But soon, she will.

Thursday, I was at the social work department's office to meet with one of the women I work with (sorry, I still don't have her job description right). My youngest was having his interview at the same time, with his dad in the room with him. He told me afterwards that the worst thing he did was that he couldn't remember his brother when asked about who he lives with.🤣An easy thing to do, because sometimes you wouldn't notice he's there. Especially when he has his time on the computer.
As I was sitting in the waiting room, the team leader passed me. She said hello and asked me how I was.
I told her that the case worker had handed me her report the day before and asked if I could have a word with her about it. I saw her after my meeting. I told her that the case worker and I had gone through the first few sentences of the report and already didn't see eye to eye then. She had left me the report to go through. I wrote about that here a few days ago:
https://steemit.com/familyprotection/@misslasvegas/the-case-worker-s-report-the-day-you-realize-she-has-serious-mental-health-issues
I told the team leader the same as what I said in that post: If I would read a report like that about someone else, I would be concerned.
She nodded. But I continued: "However, this is about us and in the whole report, there is literally one thing true.
The rest is pulled out of proportion, twisted or simply not true."
I mentioned a few examples. I told her that I rather not speak to the case worker anymore, because I felt that she uses anything I say to turn it into fiction. She asked me if it was OK to come to the house and felt it was important to do so before the conference. This happened today. More about this later.

source: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/definition-of-family

Last week, I was contacted by an independent family support officer. Not a social worker.
We met the next day to talk through a few things before the conference next week.
His job would be to put together a plan with me about what needs to be done in order to address the 'concerns' put forward by the case worker. This will then be read out during the conference.
We would have a meeting this week (last Friday) about how to achieve this. The case worker would also be called in for a few minutes and then leave. Usually, the others present would be the family's family like sisters, brothers, parents etc.
but in my case that's not possible of course, since the only family I have are in the Netherlands.
So he asked me to invite the people closest to me to this meeting, the ones who would support me.
I asked my friend S. who eventually came with her boyfriend. My friends J. & D., my sister in law came and also brought my son's dad. To be honest, as close to family as you could get.

The family support meeting

The meeting is supposed to put forward any concerns and the plans to make these go away as well as the time frame.
My sister in law started the meeting by saying that they were all there for my support, but that none of them agree with what has been said in the report. She mentioned that after her brother and I split up, it wouldn't be uncommon when people like that find themselves in family court. But it shows how much we respect each other and how much she trusts in my ability to parent her nephew. The others then chimed in and told similar stories. It brought me to tears. This was rudely stopped when the social worker and her colleague trainee arrived. I wasn't going to show her any emotion.
So I kept my poker face, but inside I felt like this:

source: http://wallpaperswide.com/angry_tiger_painting-wallpapers.html

They sat in the room for about 10 minutes, introduced themselves and we did the same. The tension in the room was something else and the all the case worker did was stare in front of her. She didn't look at anyone. I could see that she felt very uncomfortable. GOOD!

My friend J. managed to ask if social workers get a psychological evaluation before they are hired. They don't!
It's crazy really. J. herself used to be a teacher and they get one!
They left and we concluded the meeting within the hour. It was crap since all of my friends thought that there was no reason to come up with a plan to fix something that's not broken.

The man who conducted the meeting tried to tell us that sometimes people 'think' they are treated unjustly, but that there is usually something there. My sil told him that she teaches child protection law and has seen families that were in a terrible state. If for one moment she would have thought this was the case with us, she would have acted! She also mentioned that she's seen cases where the parents would go out for heroin and forget they had children. There were kids that had been left home alone for days without food. And this bullying was a bad way of using their resources when there are too many children like that in Ireland. True.

He started feeling uncomfortable too, so we ended the conversation. We had a little meeting of our own outside after that, before everyone started heading home.

It meant the world to me to see these people stand up for me like this. Even my friend S.'s boyfriend and I don't really know him that well. These situations help to know who your friends truly are and I feel blessed to have a few, in 'real life' and here on Steemit.

source: http://www.lovethispic.com/image/190933/i-love-those-people-who-can-make-me-laugh-during-moments-i-feel-like-i-can't-even-smile

The complaint letter

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. My sil helped me write up the complaint in itself. I thought that the case worker's report should be in it as well with my response to it. So we added that. The complaint section the child protection department has in their leaflet, wouldn't be enough.
The thing is 13 pages long!
It has been emailed to the manager at their head quarters today and the official letter has been sent.
In addition, three of my friends have written a letter with a character reference. One of my friends has known me for 14 years, all our kids grew up together. I've known the other two for 9 years and our kids are also friends. I followed the first one to Ireland and the other two (J. & D.) followed me two years ago. That should tell you something.

The team leader's visit

This morning the team leader came - late...
She asked me to see the house, which I had no issues with. There was no concern about the house. She did remark about the bathroom not being finished tiling, but added that this was not my fault.
She then asked about the boxes that had been stacked according to the case worker. I told her where they had been and demonstrated how they had been stacked and wedged between the wall and wardrobe and that there had been no chance of my son pulling them over, since I wasn't able to do so. She was happy enough.
I walked out with her and she asked about the 'stacks of timber and metal' that had been spread around the house.
I told her that the fire wood had been spread out a bit more but was now stacked neatly against the wall. I added that it had never been a safety concern as the kids didn't climb on it and I was always there to watch them. I told her there had been some wooden stakes for fencing, but they were now used in the field and would have never caused any harm to anyone. The metal 'stacks' the case worker had referred to were a puzzle to me, as the only metal in the yard are 4 metal fences leaning against a slope on the side of the yard, somewhere the kids never go.
She seemed satisfied with my answer.
Now, I couldn't read her well, so I am not sure if she was just here to cover her ass as well as that of the case worker or if she wanted to see for herself just how terrible a mother I am - or not. All I can do is hope that she will mention her findings during the conference and leave us the hell alone after that.
I am sure she will get a heart attack when she reads the complaint.
I did however mention her in the complaint. I told the regional manager that she had acted professionally and that I felt she listened. Something that I hadn't seen in any of my meetings with the case worker.

I am trying to cut this short, so I won't write the complaint in here, but in a next post I will tell you more about it.
They haven't even appointed a complaint officer here yet, so it goes to the regional manager. He can't get around it and will have to investigate. If not, the next step will be the Ombudsman.

To be continued....

Wish me luck on Thursday.

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