Special Guardianship order

[lucy1985]

My child is in the care of my mother under a special guardianship order. There is a court order put in place by my social solicitor of 4 hours per month. This is due to a non accidental injury of which I was found to be the perpertraitor. I have a good relationship and bond with my child and regular contact. There is no supervision order.

I have two questions.. Firstly if my mother feels that it is safe for my child to have overnight stays with me can she allow that? He is 4 and judgment was passed in December 2013.

Secoundly what are my options in relation to appeal/ overturning the special guardianship? With regards to appeal i am assuming that it is to late in the day?? Are there any situations where the timing is not considered?

I would be truely grateful for your help in this matter x

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Lucy

Welcome to the parents forum.

I am sorry to hear about children services involvement in your family.
Your mother is the special guardian of your son and because of this she will have enhanced parental responsibility to allow her to make decisions about most of your son’s upbringing.

However, the court also made a supervised contact order-which I assume is because of the non accidental injury and the risk that you might still be to your son.

If you and your mother wanted to move towards unsupervised contact, then there would need to be a further risk assessment of you to decide whether it would be safe for your son.

You have not said anything about the circumstances of your son being removed from you. However, your risk may change as he gets older or because you have sought help and support.

Did any assessment (social worker, guardian or other expert) indicate what support you might need to become a safer parent? Or did the courts written judgement suggest anything such as parenting classes or other courses or therapeutic support?

Have your own circumstances changed so that your risk has gone down?
What about other forms of supervision? In the community with a different supervisor?
If your mother was to allow you to have unsupervised contact without children services knowledge, it is likely to raise child protection concerns and children services may be worried that your son will be harmed. They could also consider removing him from your mother. So any decisions that you and your mother make about contact need to be discussed with children services.

Children services do have the power to offer support around contact and if you felt this would be helpful, you could ask for an assessment for support from children services. Ask for a copy of their policy. Have a look at page 16 onwards of our advice sheet about
special guardianship orders.


Overturning the special guardianship order

Have you discussed with your solicitor or barrister your chances of successfully appealing?

The alternative is to consider whether you have a chance to revoke the special guardianship order. However, this is also a very difficult route. You would first of need to jump over the hurdle of seeking permission (leave) of the court. To be successful at this first step, you would need to show that there has been a “significant change of circumstances” since the Special Guardianship Order was made; and after it has considered the welfare of the child and the chances of you being successful in your application to end the order.

I hope this clarifies some of your questions but if you need further advice please post again.

Best wishes,
Suzie

[lucy1985]

Ok I am confused by the situation in that I have been advised that I have good grounds for appeal, however this is throough 1 and a half years of my own research and contacting people for free bits of advice. Now this issue is that I have passed the 21 day mark for my appeal and this is the bit tat I am struggling to understand ... can I lodge an appeal at this late date?

Also when you say a risk assessment has to be done would this be done?

Re a change in circumatances this was a single issue case where there was no care concerns so what changes can I display??

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Lucy,

Sorry to confuse you. I will try to be a bit clearer.

Unfortunately, I am not able to give advice in any detail about appeals because it is too case specific. Family Rights Group does not take individual cases. Instead you should consider getting in touch with the legal team that was involved in the first application.

I outlined the other way forward. This is to apply for leave to revoke or discharge the special guardianship order. There would need to be evidence of a substantial change of circumstances-since the original order was made and that having looked at the best interests of your child, you would also have a reasonable chance of being successful in the main application to discharge the order.
Changes that you would have to show (if the only issue was the non accidental injury) would be your acceptance of the evidence of the non accidental injury; evidence that you have sought the support you need to deal with what led you to be the perpetrator of the injury and a risk assessment to show that you are no longer considered to be a risk. You would need to be risk assessed if you applied to change the contact order as well. You are right to question how easy it would be to get a risk assessment and would depend on the work you put in and the evidence of change you were able to present to the court.

I hope that goes answers some of your questions.

Suzie

[lucy1985]

When you say accept the judgement does this mean admit? I accept the judgement however will never admit that i hurt my son as I didnt. I have attended the reccomended courses that i was able to as some where considered not appropriate for me by the Gp I can obtain written confirmation of this.

I thank you for your help in this matter.