3 disabled placed in foster care

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Greatdefender
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:32 pm

3 disabled placed in foster care

Post by Greatdefender » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:13 pm

Loving mum and dad of 9 kids, 3 disabled. Due to their condition they need a lot of care. Care given by mum and dad, mum has anxiety. Court under direction of health believe we don’t give adequate care. We do and have for twelve years, but missed some appointments. The health board said it would take 3 months to put a care package together for us to support us. At court I found out that aunt and uncle trained to provide care under direction of social services, but this withheld from mum and dad till court.
Isn’t this reason to appeal the judgement.
The foster carers have only basic knowledge and not the experience of mum and dad, dad had to show them how to provide some care and just knows they cannot provide such a high level of care dad and mum used to providing. Since court 4 other friends have volunteered to lend support.
My solicitor says we don’t have grounds to appeal as nothing has changed, 7 days left to appeal. Advice please

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 4210
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: 3 disabled placed in foster care

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Thu Oct 11, 2018 2:23 pm

Dear Greatdefender

Thank you for your post and welcome to the parents’ discussion forum. My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group.

I am sorry that 3 of your children were removed from your care and placed with their aunt and uncle. This must be very hard for you and the children's mother.

It would be very unusual simply to have alternative carers turn up at court and the children placed in their care. Children’s Services (the new name for social services) would have carried out an assessment of the carers and copies of their report lodged with the court and sent to the other parties in the case.

As parents your and the mother would have had a parenting assessment carried out and it seems that the assessment was a negative one which meant that other family members could be considered. Normally, parents would suggest which family member is willing to be assessed. However, in some instances and family member can approach children’s services and asked to be assessed in order to prevent children in the family ending up in the care system or even adopted.

You say in your post that because you were not aware that aunt and uncle had been trained to meet the children’s needs that would be a reason to appeal the judgement. Unfortunately, I do not think it would be a reason. To appeal a decision it would be necessary to show that the judge made a mistake in law or failed to apply the facts of the case appropriately. Your solicitor who has all the information and knows your case has advised that there are no grounds for an appeal.

From what you say in your post, it was said that you and mm were unable to provide adequate care and this among other evidence is, I think, the basis upon which the judge reached his or her decision.

It is not clear from your post whether the court made care orders in respect of your children or aunt and uncle were granted different orders.

I think it is important for you to know what level of contact you, as parents, will continue to have with your children. Although it is not clear if there is a care order, assuming that was the order made, I have included our advice sheet Duties on Children’s Services when children are in the care system for your information. The court may already have made an order relating to the children’s contact with their parents.

Hopefully, in time you will be able to work with and support the aunt and uncle in caring for your children.

Should you wish to speak with an adviser about children’s services involvement with your children and their placement, you can telephone our advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

Greatdefender
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:32 pm

Re: 3 disabled placed in foster care

Post by Greatdefender » Sun Oct 21, 2018 12:18 pm

Hi, parenting assessments have not taken place yet.
Our house is tidy. All medical requirements are met.
Negatives are we missed appointments
A lot of time taken up night and day providing care.
Have 6 other healthy kids.
The health board thinks we are not doing what we were actually doing.
They felt our kids poor weights were down to neglect. When in fact kids with eb all struggle to get sufficient nutrition.
We did all we could and constantly battled with them to eat, one child had a dilation which helped that I pushed for. The other two were meant to be booked to be tested if dilation needed but never were. They put in foster care on interim order on basis of neglect through malnutrition and missed appointments.
In care tgeir diet is worse, one kid is now on lansoprazole for reflux as all he will eat is gravy.
Another has been given specs from Tesco’s rather than ophthalmologist and on last check he had 20:20 vision. And the third had to be taken to hospital for a standard morning dressing change as now dressings or topical s were available to do the change at home. The foster carers received 1 hr of training before having our kids, whilst we have twelve years experience.
We have genuine concerns that they may die in care.
We were meant under court order to have weekend visiting this weekend, but it was cancelled as Ss, had not completed the forms.

We are concerned and feel our children best served being with us with support. But it will take 3 months for nursing support at best to be available. But we have backup from aunt and uncle who received same training as foster carers and also have two friends who are foster carers who have put their name forward to be trained in eb to offer support.
It seems the world is insane

Miserylovescompany2
Posts: 220
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 6:55 pm

Re: 3 disabled placed in foster care

Post by Miserylovescompany2 » Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:44 pm

Might I suggest that you put all your ongoing concerns and send them to the social worker(s) concerned. Copy in your solicitor and everyone else involved in your case. Ask for a written explanation as to how your current and ongoing concerns will be rectified. I would also be asking for an urgent meeting.

Also can I ask if there are any professionals involved with a clear understanding of your children's disabilities? Are CS being proactive in seeking advice about the disabilities? Have you contacted any of the healthcare professionals who have monitored your children or had input in their lives?

I don't have an understanding of the disabilities which your children suffer from. However I do know for a fact whilst the proceedings for my own child were taking place there was not a level of specific understanding around my sons diagnosis of autism. This still the case whilst he is in the care system. I, myself am in the processing of challenging this directly with CS.

Greatdefender
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:32 pm

Re: 3 disabled placed in foster care

Post by Greatdefender » Fri Jul 17, 2020 2:34 am

Hi, just to update everyone... final court was june 2019. the 3 kids were taken as medical professionals pointed a neglect/malnutrition finger at us and childrens services came at us full on with nothing but the aim to find evidence of neglect... at least that is how it seemed, and to be honest i think that was their intent. trying to look at it from their viewpoint, with professionals saying, look their 3 kids are malnurished, our oldest two children having moved out under clouds of depression and allegation. mum having panic attacks, anxiety and depression and throughout court missing lots of it and engagement as she was ill with scarlet fever, followed by liver trouble followed by enlarged spleen, followed by roachia, etc... i accept getting blinkered is easy.
we fought that we fed our kids, who had trouble as suffering EB in eating and getting sufficient nutrition on the best of days as they need more than average nutrition as their skin and internal linings are always healing from damages, and at the same time they eat slowly to reduce mouth damage as the friction of eating can cause mouth blisters or rip their mouths open. but we blended food, gave supplements, put cream into their smash potatoe, made protein milkshakes, etc,etc... but they would not beleive us.
childrens services went agaist all the good advice i have read online in research, etc and refused initial contact with us when they went into care in oct 18, they took his mobile phone off the eldest boy. he has never been allowed one since. they are not allowed any unregulated contact with their family, only once a fortnight for 2 hours. this is wrong, possibly even illegal as they have infringed thier rights.
the assessments carried out were witchhunt assessments and bear no semblance to reality.

my wife has suffered for over 20 years with ibs, thyroid,arthritis, easy bruising,iron deficiency, depression, anxiety etc.. i googled symptoms and diagnosed her condition over a month ago, i rang her dr and told her dr what was wrong with her... her dr said i can see why you are thinking that... they tested my wife and yes i was right, she has coeliac disease ,her body gives an autoimmune response to Gluten, all the above listed problems along with others like type 1 diabetes, which her mother developed aged 7 are symptoms of coeliac. it causes the villi in the small intestine to become flattened and slightly useless at absorbing nutrition, hence iron deficiency. it causes malnutrition , it is hereditary. also in the NICE child protection guidelines for faltering weight, it states that coeliac disease should be considered if a childs weight falters. I am waiting to get confirmation of the hospital as to whether they ever checked my children for coeliac disease. i know they didnt, but it would be nice to have it in writing. i immediately told childrens services and the kids hospital and the hospital will check their blood next time they have a blood test.

so our kids could well have been taken from us, because the medical professionals involved did not look for a medical reason, and just assumed as they had a difficult condition already, everything going wrong, failure to thrive was on the parents for not pulling their weight. even though we told them we did.

my whole family have suffered because of opinions ruling over fact, because they refused to beleive us and only saw part of the picture.
my advice to anyone new to childrens services, is to research everything about everything and write everything down in a journal. and when you talk to you solicitor, pass over real evidenced, report like information to help them do their job. i have been doing this in the time afforded to my family by covid 19, in the time we didnt have to have daily visits from child services. i dont know if we will get our children back, but i do know that we should, i do know that we should be compensated for our suffering. i wish you all luck, but they say Victory likes Preparation. all the best and stay safe :)

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