what rights does my daughter have?

[Dood24]

It's been almost a year now since the nightmare for my daughter and her boyfriend started and in that time they have suffered a lot of mental abuse by social services, abuse that back in June 2022 almost caused my daughter to take her own life, 4 police officers managed to restrain her and stop her jumping in to a river at a well known suicide spot. The mental abuse she suffered there was she was told what she could and couldn't wear, what she could and couldn't eat, had the majority of her freedom taken away, wasn't allowed a tv in her room, wasn't allowed on her phone, basically had her human rights taken away.
After the near suicide incident she wasn't offered any help from social services, she came to stay with me, her mum and her sister on advice from the police and ambulance. Things began to look better after, the judge ordered the social worker to hand the case over to a different social worker, the new social worker said she was going to start trying to get her eldest 3 children home, they had support workers going in 24/7 which after a couple of weeks got reduced to just night times. Then the original social worker became a manager and things went bad again, 24/7 support workers logging everything they do, even if they eat a sweet it gets logged. They have literally had their freedom taken again, social services are now trying to take their youngest 2 from them and have them adopted. The reason for that is they say my daughter is a danger to them because of her alleged bad upbringing, witnessing supposed domestic violence between me and her mum and alcohol misuse by her mum on a regular basis throughout her childhood, she has told social services that none of that happened and they told her she had such a traumatic upbringing she doesn't remember it because she has blocked it from her memory. The mental suffering social services are causing her surely can't be legal, making up serious slanderous statements about me and her mum can't be legal. My daughter is close to breaking point again and I am trying to find out what rights she does have and are social services legally allowed to control her life.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Dood24,

Thank you for your post. I am very sorry to hear about the difficult and stressful time that you, your daughter and your family are experiencing.

You are worried that children’s services are going to recommend that the younger two children should be adopted. From your previous posts I can see that you did put yourself forward as a potential long term carer for some of the children but your assessments were unfortunately negative. If there are no other family members or friends who are willing or able to put themselves forward as long term carers then it is possible that adoption would be considered (if the children cannot return to your daughter’s care). Your daughter should be working closely with her solicitor to have the best chance of successfully challenging this. We have 2 advice sheets about challenging placement orders and adoption orders which can be found HERE. If a placement order or adoption order is likely to be made then I would suggest that your daughter read these advice sheets thoroughly. In the meantime it is important that your daughter continues working as best as she can with children’s services and with her solicitor in order to have the best chance of having her children returned to her care.

I am not clear whether your daughter’s three older children are still in her care at the moment. However it is clear that you do not feel that the support offered by the support workers has been helpful and you feel that your daughter has been unfairly treated by children’s services. Any involvement by children’s services should be proportionate and they should provide good reason and evidence to show why they feel it is necessary to recommend any restrictions on your daughter or impose 24/7 supervision by support workers. It would be advisable for your daughter to discuss this with her solicitor and to speak with the social worker or team manager about what she is finding difficult and how she would like the support to be different. We have guides to working with solicitors and with social workers that can be found HERE.

I am sorry to hear that your daughter’s mental health is suffering and it is very worrying that you feel that she is close to breaking point. Please encourage her to reach out for any support she would find useful. She could contact her GP for mental health support services run by the NHS, or she could seek support from Mind, Rethink or Samaritans. Match Mothers provide support the mothers who are living apart from their children and PAC-UK offer support to people who are at risk of their children being adopted.

I hope that this is of some help. Please do post again if you have any further queries or you can call our confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak with an adviser.

Best wishes,
Suzie