Helen Lincoln Children’s Services OFSTED
In the middle of putting a complaint about Essex Children’s Services together for OFSTED.
One of the things I will be heavily emphasising is the total disregard for the child’s voice.
Regarding my child who attempted suicide it can be linked all the way back to the start. At that point my child had been under a paediatric neurologist for 10 years, had one diagnosis in that time, they had decided it wasn’t that one so investigations were still underway. The neurological signs were still there that proved that my child has an upper motor neuron disorder, they just haven’t figured out a label for it.
I’ve had 4 different diagnosis now for the same thing, so this may take a while.
Gabriel Lowrie refused to either look at the medical evidence or contact the paediatric neurologist, as did Heidi Hibbett. Kiran Box refused to look at the medical evidence, which led to social care stating i’d made it all up and was fabricating illnesses.
My child had 3 years worth of physiotherapy, and then another 6 month block later.
Which is rather a lot, this had been ongoing since my child was 3.
So then suddenly you had Essex Children’s Services come in and tell my child that none of that happened, it was fabricated by myself and that child had nothing physically wrong with them.
My child stated that they remember all of the neurologist appointments, the physio, the doctors, most importantly, my child described to Children’s Services the pain they are in, the difficulty they have with movement, the balance problems they have, that they keep falling over, the spasms they have, everything that is detailed in numerous neurologist reports and physiotherapy reports.
The response to that by children’s services was always that it wasn’t true and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my child and that i’d made it all up..
My child after a lifetime of having their voice heard, being listened to when they said they hurt, being given exercises to help, aids to help, medication to help, suddenly found their voice meant nothing and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Children’s services would not even allow them to access medical care for their disability.
My child grew increasingly distraught, would frequently cry asking me why nobody would believe them. When social workers were telling them they were in effect lying when describing how they feel in their own body my child would become distraught, crying, screaming, shaking, really really distressed. The social workers reacted to this by pushing my child harder, telling them over and over again there was nothing wrong with them.
Not to mention that the paperwork I had that nobody would look at confirms that my child has a disability, not that Essex Children’s Services care.
Also not forgetting that my child was told over and over again to stop pretending they had friends as it was unhealthy and they should work on making friends instead of pretending they had them. The proof they didn’t have friends was because in the ICPC it was decided by a group of people who had never met my child that they didn’t have friends, this was decided a few hours before my child went to London to watch a show together with a friend. So being told they had no friends repeatedly, insisting they do, and then being told to stop lying, was also horrendously damaging.
Also my child has autism and ADHD.
Also children’s services were adament that my child did not need mental health help, despite my child literally begging for it, their mental health was obviously in a bad place after all that i’ve mentioned above.
My child had a nasty fall when seeing another show with another friend. They hurt their foot quite badly, due to all of the social workers telling them there was nothing wrong with them, telling them they were lying when they said they were in pain and kept on falling over, my child kept how bad their foot was secret. A year later after another fall and an x-ray it was found that there was a previous broken bone that had healed.
So children’s services left a vulnerable child so scared of being called a liar when saying their foot was in a lot of pain because they had fallen over, that they refused to get treated for a broken bone.
The incident in these text messages happened, Children’s Services degrading my child for over half an hour while my child screamed and cried and said they weren’t lying
Then a couple of weeks after that my child barricaded themselves in their room so that children’s services could not degrade them again as they just couldn’t cope. My child was screaming, absolutely petrified of children’s services and what they were doing to them. Thought about jumping out of the window to get away, which would have killed them, self harmed instead.
Then there were two other social workers, Jody Wheeler and Leanne Grant. My child told them exactly what had happened and exactly how it made them feel. Absolutely nothing was said by either of them to my child, my child’s voice just didn’t matter. My child was talking about serious emotional abuse inflicted on them by children’s services over a long period of time which was so severe they almost jumped out of a window to get away from children’s services. No acknowledgement, no compassion, not offer of help, nothing. My child’s voice didn’t matter.
To the point that a child in need meeting held on the 7th June 2019 was not recorded, despite the fact that it legally has to be, because I laid out the harm done to my children, and laid out what help they desperately needed. Instead of recording what i’d said, Leanne Grant recorded nothing.
Obviously no acknowledgement of the suffering my child had endured, and no help whatsoever was offered.
As soon as they realised just how much my children had been harmed children’s services pulled out super quick with no onward help.
Then March 2020 and we were in an awful mess. We were put under Basildon social care. The social workers were nice but ended up not really doing anything. They listened to what my children said, but because by that time children’s services had decided they weren’t going to investigate and as such children’s services official view is that everything my children stated had been done to them, hadn’t, the social workers couldn’t even acknowledge the harm done to my children.
The biggest problem was that my children had suffered severe emotional abuse, yet that couldn’t even be talked about because children’s services hated my children so much that they refused to even contemplate investigating.
The social workers being there, through no fault of their own, was triggering. My children were always waiting for them to start abusing them, that, together with the abuse they suffered not being able to be discussed, it was too much for my child.
They spiralled and attempted suicide.
Because of the abuse they suffered and the way it was handled by children’s services, which was basically them acting like it didn’t happen, my child is still at risk of suicide.
If a parent had done this to a child, told them repeatedly there was nothing wrong with them despite a neurologist clearly stating they had an upper motor neuron disorder which affects their legs and bladder, that parent would have the child taken away for emotional abuse, which would be the correct thing to do.
Emotional abuse is actually worse than physical or sexual abuse, Gabriel Lowrie told me that me emotionally abusing my children by telling them they have something physically wrong with them when they don’t will have caused more damage to them than their Dad sexually abusing them. Those were basically his exact words.
Despite the fact that neither the sexual abuse, nor the fabricating illnesses were true, but children’s services were never interested in the truth.
It is true though, emotional abuse is the worst kind of abuse and that is what children’s services subjected my children to.
I would love to see a change of leadership in children’s services, I think that is the only way to safeguard the children of Essex. The emotional abuse of my children cannot just be blamed on one person, there is no oversight and no safeguarding.
My hope is that OFSTED will take me seriously. I am hoping that the fact that we’ve got nothing to gain from any of this goes in favour when they read my email. There is now nothing Essex Children’s Services can do that would make things right. There is literally no way my children can benefit in any way from this.
Essex Children’s Services response to the above is currently “the complaint was submitted late so we cannot investigate”. Which is the 6th excuse they have given after the other 5 were found to be false. That excuse is false as well.
So my children were the victims of severe and sustained emotional abuse by children’s services, they had their voices taken away and nobody would listen to them, nobody would listen to me as the parent acting on their behalf. This lead to a suicide attempt, which resulted in social care pulling out because it was causing further harm for my children as the social workers were not allowed to even acknowledge that my children had been the victims of severe emotional abuse.
I believe that OFSTED are visiting Essex Children’s Services this week, so my complaint to them regarding this will likely be too late for them to consider.
This post focuses on just one child, who not only attempted suicide because of this, they have also been left with extensive ongoing mental health problems including PTSD. They cannot even leave the house without someone being with them, they have dropped out of college, and are now unemployed and too ill to work.
Another child has psychosis and PTSD because of what is detailed above.
Another child has PTSD and mental health problems and hasn’t been to school for 2 years because of what is detailed above.
There is no oversight, there is no challenging of what social workers say, both children’s and parents voices are not listened to, and the wishes of children aren’t important.
From the Essex Children’s Safeguarding Board regarding what can trigger a serious case review, it’s got a new name but whatever.
https://www.escb.co.uk/working-with-children/child-safeguarding-practice-reviews/
When a child dies or is seriously harmed* in circumstances where abuse or neglect are known or suspected (i.e. is a serious child safeguarding case), Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships/Boards are required to consider if a Child Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR) is appropriate to consider the involvement of organisations and professionals with the child and family. In order to do this, a rapid review must be carried out within 15 days of the notification of the serious child safeguarding case to the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (see guidance below).
*Serious harm is defined as serious or long-term impairment of a child’s mental health or intellectual, emotional social or behavioural development, as well as impairment of physical health.
There is extensive proof, as well as my children’s voices (though i’m aware their voices mean nothing), to show that my children have been seriously harmed causing a long-term impairment of their mental health, their emotional social and behavioural development.
I guess because the abuse was caused by children’s services it doesn’t count.
To end this post everything i’ve written on this post has been dismissed by children’s services because they are currently incorrectly stating the complaint was submitted late. A few months ago they would have stated that they had dismissed everything on this post because of the excuse before that.