By parents from IPAN and PAR

The poetry and essays below were part of a 2018 project run jointly by the International Parent Advocacy Network and Parents, Advocacy and Rights. The authors are parents who lost care of their children.

This Was Not My Destiny

by Lisa-Marie Graham

I stood for many years in the shadows, afraid of the light,

Chose to stay silent because the words didn’t seem right,

Scared to tell my story because it sounds so far-fetched,

Scars of a thousand labels on my soul etched.

I was a child in care, dragged up by the state,

 

A victim of domestic violence by somebody I saw as my soul mate,

My own children ripped out of my arms by police after a false accusation,

Six years of self-litigation,

Precious time away from my children that I will never reclaim,

Six years of trying to clear my name,

Throughout it all I stood alone without one single friend,

A bitter pill but I did it in the end.

 

It was this experience that leads me to where I stand today,

I vowed that I would change the system somehow, someway,

And through speaking out this is what I am achieving,

Getting people like you believing,

Believing that change is possible regardless of what path you are on,

That the past has been and is long since gone,

My voice is louder and stronger than ever before,

Head held high not down at the floor,

I was never a victim only a survivor,

The fire ignited within is the main driver,

This wasn’t my destiny,

But it is where I am meant to be

Mea Culpa

by Taliah

From the moment you find out you are expecting, you experience a mother’s guilt. Could that cold I caught hurt my baby? What about that runny egg I ate before I knew I was expecting? Nothing over nearly 15 years of parenting prepared me for the level of guilt that I would experience during safeguarding. Next to grief and anxiety, guilt has to be up there in the top three primary emotions experienced by mothers going through the child protection process.

Very unhelpfully, social workers are skilled at interpreting these emotions as proof of a mother’s incapacity to parent. In the most extreme cases, they actively use these common and normal feelings as ammunition in their risk assessments against the mother.

It commences such a damaging narrative.

Because a mother doesn’t have to be guilty of child abuse or neglect to feel guilty. Guilt is second nature to mothering: bottle or breast, work outside the home or stay at home, extracurricular activities or free time – Motherhood is rife with judgment, choices, and guilt.

What mother would not feel guilt when their child becomes looked after. Is there greater guilt? Not that I am aware.

Even if you have done nothing wrong, and honestly, there are plenty of cases where neglect and abuse against a child has not occurred; nonetheless, a mother feels overwhelming guilt and shame. The old adage that you go into the maternity and leave your dignity on the door is overegged. The maternity has nothing on the local authority. There is not a shred of dignity left once child protection engages with you.

It is absolutely awful, soul-crushing, to have to hand your child over, crying for you, calling out, ‘Mummy!’ and you are court ordered to walk away.

How is this not emotionally abusive? As a mother, you end up having to choose between your child and the law. Most mothers would agree that we would choose our child over the law, every day of the week.

And a new wave of guilt and despair sets in when we do not hold true to our beliefs.

Another bullet to our heart as we abandon another important piece of our identity. How many mothers genuinely, confidently say they would wrestle a rabid bear to prevent their child from harm? And they mean it. I meant it, with every fibre of my being. Are social workers more scary than rabid bears? Perhaps, or perhaps not, and in which case, it is truly a major blow to a mother’s self image and her sense of wellbeing.

When I left my child in the arms of strangers, against her wishes, against mine, I didn’t do it because it was right. I didn’t do it because it helped her. I didn’t do it because it was what I wanted. I did it because I was scared. Scared of how much worse the situation would become if I did not jump on command, and obey the court order. I felt guilt over my cowardice. Just months before, I had been the hero, the one who slayed the monsters under the bed. The only one who could fix any ouch with a kiss, could make her milk just the right temperature, who could sing a nursery rhyme in just the right way to make her laugh. I would have swam across the ocean for her, fought that rabid bear with my bare hands, would have cut out my own heart to save hers.

Then I learned that I am a coward.

I picked the law over my child.

Which was the right thing to do.

But it never felt right.

It made me feel guilty for every time I promised I would be there for my children. I had thought only death could separate us. It wasn’t my intention, but I lied. I am guilty of breaking so many promises.

Unable to explain what and why things were the way they were. I felt like I betrayed her daily. When she took ill, and I was not there. When she cried for me at night and I did not hold her hand. When she was injured at the hands of strangers, and I could do nothing to protect her.

The reality is such that these emotions are not entirely transparent, they tell only part of the story. I was fighting for my child. In court and out of court. Had I put a foot wrong, the local authority was at the ready to hang me. But my daughter didn’t know. she didn’t know about all the meetings I endured as they spoke horrible abuse about me. Abuse that was not true. That they were not prepared to wait to find out the truth, so righteous they were in their pursuit of eliminating harm.

I felt overwhelming guilt that I could not fix the terrible situation in which we found ourselves and the events that had led up to it. I felt so guilty when I shopped for my other children, still at home. Oh, how it hurt, to not be allowed to provide and nurture her the same as her siblings.

I felt guilt for my children at home, who had to cope with the contact schedule. A schedule that began so sparse, it hardly existed. Then became so rigorous, it was as though I was working away at a second job. I felt so much guilt as I felt I was failing everyone. Not a single day went by where I succeeded at being the mother that I aspire to be.

My aspiration was not made purely of unreasonable expectations. I just wanted to be the Mum I had been, before our world was tipped upside down and inside out. Day in, day out, I was physically and emotionally ragged while pretending to be unphased and happy.

You end up feeling guilt for pretending to be okay. Because, if you show you are not feeling great, it will be used against you. You end up feeling like a fraud no matter what you do.

Guilt will swallow you whole if you let it. It ravages your soul and steal away what little sunlight remains as you walk through the hell that is child protection.

There is no remedy that I have found, but what soothes the soul is knowing you are not alone. This guilt is universal through all mothers apart from their children. What you feel is a terrible kind of normal. You are not alone.

 

The Grief Is Never Ending

A poem about parental alienation and forced adoption

by Jessica

The grief is never ending

They ripped my daughter away

Placed in the arms of a stranger

That is where they want her to stay

A fighting, grieving mother

It’s my voice they wish to smother

All these stolen children

Sold one after another

So, don’t tell me it will be okay

I wake without her every day

They chose her for her beauty

Lied and said it was a social workers duty

Now, they want adoption, they say it is

the only option

Family court corruption

Wake up to this disruption

 

“In My Best Interests”

by Jessica

It’s in my best interests they say

That’s why they took me away

They left my Mummy heartbroken

They said ‘Justice’ had spoken

Two parents wrongly accused.

It’s in my best interests they say

Just pulling my family away

Left hurt and confused

Torn up and bruised

But these are the games they play.

It’s in my best interests they say

I hope I see Mummy and Daddy today

One day when they’ve won

Our hearts will beat as one.

Corruption can’t win

These events are a sin

But

It’s in my best interests

they say!

 

Child Protection Case Conferences

by Taliah

Today, I am going to focus on child protection case conference meetings. From my perspective, I could unaffectionately call my experiences with child protection meetings the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Three very different meetings, from my perspective, with the same family, same faces round the table, same circumstances for the most part, but the entire experiences were as different as oil, water and soda.

It has taken a great deal of reflection to try to see why these experiences were so different.

As such, I think it is important to reflect on how a meeting works. Because one of the most traumatic parts of child protection is expectations. Now, I don’t mean a meeting in a child protection capacity. I mean meeting in a wider, broader sense. Consider a business meeting. Any business meeting will have a very specific purpose that will have been set out ahead of the meeting. It is important to understand that there is already a goal in mind before you even attend the meeting. The meeting is not the time to make changes. A meeting is to inform, not gather data.

The chair of the meeting has a vital role in having already spoken to all the parties involved in advance of the meeting. No chair would go into a meeting unsure about what all parties are going to say, because it is the chair’s role to orchestrate and guide the meeting through all the stages to its conclusion. The chair will want everyone at the meeting to work together to bring about the set conclusion.

In a business meeting, it is really important that information is gathered ahead of the meeting. This prevents unnecessary complications and, in order to plan for the sessions ahead, the meeting needs, to a degree, to have a goal in mind ahead of time. This is good business. It allows for solid, constructive communication to be partaken to create a plan going forward.

In a child protection case conference, this is also true. The chair of the meeting should meet with you ahead of the meeting. It is vital, seriously it is absolutely vital, that ahead of the meeting you participate as fully as you are able such that your voice and your contributions can be thrown into the melting pot of voices that will guide and develop not just the goal of the meeting but the plan going forward.

Get your voice in early.

The social work case worker is a key figure. This social worker will construct a risk assessment. From brutal experience, please do whatever you need to such that you work with the social worker to build that risk assessment. Call the social worker, meet with the social worker, invite the social worker around for a cup of tea.

In my experience the quickest way to make a social worker run away… is to invite them around a lot. I know that sounds like simple, almost ridiculous advice. But engage.

Engage even when it feels like you are drowning.

Engage when it hurts to breathe,

engage when you think you have never felt so mad in all your life.

Engage when you run into a personality clash — when you find a social worker who seems to push every button, daring you to fail.

Bite your tongue, remember who you are doing this for.

Your child, your perfect,

amazing, precious person.

Keep them at the front of your thoughts.

There is nothing you wouldn’t do for this blessing in your life.

So, while it may be understandable to be annoyed, to be frustrated, but set it to one side, one hour at a time, and make yourself determined to work with your social worker.

Ahead of our very first initial Child Protection conference, I had no idea what to expect. To say I was uninformed would be an understatement. I truly believed that this meeting was a good thing. I believed this would be a meeting where everyone could sit down around the table, have a genuine discussion and we would all leave with the world set to right.

If you have been through this process, you may well think I was a proper idiot. I had this idea in my head that this was a discussion.

I thought my words would matter. But everyone else in the room had the big, fancy important words and acronyms.

They had important professional job titles.

Most importantly, they had big, serious concerns, and I was left floundering.

I studied to a university level and yet, I had never felt more stupid or broken.

Very broken.

It felt a lot more like being a naked gladiator shoved into an arena full of lions as the realisation dawned upon me —

There was a very specific outcome orchestrated

long before I appeared in the meeting room.

I was very underprepared for that first meeting and the worst part, what made the experience so much harder than it needed to be, was my own misguided expectations.

Meetings are not places for discussion. Discussions happen before meetings, they happen after meetings, but not during meetings. I had no idea what the structure or format of this meeting would be, or what my role would be. I didn’t know where or when I should speak, or what everyone else’s roles were.

I think to a point, you can only really learn by experience. It has taken a few of these meetings for me to feel in any way able to articulate what was going on, and I am not that dense.

The huge difficulty faced by parents, by me!, is that this meeting will undoubtedly be called at the worst moment in your life.

Something awful has happened, or is happening, and now, you are under the greatest scrutiny of your life – Everyone’s favourite, right? Safe to say, your stress levels are off the chart, and you are now competing with professionals. People who have been doing this for years, who have more experience with this than you will hopefully ever have, and they all slept soundly last night.

So, don’t compete.

That is right. I am really saying that. Fight or flight is overwhelming your brain, and I am telling you to override that impulse.

Don’t compete.

Seriously, the deck is stacked. Work together, you can’t take them single handedly!

You may feel that your efforts go unnoticed, unappreciated. There may be a lot of different reasons for this, at this stage.

What I can say is don’t stop trying.

Sometimes, time is the key, and everyone needs to see you are committed and serious about being onboard.

Sometimes, I think that while social work acknowledges that parents play a valuable role in their children’s lives, the honest truth is the application certainly doesn’t feel like it.

Corporate parents do need to pay more than lip service to biological parents.

But it is important that while this may feel the case, that you are being overlooked, take a good long look at the situation. I was told so many times “this is early days”.

This is early days. I hated those words. I did not want any of these days. I did not like the idea that there was lots more to come. I did not like the idea that this was only the beginning. I wanted to fix this right now. I want to make everything better right now.

But I couldn’t.

And I wanted these people to leave my family alone.

But they couldn’t.

Time has helped build bridges.

Time.

That will stretch out like taffy, too

thin and too long.

Work at building bridges, time and again,

I have found there is no other way.

This is where you have to learn a new

way to work with people, who disagree

with you on a level which you have never

previously experienced. Just breathe. Say

less.

Most importantly: Surround yourself with

support.

The most important advice I can give, the most effective experience that I have had through this process, has been Support.

Get an advocacy worker.

Advocacy workers are angels who will be there for you in your time of greatest need. They can speak when you can’t.

Having someone who you can discuss what went on and re-orient you after the meeting with is invaluable. Our advocate’s post meeting debrief was unbelievably helpful. He would say to me that went well, they said this, and that was encouraging.

Or he would explain to me you need to do this, that is what they were telling you. It is so difficult to take everything onboard.

Bring support to every meeting.

I wish I could say you just need support through those initial days. But the truth is you need your support team for the long haul. This is where you really find out who your friends are, because for most parents this is not brief.

At some point you need to set aside being

deeply sad, deeply ashamed, deeply mourning,

and get ready to fight. This is where you need to start pouring all your fight into winning your child back.

And that requires a major shift in emotion,

if I am honest.

You have to climb out of

the crumbled, wreck of your soul,

and find your fight.

Those initial days and weeks I spent in a

state of shock, numb and overall feeling

broken beyond words.

So many of my friends told me that they just wanted to see me get mad. They would have felt more comfortable seeing me angry. Seeing me defeated and traumatised was really hard on everyone.

Anger is volatile, but it is also useful. I was afraid to get angry. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to stop. Letting myself have the right to feel mad was helpful. It helped motivate me to stand up and fight.

And fight we did… and fight we continue.

I really, really mean it when I say WE.

Because I could not have survived without

support. That has to be your priority. Get

support. Talk to your friends, your partner,

your parents, your church, your child’s school even.

TALK to people. There is this

huge shame, this huge barricade to

opening up. And when you do, you realise

two very important things.

First, people are much more sympathetic

and supportive than you assumed.

And second, you are not the first person

to go through this. My world view was

rocked by all the people that said “we are

going through the same thing”. Or “my

sister went through that, I remember what

it was like”. Or “I was in care, I know how it

feels”.

The trouble is that nobody wants to talk about it.

The stigma of ‘bad mum’ is too great.

Children enter care for lots of reasons,

and only a few of them are due to ‘bad

mum’ syndrome.

My child had never been shouted at,

never been hit.

She had never been

emotionally or sexually abused. There

was no drug abuse or even mental health

problems in our home. She came from a

loving home, with two professional parents.

She had never wanted for anything.

Social work’s parenting assessments have always

reflected that I have ‘exceptional parenting skills’.

It frequently mentioned that I was

always calm, patient and positive. An

affectionate and loving mother. My

daughter’s social worker affirmed that my

daughter’s needs were always met.

And, my child became ‘looked after’.

For every parent, for whatever reason

who is apart from their child – there will be

blue days. Days when the feelings of loss

are so great, you could drown in them.

For those days, let me say:

I am sorry for every day, every park visit,

every movie night, every birthday party

and Christmas that she is missing. For

every time you buy shoes, and you aren’t

buying her a pair. When you order ice

cream, and there is one less cone. When

you serve dinner and her plate isn’t there.

When you read bedtime stories

and her head isn’t there to be kissed.

For every time the sun shines, and you

would just pick up a blanket go to the

beach for a ‘Nic Nic’ (picnic). For every

time it rains, and she is not there to teach

your favourite board game, to make that

blanket fort, to bake those cakes.

For how the grocery store is suddenly

filled with children just her age.

When did everyone else suddenly have

a child just like the one you are

missing.

From singing silly songs, to barely paying

attention, lost in her own games, as she

played in the back ground while you work

in the garden.

To when strangers nod to your children

and ask, ‘All yours?’ And you don’t know

how to answer when one is missing. I am

so sorry for all that she/ he is not there.

Keep Holding On.

Believe in yourself.

Surround yourself in people who believe

in you.

Get an advocate.

And talk, keep talking, tell your story, and

know that you are not alone.

I believe in

you.

 

How It Has Felt to Be a Mother

by Louise

I want to tell you how it has felt for me to be a mother without her children, and how it has affected me, so that others in the same situation won’t feel so alone. I also want to make a couple of recommendations for things we can do that might help others in the future. When the children were removed I felt like I’d been run over by a bus.

I was absolutely flattened.

For a considerable time, probably weeks, I was basically in a waking coma. I could barely speak or eat and kept my eyes closed as much as possible. My head and my heart were completely with my children and I was using all my efforts just to stay alive. In this condition I was expected to go to incredibly painful meetings and I just was not able for it.

I never thought of myself as someone who’d need an advocacy worker. I was the person who helped others. Before I became a mother I had a senior professional job. I was used to meetings and bureaucracy. I was used to working in partnership with others in a spirit of transparency and with accountability for my words and actions.

But I was silenced by the social workers, very effectively, by plain old fashioned bullying. Instead of being listened to, I was disrespected, disbelieved and disregarded and in my emotionally devastated state I just could not withstand it.

So my first recommendation

from what I’ve been through is that we need something more than the usual advocacy workers, as they are limited in their roles. We need people who understand the social work system, who are independent and paid, and who can offer emotional support as well as helping us to have our voices heard. Family and friends, if we’re lucky enough to have them, have lives of their own that they need to go back to at some point and we need consistency for the long haul; to have the same person with us through it all, taking notes, witnessing, speaking up with us and seeing fair play.

My second recommendation

is to have an information pack with lists of websites, Facebook groups and sources of support like PAR, that could be given to parents whose children have been removed. I knew no one in this situation and today is the first time I have met anyone who is. I could not unravel the system – what was meant to be happening? When? How? – and I did not understand the jargon – LAC? LAAC? It would have really helped me to be in contact with others in my situation.

As well as being desperately worried about my children and what they were going through, I felt a huge sense of shame at being a mother whose children had been removed. As time went on and the children were still in care I kept thinking that people must be saying there is no smoke without fire. I did my shopping late at night so I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew. I could not bear to see children of the same age as mine so avoided school start and finish times when I had to be out of the house. I pretty much stopped going on Facebook because of all the happy family photos of days out, holidays, Christmases, back to school.

I rationed the times I’d allow myself to go into their bedrooms. I’d see friends and family trying to put themselves into my shoes then flinching away from the pain because it is just too much. It’s constant and it doesn’t fade. Nothing helps. Only having your children in your arms helps. A dear friend gave me a silver bangle engraved with some wise words that I’d like to leave you with, because they became my mantra:

COURAGE. KEEP GOING

 

The Verdict

by Susie

One word or two?

She stood, we held breath.

The world blurred away,

Our lives dependant

On the words she’d relay

What would she say?

We’d waited for days

Knowing it wasn’t supposed

To progress this way.

He told us “Don’t worry”

 

It’ll soon go away.

There’s no evidence on you

There’s nothing to say!”

“On the first day of trial

As full evidence is

presented the judge

will say she’ll aquit you”.

But here we stand,

Suspended in time.

Jury still out

What will they decide?

 

You behind glass, but

our hearts beat in time.

Jury comes back.

Sit down in their lines.

Clerk asks the question.

Twenty four eyes look

Around, then at the floor.

Remain staring down.

The foreperson stands,

Arms by her sides,

Smug expression,

Eyes open wide.

My heart stops.

I look to him, he to me.

“Count one”

One last prayer……

She says “Guilty”

Inside I scream out!

Legs turn to jelly,

 

Breathing in and out.

 

Suddenly I’m sitting down.

I look around and,

My gasp whirls through

The court room.

“On count two” she says,

Still that smug smile.

“Guilty” she repeats.

My head’s spinning round.

12 jurors continue,

Looking intently down.

Mouths agape,

We looked to each other.

Oh, No NO! We say,

IT CANNOT BE!!

They can’t take him.

We are a family.

We belong together,

Him, the kids, me!

What will I do?

Alone, on my own!

Unused to the pressure

Sad, lost, forlorn!

And then it got worse

Day, by day, by day

Social workers called in

Wanna take kids away!!

Another big fight

Yet more sleepless nights?

 

Forced to confess all my

Failures, addictions & vice!!

The pain of disappointment

Glares from their eyes

I wasn’t raised that way

I was brought up nicely!!

Another huge loss,

Another goodbye.

We are grieving again

Will life ever be alright?