Help with contact issues
Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 8:29 pm
We have had our niece in our care since September 2014. Right from the beginning we said that we didn't want to facilitate contact between the birth father as we know that he is a violent man. He used to beat up my sister-in-law. However the children's services talked us into it saying that it would be best for our niece to do it, so for the sake of her we have been doing it. At each of the contacts she is always reluctant to go to him as she is scared of him because she witnessed the domestic violence at the home. At the last handover that we went to she would not go to him at all and got really distressed and started crying, so much so that we had to call the contact off which made the birth father get angry and he started acting aggressively. Since then we have refused to do the handover but since we live in Somerset and the local authority where my niece became looked after is Windsor, they have not been able to find anyone else to do the handovers, it is 3 hours away. The local authority keep threatening us and saying that we have to do it as we are foster carers. I believe now all along they were just trying to save money by getting us to do it all along. Can they force us to do these handovers even though there is so much animosity between the parties?