Need advise regarding contact

[lizz08]

Hi sorry not sure if i'm doing this right as new to here to cut the long story short i have a sgo for my g/s who is 5 now have had him since he was 3 weeks old his mother dumped him. She has only seen g/s about 11 times since i have had him at my house supervised by me, every year i get solictors letters saying she wants contact in which i always give her which she comes down say twice and if he calls her by her name we dont hear from her again for a while. In july this year i recieved another letter from her solictor saying she wants contact which i gave her again once a month at my house she came for 3 months then all of a sudden another letter arrives saying it not working for her and she wants contact every 2wks
at a contact centre i dont feel my g/s would benefit from this as the last time she came he kept calling her by her name so she shouted at him i'm mum, he still carried on calling her by her name in which she started to ignore him in which i told her not to and he even calls me by my name now n again. He kept asking her to play with him in the garden in which she was doing everything to upset him and make him cry.My solicitor has said the court will agree with a contact centre with a veiw that one day she will get him back any idea's on how i go about this would help. Many Thanks liz

[Robin D]

Hi Lizz08 and welcome.

Firstly, if what you have written is accurate I think you need to find another solicitor.

It's classic that Mum's want to turn things on and off to suit their lifestyles rather than the needs of the child. I hope you have a diary of when contact has taken place to show that its been erratic. Also make sure you document what has happened at recent contact sessions.

With a SGO there is no presumption that the child will return home. It's designed as a permanant option for a child in the same way as adoption. After 5 years no judge is going to up contact without good reason. Indeed if the child was in local authority care, they would probably be reducing contact, not increasing it.

With or without solicitor, I would say you are exercising your PR to the benefit of the child by not putting them through distressing contact sessions. I would also prepare a list of conditions under which you are prepared to support contact. These should include:

• Mum should not shout at the child or apply pressure to call her by any name.
• Contact is to be regular and positive for the child. If the child gets distressed you will withdraw him from contact.

If she's not prepared to agree, let her apply to the court. You hold an SGO and therefore the courts saw fit to invest in you the responsibility to bring up that child. Although it may seem stressful to have it challenged, your responsibility is to the child, not the mother.

I'm sure the advice line will give you more structured assistance, and you need to decide what to do about a solicitor, if anything. If you decide to change, make sure you get one who is on the Children's panel. If you are in the north of the country, Ridley and Hall have an excellent record.

Good luck ....... Robin

[lizz08]

Thank you for your advise i'm from Dorset i did forget to add that she has another boy now which again she dont who the father is he is a yr n half and my solicitor says if she is bringing him up ok why cant she with g/s she has another b/f whom is taking drugs and they argue all the time in front of the one she has, they split up all the time and she goes off with other men in which she leaves the young one with them and gets him to call them daddy i hear all this from my other daughter who lives quite close to her as she lives in essex. My g/s does not know anything that is going on so how can i just put him in a contact centre with her my solictor has now said refuse her all contact and to let her take it to court but they will still agree with her having contact every 2wks in a contact centre . There is alot of things she has said to me like it dont feel like he's her son and she dont love him like her other so im really worried if she does get him back he will suffer in which she will deny saying and i have no prove of what she says to me.Im sorry if my post seems all over the place but i feel really stressed and cant stop crying.

[Robin D]

Hello again Liz. Dorset.... a lovely county. Back in the 1600's and 1700's my ancestors lived in Holnest and then Cerne Abbas.

I really don't see that Mum having the other child makes any difference at all. The mother of our lad has two others that she has brought up, but there has been no discussion at all about him returning home, and he is only on a Residence Order.

I'm probably out of line, but it sounds to me as though your solicitor is out more for an easy life rather than doing what is right for the child and fighting your corner. If you ring the advice line they may be able to steer you towards a solicitor that might better be able to assist.

The stress is a hard one to manage, but you do need to find the strength to do so. Whatever the outcome, could you look your grandson in the eye if you hadn't done your absolute level best to protect him? A his age, he would also have an opinion to express that the court has to take account. You may feel alone, but believe me when I say that many on this forum, including my wife and I have been through the same situation, with all the self doubts, frustration, anger and sadness that come into play. It's quite normal, but sometimes we've all had to shed a tear, then shake ourselves down, recognise the self pity and get on with the task at hand. That may sound very harsh, but believe me its true.

Apart from the effect it will be having on your grandson, you need to focus on getting real evidence together in case it ends up back in court. Never stop writing a diary. Log everything. If you can go back now and write things up, do so. If it comes to court battle, having hard evidence such as 'contact took place on dates 1, 2, and 3'. On the latter two Mum was late. During contact on occasions 2, 4, 5 and 6, she shouted at the child about the name and he was visibly distressed. After that visit, he wetted the bed two nights in a row. I asked Mum on date 3 to not to shout at the child as it was upsetting him. etc... Although the 'content' of what was said can be disputed, she will not have the same notes so will be less able to dispute things.

My final piece of advice is one that others here tell me they have found useful.
Worry only about the the things you can change. Worrying about things you cannot change is a waste of emotional energy that you need for changing the things you can influence. Reinhold Niebuhr put it famously another way.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.


Best wishes ....... Robin

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Liz,

Welcome to the board and thank you for posting. I’m sorry you are having such a stressful time. I’m not saying your solicitor is right or wrong but it is important to find a solicitor you have confidence in and remember that any advice they give you is just that. We are not allowed to recommend particular solicitors but you can look on The Law Society website for details of solicitors local to you. Do be aware however that if you have public funding (which used to be called legal aid) it can be tricky to change solicitors as you are generally required to go through the firm’s internal complaints process first.

First of all, remember that the issues of contact and the SGO coming to an end are completely separate. Yes the amount of contact a parent has will be taken into consideration but it would have to be substantially more that fortnightly contact in a contact centre and be consistent for a long period of time before it will hold much weight. I think it was wrong of your solicitor to give you this impression that one will automatically lead to the other. Here is a link to our SGO advice sheet. At page 6 there is a small section about how an SGO can be ended. It is far from being an easy process and your daughter doesn’t have an automatic right to apply to discharge the SGO. First of all she has to get permission from the court to make her application and show that there has been a significant change of circumstances since the SGO was made. Even if she does get permission to make her application, there will be full court proceedings and the court will only discharge the SGO if it is in your grandson’s best interests. The court will not change the “status quo” (in this case change his main carer) unless it is clearly best for him.

Now I’ll deal with the issue of contact. The court will make a contact order if they think it is in your grandson’s best interests. Your grandson is still very young, so it is very possible that the court will think it is in his best interests to build a stable relationship with his Mum that hopefully will last his whole life, regardless of who he lives with. However, you are valid to raise the point of her being flaky; that the lack of consistency and so on is not in his best interest and the court might agree with you. Neither I nor anybody else on the board has enough information to say whether or not Mum’s contact application will be successful as each case is so individual and all we know is the information in your posts. However, I do think that your solicitor is right in that it would be better for you for this to go through the court system due to Mum’s unreliability. If you oppose contact, it will be many months before the court has sufficient evidence to make their decision and you cannot be forced into any contact arrangement before there is a full hearing. Also the court will then be able to see exactly how she is and monitor what goes on. You should keep a diary of events and start writing down what has happened in the past as you will need this in the course of the proceedings.

I’m sorry this is so long. Please do get back in touch with any more questions you have. Good luck with everything.

Best wishes

Suzie

[David Roth]

Whatever you do about contact, it is important that you can show your decisions are based on what will be best for the child. This applies to both the level of contact and what actually happens in the contact. For example, it would not be good for your grandson that his mother shouts at him "I'm mum," as you have described, during ehr contact. His mother should be using contact as an opportunity to see her son, and not to try and disrupt his placement with you, which could make contact confusing and upsetting for him.

I would suggest that contact should only be increased if it will be good for the boy to see more of his mother. That would depend on what actually happens in the contact. Even if adults are in conflict over a child, they should not allow the conflict to spill over into contact, or make the child feel that he is being drawn into taking sides. If mother is to have contact, she must conduct herself during the contact in such a way as to give the message to her son that it is OK with her that he is with you. Even if she was worried about his being with you, contact would not be the right place for her to raise this.

If the issue of contact does come to court, then it would be to decide whether or not there should be a contact order. That would be a court order to state how often contact should take place, and possibly some other details. Your argument against that could be that it would be wrong to impose a permanent pattern of contact on such a young child, when his circumstances and need for contact might change a lot over the coming years. There would be no need for such an order if you were willing to accept in principle that he could have some contact, but that you needed to be in charge of the contact in order to ensure that it happens in a way that is right for the boy. You have already shown yourself to be willing to be flexible over contact. You also need to be confident to be able to manage the contact so that you can curtail it if it is upsetting or confusing for your grandson.

When FRG did our study of contact arrangements last year, we spoke to some parents who were separated from their children, and I have no doubt about the very real pain that parents in those circumstances are experiencing. However, when it comes to contact they have to put those feelings to one side and do what is best for the child. For some people that is very hard, but it is what has to be expected of them.