Should Social Services Had Been Involved Much Sooner In This Case?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266622/Jordan-Green-Final-words-boy-12-hanged-hours-expelled-school.html

Oh what a very sad and disturbing case.

What seems to be obvious from this report is the fact that there seemed to be very little communication between the school, the local authority, and the parents, of this unfortunately disturbed young school boy.

[magsmay]

I seriously blame the mother -the poor lad told his mother he felt like killing himself and she leaves him alone then swans back home around 8 pm and 'assumes he's out with friends' !!! The poor little lad must have had an awful life -he was asking for food at school -the mother should be arrested for neglect.

[youngmafbog]

Easy to blame the school, but in this case I dont think they should be. I'd like to kow more about the case before commenting further, particularly on the mother.

[hc4361]

I would be very surprised if the SS wasn't involved. Is there any evidence that they weren't?

[ummmm]

Yes, social services should have been involved. The school should have phoned them. Social services are not just about taking kids away. They offer kids emotional support and counselling where needed.

A 12 year old finds it very hard to deal with bereavement.

[hc4361]

He was disruptive in junior school, he was in a special education unit for a while so this had been going on for several years.
I am positive SS was involved, but what is more disturbing is that his mother did not return home until after 8pm when she'd been told hours before that her son had been permanently excluded from school and he'd told her by phone he felt like killing himself.

[emmie]

very sad indeed. i am not sure i do blame the mother entirely, and until more info comes out, whether social services were involved how can one lay all the blame on her. Two things could well have hit the boy hard, the loss the grandmother, and the separation of his parents which going on my own experiences was very traumatic, this may have pushed him to do this.

[ummmm]

hc - kids are drama queens. I doubt she took his comments seriously.

I also would be surprised if SS we

[ummmm]

Pressed something!!

- Were not involved. It's not necessarily to do with bad parenting.

[hc4361]

Yes, kids are drama queens but being told your child is excluded from school surely means you should collect your son from school?

[emmie]

probably, but perhaps it had happened so many times, she was fed up with it. Very hard to say what one would do in this situation, was she working, and couldn't get away earlier, no idea...

[hc4361]

And when she finally arrived home after 8pm she assumed he was at some friend's house, no idea where he was, what he was doing.
Poor parenting from any viewpoint.

[ummmm]

Yes, that sounds like poor parenting. It could also be The Mails way of wording things.

I have often walked in the house, shouted HELLO, no answer, make coffee, sit down. I wouldn't think to check the bedrooms to see if one of my kids are dead.

[ummmm]

Even after a tantrum when he shouts 'I hate you all I wish I was dead'

Said so often (grown out of it now) that we paid no heed.

Granted, mine have never been excluded, but, my oldest did cause reason for concern, to an extent that the school asked me if the could phone SS. Guess what had happened in our life?? Bereavement, my uncle died and seven months later my dad died. He couldn't cope.

It's hard to mend a childs broken heart when your own heart is breaking. So maybe this was a 'blip' in her parenting.

That ^^^ sounds like it should be in B&S...lol

ps...SS are brilliant in case like mine. He had weekly counselling for about a year. My other son, very shy and not talkative and also not showing any signs of concern, they gave him art therapy.

[emmie]

i remember saying something similar growing up, stroppy teenage years, hard to deal with for child and parent.

[craft1948]

The attitude of the mother doesn't seem the best. Harrogate High School has a very good reputation.

[NOX]

I can't see a reason to blame the mother- who apparently was working when all this occured and quite possibly might not have reasonably been able to take the time off work to collect her son. Most of the issues seemed to be manifesting at school. If a child feels it's empathised with, understood and respected then they don't behave like that, kids behave in that manner when they feel overwhelmed, out of control and because of their lack of life experience cannot see that this is a transient phase. Sadly a lot of schools are very bad at managing children who are causing disruption and this seems like an instance of school error to me not parent error. The poor kid was concerned that his mother was being made ill by the fact that he was being excluded, so I imagine he felt, guilty, afraid and worthless, all which ought to have been forseen by the school themselves. I mentor lots of ex young offenders and the pattern that emerges is not very often dissimilar to this in the way that schools have dealt with them, it's not always the parents at fault.

[magsmay]

You can't blame the school for this -the mother is a hairdresser For Funks Sake not an emergency worker or similar - why could'nt she heave herself away from her shampoo and sets to deal with her son? - There are over four hours from the end of school to her arriving home -she is obviously an unfit mother. The fact its happened over and over is no excuse for complacency -every cry for help should be taken seriously . If I arrived home and my 12 year old son was not at home I would be very very worried -was he supposed to come in from school and stay on his own for 5 hours with no adult supervision? - I'm sick of people blaming the Government or Schools or other organisations for what is a lack of parental care and guidance. The poor lad said 'have a nice life' to his mother which to me suggests he thought she was putting herself before him.

[sherrardk]

I don't think we should be placing the blame at anyone's door. We only have the briefest of details of what happened. We don't know what agencies were involved with the boy, we don't know that his mother was feckless and we don't know where the dad was. Think some are being a bit too quick to rush in and apportion blame really.

[humbersloop]

^ quite sherr, it's an inquest.