Социальный работник спас детей от отцовского самоубийства в ходе кризисного вмешательства

This is the third article in the series 'Social Work Tales', where retired social worker Mike Scott looks back on his 40 years in the sector and reminisces about the mishaps, the triumphs and the cases that struck a chord. The sheer unpredictability of a day in social work famously makes the work all the more difficult, while also being one of its attractions. There will be times during a crisis when there’s no time to prepare, or even get your thoughts in order, before you dive in headfirst. That was certainly the case in one of my most memorable interventions.  I was supporting a boy of six and a girl of ten. Their mother was dead, their father was in prison and, with no available relatives, they were placed in foster care, with me visiting regularly and taking them to see their dad at a high-security prison every month or so. He was in for manslaughter. Eventually, he came out and I got the children back home but stayed involved as no-one (including him) was sure the situation would work long-term.  The dad loved the children and they loved him, but he liked a drink or two and was always extra unpredictable when drunk. A crisis call and a 'hostage' situation Late one afternoon, during a relatively quiet phase, an urgent call came in from the police to say he’d been involved in a dispute with the neighbours and was now responsible for “a hostage situation” with the children! Could I come?  As this was before mobile phones, I rushed home to tell my partner I’d be back late and repeated what the police had said. The information I had received was that he was holding the children hostage and was threatening to stab anyone who tried to come into the flat.  Surely, it would be okay, I reassured her,  but I don’t think she believed me. Negotiations through a letterbox Outside the flat, the police were trying unsuccessfully to calm things down but, as they weren’t his favourite people, I told them to get back out of sight and began negotiating through the letterbox.  We’d always had a good relationship (one of the benefits of working with a family for years) and he seemed pleased I’d arrived, but he still refused to open the door. So, I was stuck on my knees in the corridor. After reassuring him that the police were out of the way, I asked him about his threat to stab anyone who tried to come in and was relieved, but not entirely convinced, when he declared: “There’s no way I’m going to stab you, Mike.” The children were inside but, unable to hear them, my worry had converted into adrenaline and so I pressed on with persuading him to let me in, without stopping to think about the danger. After a minute or two, the door opened and in I went. A cup of tea and a handful of pills My immediate thought was: “Where are the children?” They were in the kitchen, squatting in a corner, out of the way. Were they okay? Yes, they were. Now, it was time to concentrate on their dad, who seemed to be having some sort of mental health crisis.  “Let’s have a cup of tea”, I said, in true British style, and off he went to put the kettle on.  Unfortunately, this only calmed things down for a few minutes. It wasn’t long after that he started to get agitated again and suddenly jumped up from his chair.  He grabbed a load of pills from the mantelpiece and shoved them in his mouth before I could stop him, shouting, “That’s it, I’m going to finish it now!”, before slumping down on the sofa. All's well that ends well I took the opportunity to lead the children out of the flat and left them with the police while I went back to check on him. I said I was going to get an ambulance to take him to A&E and gathered up the pill boxes to send with him.  When the ambulance turned up, he allowed me to lead him into it and I managed to get the children back with the foster family they had formed a good relationship with previously: a relatively positive result, all things considered. By the time I eventually got home, my partner was on the verge of calling in the funeral directors and was not at all happy with my explanation that I’d been in the midst of negotiations and couldn’t have phoned her earlier! The power of long-term relationship building  However peculiar this situation may seem, it does illustrate that social work is nothing without relationships, especially with the people everyone else has given up on.  My relationship with the father and the children made me confident enough that I take a big risk by entering that flat. I’m not sure there is time nowadays to really develop relationships in that way – and if not, what happens to children like these who find themselves in a crisis? As this was shortly before I changed jobs and moved to a new area, I never found out what happened next, but this case does a good job of illustrating the sort of urgent decisions social workers may find themselves having to take, and the risk of danger they might have to face.  How do you square the circle of a father's drinking and unpredictability and his kids’ love for him? Sometimes, you just have to go with your experience and keep your fingers crossed!