@bozz, I understand your feelings about this. And I am sure that the people you know that work for CPS are good people. However, you are sure that they always tell the truth and the people who are affected by CPS workers (not saying the ones you know) are making up excuses and complaining. You mention larger areas and it not happening where you are. So I take it you live in a small community? Well, I live in rural Ireland. The thing here is that in the larger cities, like Dublin, they have so much going on, there are places they won't even touch. There are two well known areas of Dublin where police won't even go, let alone social workers. Places where you can see 5 year old children outside smoking...In those places, you won't see CPS show up, because they're afraid. In other bigger cities, they have too many 'big' cases, like drug addiction, they won't even go to 'lesser' cases, like people living in a messy house etc. As I said, I live in rural Ireland. Here, it's totally different. Of course, they will have cases of real neglect and abuse, but a lot less. The problem here is that they somehow need to keep themselves in a job. And that's the problem. I've met a social worker here who used to work with problem youth. She has more experience than some others and will not nick-pick and try to make a case if it isn't there. She is one of the good ones. Unfortunately, I have been the target of one that isn't one of the good ones. My sister in law, who teaches child protection law at university and deals with lots of these cases, met her too and she will tell anyone that I am not lying about this. About 8 months ago, this case worker came to my house after we just moved here. Yes, the house was a mess, since everything was still in boxes and we only just handed in the key to the old house the day before. They came because my daughter (almost 16 at the time) had been staying elsewhere after she told me she was with her best friend. The case worker thought what I told her about just moving here and therefore not having things settled in was an excuse. But it was the honest truth. From the beginning, she worked at making a case against me, never to work with me. Our family is 'different' you see. My kids are home-schooled. That was an issue, because in her opinion, kids needed to be in school or they would be socially isolated. The fact that all of my children are involved in a few sports and other clubs and that I drive around the place 6 days a week to bring them to places, wasn't enough for her. My youngest had to go to creche, even though he was just 3 years old, and it's not mandatory to send him anywhere. There are many, many things she came up with that were either unrealistic (she said for instance that our animals, 2 dogs, 3 cats and 1 pony could cause my kids to get sick...even though the neighbours cows are closer to our house than the pony is and my dogs never soil around the house) or complete lies. Everything I told her, she twisted into her own fictitious stories and she even made stuff up. Now, last Thursday I had a hearing about this. Before that, I filed a complaint about her. I was lucky. The chairman saw right through her games and wouldn't have any of it, since there was no evidence that my kids were in any way mistreated. So he threw the case out. I am sure, that others aren't so lucky. If the man would have not seen through it all, I could have lost my children, for no good reason other than the case workers own opinions. So I was lucky he saw the case for what it was, but at the same time I have been tormented by this woman for more than 8 months! I hardly slept in that time. I was so stressed that people around me were worried I would end up getting seriously ill or end up in hospital. Something that can never be in the kids' best interest. The stress rubbed off on them too of course, because their mother had them change their clothes 3 times a day just in case the case worker would come in and see a stain on their shirt. It was absolute HELL. So even though I don't doubt that the people you know are good people, I am about as sure that this woman will tell her friends our story, and these friends will probably nod and agree that I must be the most horrible mother they have ever heard about. They only hear her story. Not mine. So they can never be a judge of what really goes on in her world. The only hope I have that people will realize that she , in fact, should not be working in the job, is when the complaint is taken seriously and they talk to other families who she has been working with. Maybe they have been lucky too. Maybe not...