurs and I am expecting someone else and I will see him tomorrow. He continued to look and act confused and in my opinion was unprofessional in his confusion to say the least!

Oh give me strength, this is our new social worker who on first impression appears to be even more incompetent than the last! I am not only apprehensive about having such "professionals" scrutinizing me and my family, I am also astonished how such people are able to maintain such jobs!? This is not even mentioning how many of these "professionals" deal with the severe and serious cases in which there are children who are not only "in need" but also "at risk".  I know there is a great need for social workers in this country and that is why many have been recruited from different countries. I don't mind where the social workers come from, but just because the council hires social workers to ensure they have the correct number of professionals to cover the case loads, please can they try to at least fill the positions with social workers who will actually do good in their field for families and individuals who need help?