Oranga tamariki?
Hi there,
I wanted to ask if anyone had a social worker reach out to OT to get more support for a family?
I have been working with a social worker since I have had our third child. Struggling with postpartum depression, OCD and anxiety. For some counselling and check in support as I was struggling with the overwhelm of three kids under 4.5.
I’ve mentioned to her that my husband has been struggling too as we are so burnt out from not only either being a sole worker (husband) or a stay at home mom (me), but the stress of working pay check to pay check and cost of living rising and other factors like having a baby waking up every 30-45 mins in the night!! I was concerned for my husband’s well being lately as he has been doing it all to help take the load off me; work, help with kids and home chores and not getting much sleep lately and how it translates to how he reacts to our kids when we are stretched thin and they do what kids do which Is push boundaries and often our emotional regulation isn’t on our side. I mentioned how husband grabbed my sons knees tight to ask him to stop instigating fights/hitting each other with our other two year old son after being asked many times and removing them. Five year old got upset being told off and it probably took by surprise . We would never harm our kids intentionally but I think the social worker was concerned about this. Anyway she offered to refer us to some services that may give us practical support. She went away and called me that she reached out to her team and oranga tamariki for some advice.
She called me to tell me that she called without passing on my details and I was straight away in panic mode as because of the stigma of oranga tamariki and I was genuinely feeling anxious about our kids and family as I don’t know what to expect with dealing with them.
We are loving parents who genuinely want to do our best but we are very much in the thick of parenthood with three very young kids. Almost five yrs, 2.5 years and six months old.
Has any one experienced working with OT and it was genuinely about helping parents? I have a feeling they will offer parenting programs but we have limited village for babysitting, very time poor as our kids don’t sleep till 8:30 and we are both strapped to chores all night, baby won’t take a bottle and I find mentally really hard to juggle the three kids being fed, bathed and put to sleep so my husband can go to an evening workshop. Can I be honest in that we can’t commit to a workshop with how much resources we have if they offer this?
What should I really be expecting from OT? 😢
This is all new to us…
We don’t feel we have done anything to really be a concern of the safety of our children but still feeling anxious about possibly having records on their system even if it gets closed or something happening to our family (probably sleep deprivation isn’t helping my anxiety!)
Please help settle my mind and any advice would be greatly appreciated 😮💨
Been struggling to find support for my mental health and finally found a social worker I could confide into and felt let down today I couldn’t be open and honest without being called the officials . Unsure what to do from here as I don’t feel i can open up much anymore with the social worker. I feel this is why so many moms and dads struggle… alone 😢
Hope this makes sense, sleep deprived and typing is going well together 💔