update or "This is Scotland!"

Today was the day of the Hearing which decided whether or not we were to stay on a Supervision Order.
It is also two days after I found out that the Commissioning Team have not processed my complaint about how our case has been handled because they "have not received it". Fortunately I had sent it by recorded delivery. This was because the previous stage of the complaint process took five months (the children's area manager, after sending me a letter saying she would write a response and discuss it with me in six weeks, then, without further contact felt I no longer wanted to proceed)
I don't really mind being on a Supervision order. Incase you didn't know, there are Supervision Orders and Child Protection Orders. A Child Protection Order is when your child is taken away. He can be left in fostercare for eight days without being allowed to see any member of his family, so not knowing why he can't go home. Having just turned six, and knowing his parents love him more than anything, he could, reasonably you might think, decide the only reason he cannot go home must be that his parents are dead. So he is mourning his parents' death and thinking he is an orphan, for 8 days.
A Child Protection Order means Social Work can limmit contact as they see fit. The child can be kept in fostercare "until the time is right." No other explanation is needed. In our case it was seven and a half months. No matter how unhappy the child might be in fostercare, you tell him to say he is happy, if anyone asks, because social work have told you if you tell anyone he is not happy he will be sent to fostercare far from home, contact will be greatly reduced and he will have to change schools. "Is that what you want?"
A Child Protection Order can be granted without the school, GP, neighbours or any recently involved contacts being consulted. It can be kept in place for seven and a half months, because social work believe the mother has mental health problems. Their opinion outweighs the diagnoses of two GP's, a CPN and a CBT therapist that the mother does not have mental health problems. If, in the absence of a diagnosis that she has mental health problems, the mother refuses to accept social work opinion, she is "not cooperating", and this is a reason for her child remaining in fostercare.
For a Child Protection Order to be granted it is not necessary for there to be any evidence of harm. It is not necessary for the child or parents to be seen by a GP, or to be questioned by police. The only evidence required is the opinion of social work.
A Supervision Order is when the child is allowed to live at home, but with visits from social work at school and at home. A supervision Order might begin 2 weeks after the mother is referred to a psychologiist and seven months after her child was put in care.
At the end of the Hearing which grants the Supervision Order, a panel member asks what has changed. The social worker thinks for a bit and says "Support from wider family." This is actually the first Hearing no uncle/grandparent has attended. The panel member asks if it is possible to see the psychologist's report about the mother. The social worker says no, it is just in draft form, so unavailable. There is no reference to the psychologist's report in anything submitted by social work to the Hearing.
A few months before, social Work claimed we needed "intensive tuition and coaching in parenting" before he could come home. Then they said that this requirement had been met. We have had no parenting tuition or coaching.
It is usual for there to be several weeks of sleepovers before the Protection Order is lifted, to check that the child is ok at home. Our child slept one night at home before the Protection Order was lifted. Subsequently the social worker said he was "happy and content".
This morning, I was trying, again, to get him to fill in his How Do You Feel form, for the Hearing. He can't see the point. The bit where it says Do You Know Why You Are Going To The Hearing he rings Not Sure. He has been to so many Hearings where they have told him he is the most important person there, then when he asks to go home, is told No.
The bit where it says Would You Rather Live Somewhere Else? He smiles hopefully "In a treehouse?" He looks scared suddenly. "Will they take me away again if I say that?"
"Um..."
"Ok, I won't" Quickly he draws a ring round the Happy Where I Am symbol. He has done this so often with his fostercarers. At least this time it's true.
On the way back from taking him to school I stop off at the supermarket. Mary is one of those rare people who strike you as regal, though she would snort (regally) if you told her. She scans the peanut butter. "How's yer boy?" she asks. Her daughter who used to work in Woolworths too, has two boys a bit older than my one and often leaves bin bags of clothes at the flat, without knocking. (She snorts when I thank her.) Second hand clothes are something else social work are not keen on. "He's fine." Mary has a friend in the hospital, where I was taken till a GP could see me, the day my son was taken away. I ask for cashback, and tell her it's for a taxi to the Hearing, but that hopefully this will be an end to it. "Load of nonsense from the beginning" she says.
There is half an hour between dropping him off at school and calling a taxi. I turn on the computer and start searching hotmail for the psychologist's email, print it off, and put the eggs on.
I'm not sure if I should say anything at the Hearing. But I'm so cross about my complaint letter being lost. Also that I always end up crying. But yesterday, at the allotment, someone was telling me about when they'd worked with children in care, in England. He was amazed social work here, without any proof, can claim a person has said something, "There should have been a transcript for you to sign," he insisted. "You should sue!"
The psychologist had been surprised there was no transcript too. "That's not how we do it in my country" He said "But things might be different here" This was after he said "But where's the evidence? How can your son be in care for seven months with only social workers' opinion?"
He seemed at a bit of a loss as to what to recommend we might need to enable us able to look after a child. "Maybe a social worker you could trust?"
I had been so worried about the psychologist, but infact he was really nice. We had thought he must be pretending, to trick us. But the man whose job it is to find what GP's, therapists and CPNs can't be trusted to, really was nice.
The "social worker you can trust" is brilliant. It's because of his report that the Supervision Order will be lifted. We hope it will just be him at the Hearing, not the ones who took our son away. Neither of us slept last night just thinking about if it was them. Also, I thought I should read the stuff they'd sent, before I went to bed. That didn't help. Interestingly, all the dodgy things about us they'd previously said other people had said, which, in my complaint letter I'd pointed out they had not said, because I'd checked with the people themselves, are now down as being said by me.
The taxi driver was the one who'd had trouble with social work and his step daughter. He'd gone to them for advice and "they made it 100 times worse". He'd said there was no point complaining, but had wished us luck. Now I told him about the complaint going missing, and about how my request for DPA (to see all the reports by and for social work about us) had been refused. I'd wanted to show the Panel the psychologist's report.
Our son gave me a hug when he got there. When we went in there were two panel members we'd seen before, and one new one. The old ones were two of those who tell you to be quiet if you try to explain that something social work have said isn't true. There was someone training to be a panel member sitting at the back.
They went through the usual stuff. As our new social worker had said it would be, it was positive and polite. Till the chairman (who we'd seen before and had always seemed to relish telling us he would not recommend our child came home, asked me how I felt.
So I told him we had been told that the panel members are meant to be a check and balance for social work. I told him about how the last Hearing a panel member had asked for the psychologist's report, and the social worker had said No. I told him the report should have been available, I had an email from the psychologist to say so, in my bag. I told him that the psychologist had said there was no evidence to keep a child in care for seven months. I told him the names of the only two panel members in all the Hearings, who had questioned social work. He snapped he was not the person to say that to, and gave me the name of some body or other, which I forget. I told him about the people from advice centres, the ex social workers, the man from the allotment, who all said that social work must, surely get transcripts of conversations signed before they can be quoted as evidence. Social workers should not be able to claim someone has said something, without any proof. He looked impatient. I told him what the psychologist had said about how in his country there had to be proof. The chairman of the Children's Hearing Panel drew himself up proudly and said "But this is not his country. THIS IS SCOTLAND".