The UN Declaration and the European Convention stated that the right to private and family life is a fundamental human right that all civilised democratic societies should respect and protect.
LVU – police investigation versus social services investigation
Most people, we know, cannot understand how the police investigation can be dropped, no charges raised, yet social services refuse to return the children. This is despite the children being 13, 12 and 8 years old, so fully capable of voicing their wish to come home. They all want to return home: our boys immediately, without reservation, our daughter in time (which we understand and respect, as she is in a difficult situation with her health.)
The Police investigation
The police investigation, though slow, with big gaps between interviews, was thorough- talking to all 5 of us in the family, to school and neighbours. (And maybe to others we don’t know about). I was interviewed for over 8 hours in 4 sessions.
The police took 7.5 weeks to complete their investigation and close the case.
The Social services investigation
The social services interview was closed within 20 days from us being taken into custody. Basically those days we were in custody and 5 days after. (They have included interviews with us from June 2020, but omitted important evidence from August and September 2020 from professionals.)
When we were eventually shown the case investigation (65 pages in Swedish, less than 24 hours before a social review board meeting, during which we could address the investigation), we pointed out numerous flaws and deficiencies. Examples of these include the social workers misquoted police interviews with the children (we know that from my lawyer, who was present at the second interviews), they determined that because we have no family living in Sweden therefore we have no social network in Sweden and so on.
When we pointed out these deficiencies after this board meeting directly to the social secretaries handling our case, we were told: “Our assessment, the one you have read, is done and we will not be making any changes to it.“
They have maintained this position even as new evidence, which supports our version of events comes to light.
What started our ordeal is a cry for help by Gabby. She is not well! She hasn’t been happy since we moved to Sweden- she’s been bullied and has struggled to bridge the cultural gap between Sweden and the blend of cultures in our home. And sadly, we, as parents, have not been emotionally attuned to this.
Social services have taken the child’s account and not weighed it against the professional opinions of teachers, paediatrician and psychologist. Until recent weeks, social services has not ensured the ongoing medical support for our child either!
It seems to us, that social services had made up their minds about what monsters we are, as parents and have subsequently used information selectively to support this thesis. We have evidence that they have cherry-picked information to support their thesis, disregarding information that didn’t fit their agenda.
This also means that none of our children have been offered on-going, professional support to help them deal with the trauma of being taken from their secure home environment. We have, in fact, been questioned repeatedly about why we think such counselling would be needed unless we have abused the children. These social workers are convinced that they are doing the right thing by protecting all three children from us.
They repeatedly ignore the plea of my boys wanting to come home!
In the social services investigation report about us, we have seen how social services use “evidence” to twist the truth. A lot of the “evidence” comes from the foster home consultant and foster parents -both financially motivated to keep the children in their care for as long as possible. (Though to be fair, now, we have seen the internal journals, we see that the consultant has provided a wide variety of input, not only negative.)
Examples of this picking information to support a thesis and discarding others that don’t:
The children are witnessing violence
Our boys were together in the first foster home. They were unsettled, naturally, because of being ripped from their stable home, from people who love them and support them. I, as an adult, couldn’t (and still struggle to) comprehend what was happening. I can’t even begin to imagine how confused and terrified they have been!
In the first instance in foster care, they had long days- they had to drive 45 minutes to school each day and were at school from 7:30 am to 5 pm. They were upset by the situation and tired- emotionally and physically. The boys had arguments and fought. This was interpreted as the boys are mimicking behaviour from home and our violence, and written as a conclusion.
The children are subject to harsh punishment
During one of the arguments, in those early weeks, Anton, my 8-year-old, wanting to get away from an argument, took himself to a corner, plugged his ears, while he cried. This made it into the investigation report: Anton does this because he is mimicking a form of punishment he gets at home- kneeling in a corner.
This is the interpretation given in the report of the behaviour of my poor, traumatised child, who probably didn’t want to leave the room where his brother was, but still wanted to get away from the situation. A good example of twisting truths, in my view.
We can say it till we are blue in the face that we do not make them kneel as a form of punishment. We state that the school and we use time out, but it involves removing them from the situation, instead of any kneeling.
Have I tried kneeling? Yes. Once! 4 years ago. Have I said this to social services? Yes.
But no, this is ignored!
The “consistent” evidence
Anton did not testify to any violence or physiological abuse in the police interviews. So they manufactured “evidence”:
During an incident in the car, in the early days, Anton told the foster parent that Steve, his older brother, was being beaten by the foster parent’s son. This was dismissed as play fighting. In the follow-up conversation, Anton was asked whether he get hurt at home. His answer: “a little”.
…so this is the core evidence against us. No details. (The reason for no details is because there isn’t any systematic violence, as claimed.)
And Anton complained, on our first meeting, – a supervised contact session- after a month apart- that his father was hurting him: His stubble was rubbing at Anton’s cheeks while hugging and kissing him.
No social network
Social services have stated that we and our children have no social network and the children are therefore exceptionally vulnerable.
When we provided them with a long list of names to contact and we explained our social network, they refused to investigate. In fact, through their measures they have ripped the children out of all the support networks we have built up:
- the boys have not been allowed to go to see or stay with friends; Gabby has had more freedom, thankfully.
- the kids have been deprived of their sports activities till 2 weeks ago (over 8 weeks into this horror show)- These sports activities provide them with friends, other significant adults and near-peer support through the young coaches.
We voiced concern over this deprivation and it was held against us that we are “forcing the children” into these activities. - social services and the foster homes are proactively undermining our social network through the lies they perpetuate: My daughter believes there is a restraining order against us contacting her or being in the same place as her – which is utterly untrue. Therefore our network thinks that we are “going outside the realms of our agreement” when Will and I show up for his training session at the pool. (The same place Gabby’s session is just ending.)
The awful truth
We have heard, repeatedly, from friends and acquaintances that once social services get their hands on you they are reluctant to let go: in Sweden, according to NKMR sources [1], there are 36000 children in foster care in a population of just over 10 million. That is 10 times the number as in the UK or Germany. These consist of “22,700 children (in 2013) had round-the-clock interventions, ie care outside their own home in family homes and HVB homes (homes for care or housing), 17,000 children had support from the Social Services Act (2001: 453) [SoL] while 5,400 children received compulsory care according to the Act (1990: 52) with special provisions on care of young people [LVU] (National Board of Health and Welfare, 2014). ” [2]
SoL is the softer version of Social Services intervention- it’s when parents agree to all measures proposed by Social Services. It is voluntary care for the child, but you HAVE to stick to their plan or they can force an LVU on you.
We cannot understand why a country, so proactive in supporting children’s rights, rips so many children from their families!
It feels like family is not a valued entity in this country so focused on the individual. Article 12 of the UN Declaration, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, don’t seem to be respected and weighed by staff within the social authorities and administrative courts.
Sources:
[1] NKMR- Nordic Committee of Human Rights- https://www.nkmr.org/
[2] THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SUFFICIENTLY GOOD PARENT – A DISCOURSE ANALYTICAL REVIEW OF 12 JUDGMENTS FOR THE PURPOSE OF STUDYING HOW PARENTAL ABILITY IS ASSESSED; Sarah Svensson and Sofie Viberg; Örebro University, Department of Law, Psychology and Social Work, Autumn 2014