Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

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hi lotta,
$%*!!!@%$%!
my gut feeling is that the sw may be convinced by three months of new improved behaviour, but any court would want to see much longer before being prepared to risk your granddaughter. and let's be clear ~ in "the next case" the same social workers would be chastising you for failing to protect your granddaughter from the potential harm.
if the parents do choose to go back to court, more time will pass before anything will happen anyway. and i think that has to be your main goal, to wait as long as possible before exposing your granddaughter to any further risk. (also in that time the sw may have "grown up" a little, and "smelled the coffee" !!)
and you're right about starting school ~ difficult enough for any child, but her whole school life could be adversely affected if things go wrong at the start.
so while continuing to congratulate your daughter on her continued success ~ if either parent is ever to be fully trusted they must surely learn and understand that there have to be consequences for their previous behaviour ~ if they (and social worker) can't see that, it really doesn't look like they've learnt the important lessons about putting the child's needs before their own ~ so i really can't see how or why they should be "rewarded" while the innocent child, who has not been the wrongdoer in all of this, should be put at risk.
best wishes, and keep strong,
old bear

Got to agree with Irene, its nowhere near long enough.

Id also be questioning the involvement of the SS seing as you have RO and I assume are out of proceedings now. The LA should have backed off by now, if there was an issue over future contact and they wernt certain of the way you would handle it, then they should have stayed involved not agree to a final order.

You are absolutely right in saying that increasing the contact or changing the current arrangements is not a good idea considering the other major change going on in this childs life at the moment, (school) Id be giving her at least half a term to settle in before giving her anything additional to cope with.

And Id be telling the SW that, and asking what her legal involvement with you as a family is now you have the RO.

not sure what proceedings you were in or whter the child was ever under an interim care order. if this was the case it could be that a supervision order was granted to the local authority so that they could remain involved for a further year in an advisory role.

although you're not happy with the suggestion, and it was just that, you could still view the continued involvement n a positive way, because we hear so often on this site of people who have been left without any support at all upon the making of an order. perhaps you could call upon the sw to mediate between you and the father indirectly in order to for you to able able to support the child in her relationship with her father.

however, i do agree that any changes to contact vcannot be considered until the child has settled into her new school and become established there, and certainly no joint contacts until their relationship is proven to be stable in the longer term.