Those are tough cases. I'm used to parents accusing the other of being abusive and although there is a lot of debate regarding whether one parent can actually alienate the other parent, I think the question is sort of silly - because I see it happen all the time. It is disgusting.

As a Guardian ad litem, you learn to have a filter whenever you listen to anything, be it the child, the mom, the dad, etc. You really can't take much at face value and unless you are an egomaniac, it doesn't take long to figure out that you don't read people nearly as well as you once thought you did. Oh sure, some people are just lousy liars but others are amazing, down to the body language. So you end up not trusting anyone. When in doubt, you assume they are evil. Slight exaggeration, certainly.

I am still a bit confused as to what the underlying circumstances are.

Sounds like someone abused the child. Since you suggested that it could have been someone else besides the father, does that mean the child is too young to remember? It SOUNDS like they dropped the criminal case as being too weak (child a poor witness?), which means that DSS (which has a lower burden of proof) is frantically trying to figure out a way to avoid allowing the child to be alone with the dad because they think he did it. So at this point, I'm guessing that they have either a protective order in place (child living with mom) or they have taken the child into custody and are restricting visits with the father unless they are supervised by DSS.

DSS rarely supervises visits on the weekend so that doesn't surprise me. IN fact, they NEVER do where I live. There are agencies in some jurisdictions that provide supervised visitation for what is usually a substantial fee. The good part is that they write a pretty thorough report on what they observe. Unfortunately, in addition to the cost, a lot of places don't have this type of service, at all.

How do you know the social worker had something happen to her that has her trying to right the wrongs of the world? Did she tell this to the father? If it was a similar situation it might be grounds to have her removed (though they rarely do that). The fact that she shared personal information would be troubling.

What sort of requirements were placed on the father that are too burdensome? I am a little confused about the prior relationship with the father and child. Wasn't there anyone prior to the case who could describe how they interacted?

I don't know about this particular case, but I can tell you that ALL THE TIME I have kids tell me that they don't want to visit mom or dad but, "PLEASE DON'T TELL THEM I SAID THAT!" Normally, that is older children - the little kids just cry.

The truth is, kids make stuff up all the time. You really have to key in on their body language to have any hope of knowing what is going on. The little kids are easier to read than the older ones, for obvious reasons.