A Mother With a Mental Health Problem

This was always a big problem for the child protection social worker. In the main, children love their parents, no matter how badly they may have been treated by them. In the case of Susie (aged 8) and her mother Elaine, it was a matter of how the mother's behaviour was causing trauma for her daughter.

Susie was a loved, well cared for child, of that there was no doubt. She also had a father still in the family home - another rarity. The problem was that Elaine was diagnosed with a paranoid personality disorder. Over the previous three years, there had been several referrals from her school, in connection with the way her bizarre behaviour was upsetting Susie. On one occasion, it was recorded that Elaine burst into the school and literally pulled Suzie out from the classroom, because she was convinced that one of the other pupils was picking on her daughter. The school said this wasn't true at all and that Suzie was only endorsing her mother's story that it was, just to please her.

When I got the case, I visited the home several times. There was no doubting that Elaine was an anxious person. She still maintined that Suzie was being bullied with a story that was so convincing, I was sure it was true. Then it began to dawn on me that in Elaine's mind, the story WAS true. She saw the world as a hostile place and that everybody in it simply couldn't be trusted not to cause emotional pain to her and her daughter.

Significantly, I spoke to Suzie's father on his own a couple of times. He confirmed my hypothesis by saying that Elaine always had a tendency to 'over-exaggerate'. Like Suzie's school, he was also sure the story about the bullying was untrue.

I discussed Elaine with her mental health worker. He said that Elaine's condition was borderline. That is, it wasn't enough to be a danger to herself and to others, but it was enough to give him concern. He agreed with me that, in Elaine's world, everybody was under suspicion. She'd also had a couple of delusional episodes, he told me, one of which saw her ringing the police because she was convinced there were giant lizards in her bath. Such episodes, he added, were short-lived and certainly, there wasn't enough evidence to Section her. Further, she was taking her prescribed medication.

I had to take the case to a Child Protection Conference after another episode at school, where Elaine actually got hold of a pupils arm in the playground and warned him not to harass Suzie any longer. The boy's parents complained to the school and insisted something be done about her.

For the conference, I wrote a report containing a chronology of all the incidents of Elaine's worrying behaviour. In the its summary, I tried to be sympathetic to Elaine. There was no doubt, I wrote that she loved Suzie and that Suzie loved her. Records related that she had never physically abused Suzie or had made any threats to do so. I ended by saying that Suzie's name shouldn't be added to the Child Protection Register, because her mother's abuse of her, which came under the category of emotional, was not something that she could help. I recommended that the mental health services step up their work with Elaine, and that social services should remain involved until the situation had improved.

In the event, my line manager said my report hadn't been hard-hitting enough. We disagreed - she attended the conference and said that, in her opinion, Elaine was a danger to Suzie. The conference went on for four hours and finally decided that Suzie's name should be added to the register.

This, I believe made matters worse. All it did was raise Elaine's anxiety levels, which of course, spilled over onto Suzie, who became just as defensive and as suspicious as her mother about the whole world.

If anybody wants to comment about this case, I'd be pleased to hear from them.