Guides / Social services
Chapter 9 · 5 min read
When concerns or allegations are raised about you
In short
- 1Respond briefly and factually, and ask which incidents and evidence are relied on.
- 2Separate what's untrue from what's uncomfortable, and recognise your child's experience.
- 3Never coach, question or involve your child in the adult dispute.
Having something said about you can leave you angry, frightened and pushed aside, especially when it affects time with your child. You might believe it's untrue, recognise some truth in it, or remember it differently.
Your first job isn't to win the argument between adults. It's to state your position clearly, help professionals look at the facts and keep your child out of it.
What the record should show
An allegation can be included in an assessment or a record. That's allowed. What matters is how it's written down. Social workers must keep clear, accurate records, show where each piece of information came from and work in partnership with parents, including fathers.[1][22] In practice, that means an allegation should be recorded as someone's account, not stated as an established fact, and your response should be recorded alongside it.
If an allegation is written up as if it's already established, or your side isn't recorded, ask for that to be put right.
I understand this allegation has been included. Could you record it as [name]'s account, and record my response alongside it: [brief facts]?
Your position and your child's experience
You can deny an allegation and still understand that what happened may have affected your child. Arguments, police at the door, missed contact or sudden changes at home can upset a child, whether or not the allegation is accurate.
I deny the allegation that I threatened my partner. My account is that [brief facts]. The original messages and [any independent record] may help. I recognise that the argument and the police coming to the house may have frightened our son. I'll use written communication, follow the agreed handover arrangements and keep to any restrictions while this is looked at.
Don't get dragged into defending everything
When concerns shift or new ones appear, you may feel you have to answer every point. Some will use broad words like "controlling" or "aggressive". Calmly ask which incidents, behaviour and effects on your child are being relied on.
Defending yourself over and over pulls attention away from the evidence and your child, and can come across as reactive. Give one clear response, then go back to what can be checked and what your child needs now.
I don't agree with that description. Please tell me the specific incidents, dates and evidence being relied on, and how it's said to have affected my child, so I can respond accurately.
Keep your child out of it
Don't question your child, tell them what to say, ask them to record the other parent or show them adult messages.
If your child tells you something important without being asked, listen calmly. Afterwards, write down their words as closely as you can, with the date, time and what was happening.
When some of it is true
So far, this chapter has assumed you dispute what's been said. Sometimes that isn't the whole picture. You might read the assessment, recognise a pattern rather than one bad moment, and feel the pull to explain it away.
It helps to separate what's unfair from what's just uncomfortable. Being described in a way that stings isn't the same as being described wrongly. Your intent doesn't change the impact, either. You may know exactly why you raised your voice, but that doesn't change what your child saw and heard.
If a course or piece of work is recommended and it lands close to something real, doing it honestly isn't admitting guilt. It shows the opposite: that you can hear something hard and do something with it.
Reading this back, I recognise that some of it is fair. I have raised my voice during difficult handovers and when things got stressful at home, and I'm not proud of that. I've started a parenting course and I'm working on responding differently. There are other concerns I don't recognise, and I'd like the chance to respond to those separately.
This isn't about accepting everything to look cooperative, or performing insight you don't feel. It's about being as honest with yourself as you're asking the process to be with you.
If you're the one being abused
Fathers experience domestic abuse too, and many worry they won't be believed. Some hold back because it doesn't look like what they think abuse looks like. Others feel embarrassed, as if saying it makes them look weak, or as if they're overreacting to something they should be able to handle. That reaction is common. It doesn't make what's happening any smaller.
That fear isn't always in your head. Some men are laughed at, told nobody will believe a man, or made to feel that naming it will count against them as a father. If that happens, it says something about the response, not about whether what you went through was real.
Abuse isn't only physical violence. It can include coercive or controlling behaviour, monitoring, financial control, cutting you off from family and friends, humiliation, threats, or using arrangements for the children to put pressure on you. Coercive control can carry on after separation, and children and professionals can be drawn into it.[15]
If you feel unsafe or unable to speak openly, ask to speak to the social worker on your own. Give specific examples and rough dates, and explain the effect on you and your child. Focus on the pattern and its impact rather than labels.
There's something I need to tell you privately. I've been on the receiving end of behaviour at home that I think is abuse, and I'm worried about the effect on the children. Can we talk on our own?
The ManKind Initiative and the Men's Advice Line are there for men in this position. Their details are in Contacts and resources.