📦 SWANK Dispatch: Social Workers Visited During Lunch — Left With Our Dignity in Ruins
🗓️ 26 March 2020
Filed Under: pandemic intrusion, social worker harassment, homeschooling disruption, public health breach, unannounced visits, meal interference, institutional gaslighting, disrespectful oversight
“They asked what my compost toilet was.
They didn’t ask how my daughter was after crying from being disrupted mid-nurse.”
— A Mother Whose Home Was a Classroom, Not a Crime Scene
This formal letter, dated 26 March 2020, was addressed to the Department of Social Development by Polly Chromatic, after yet another unannounced, ill-timed, and legally questionable home intrusion by social workers in the midst of the emerging COVID-19 crisis.
Let us be perfectly clear:
This was during a global pandemic.
She was cooking lunch for her four children.
There was no safeguarding emergency.
They gave her 15 minutes’ notice.
🦠 I. Coronavirus? Not Their Concern.
While the rest of the world was locked down, distancing, and masked, the social workers:
• Showed up unannounced
• Washed their hands — but wore no masks
• Breathed across a home mid-mealtime
• Brought no information about the virus, no aid, no public health literature
• Added only stress
Noelle:
“It was extremely shocking to me that social workers of all people would put my family at risk at such a time.”
🏠 II. Every Object Was an Interrogation
They asked:
“What is that?” (about the compost toilet)
“What is that?” (about the ballet barre)
“What is that?” (about cat food on the floor)
“How is school going?” (during a pandemic where all schools were closed)
They ignored:
The education schedule
The house renovation efforts
Her daughter’s crying from interrupted nursing
The lunch that went cold, uneaten
📞 III. Post-Visit Gossip: They Called Her Husband
“It’s extremely disrespectful to meet with me and not say anything about any problems and then call my husband and talk to him about such problems.”
As if she weren’t the parent.
As if she weren’t the educator.
As if she didn’t exist.
✍️ IV. Her Boundary Was Firm, Civil, and Reasonable
“From here on out I need a written report of what needs to be done and a copy of the corresponding regulations for such requests.”
Not because she’s defensive.
Because she’s efficient.
Because she has four children, a book in progress, a business to run, a home to renovate — and no time for random theatre dressed as concern.