Please help any advice for appealing social services decisipn

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amd129
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:00 pm

Please help any advice for appealing social services decisipn

Post by amd129 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 9:55 pm

Hi to put a long story in to short my partner was falsely accused of sexual assault by a niece a couple of years. After a police report it went to trail but before the trail started it was thrown out as the judge sent her barrister to ask her questions on previous accusations against others which she lied in answering him so he deemed there was no case as she was a liar and unreliable witness.

After this ordeal we went to social services as he has 2 children from a previous relationship that he hadn't seen for a year due to the accusation. They told us they had it noted that he had been seeing them regularly from his ex in supervised visits and told us since the case was dropped and cos decided not to present a case after her lies that there was no reason for the case to be open. The social worker made an arrangement to see his ex the next week where she said the case was closed and we began seeing the boys having them weekly.

Then 2 months later a initiative run by part of social services decided it had to do a risk assessment still and stopped his access tor he children. He complied and did have supervised visit is through a friend but since August his ex has refused to allow him these visits. In the report which finally came back last month it says they've assessed him to be a medium risk and won't change his access and have no plans to till they find more information.

Then last week he got a text to say the case is closed and will remain the same.

Firstly after reading the report most of their concerns are from his grandad veen arrested for sexual assault which he did do and is serving a sentence for and the report claims that he's a risk as it could be inter generational. And the other bits cover that he answered the questionnaires that he enjoys been around his kids and would rather go to the park then do a good shop and pay bills and he's marked down because he said his most fulfilling job was working with youths and disabled kids in the past as he liked feeling that he was helping and seeing them get something and understand it was a good feeling and when he said that he had looked at veen a social worker but k ew he'd get too attached to the kids meaning it would be hard to not be able to save them all from harm etc but they've wrote the report to say that these answers show he has an interest in underage children and is a danger.

First of we plan on providing character statements and other evidence to show that they're report is inaccurate but how do we go about this ?

And also where does he stand with them closing the case surely they have to work on it and aid him and the boys till it's solved they told him they have no actions for him to complete to move the case forward .

But the boys and himself are both missing out on what was a strong relationship and no one seems to be helping. He's asked them to provide supervised visits due to issues with his ex and they've refused which I understand they are short staffed and have case loads but to close the case is not on. This has now been 2 and a half years from the I ritual report and he's missing out on so much. We have considered getting a solicitor help to appeal the decision but woth money veen tight want to get as much ready before hand to keep costs down

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

Re: Please help any advice for appealing social services decisipn

Post by Miserylovescompany2 » Mon Jan 07, 2019 9:48 am

Hello

From what you have written I think your partners best course of action would be to initiate a formal complaint and challenge all the statements which are speculative, based on opinion and not factual. I'm assuming your partner has joint PR with his children.

I'd make some copies of everything and set about highlighting what isn't correct - then on a separate bit of paper start to formulate a list. Your partner can also request explanations on how conclusions were arrived at. He can also request a face to face meeting with a manager to discuss his ongoing grievance and the fact his children are currently being deprived of contact.

I'm slightly perplexed how someone can be deemed a risk because of the crime another person committed - would that mean every other family member were also a risk simply because they are related? Or does it skip a generation - maybe this only affects the male members? What utter nonsense.

I guess another route would be to go via the courts to seek a contact order - this would be civil law and costly.

I hope this helps?

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

Re: Please help any advice for appealing social services decisipn

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Wed Jan 16, 2019 2:13 pm

amd129 wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 9:55 pm Hi to put a long story in to short my partner was falsely accused of sexual assault by a niece a couple of years. After a police report it went to trail but before the trail started it was thrown out as the judge sent her barrister to ask her questions on previous accusations against others which she lied in answering him so he deemed there was no case as she was a liar and unreliable witness.

After this ordeal we went to social services as he has 2 children from a previous relationship that he hadn't seen for a year due to the accusation. They told us they had it noted that he had been seeing them regularly from his ex in supervised visits and told us since the case was dropped and cos decided not to present a case after her lies that there was no reason for the case to be open. The social worker made an arrangement to see his ex the next week where she said the case was closed and we began seeing the boys having them weekly.

Then 2 months later a initiative run by part of social services decided it had to do a risk assessment still and stopped his access tor he children. He complied and did have supervised visit is through a friend but since August his ex has refused to allow him these visits. In the report which finally came back last month it says they've assessed him to be a medium risk and won't change his access and have no plans to till they find more information.

Then last week he got a text to say the case is closed and will remain the same.

Firstly after reading the report most of their concerns are from his grandad veen arrested for sexual assault which he did do and is serving a sentence for and the report claims that he's a risk as it could be inter generational. And the other bits cover that he answered the questionnaires that he enjoys been around his kids and would rather go to the park then do a good shop and pay bills and he's marked down because he said his most fulfilling job was working with youths and disabled kids in the past as he liked feeling that he was helping and seeing them get something and understand it was a good feeling and when he said that he had looked at veen a social worker but k ew he'd get too attached to the kids meaning it would be hard to not be able to save them all from harm etc but they've wrote the report to say that these answers show he has an interest in underage children and is a danger.

First of we plan on providing character statements and other evidence to show that they're report is inaccurate but how do we go about this ?

And also where does he stand with them closing the case surely they have to work on it and aid him and the boys till it's solved they told him they have no actions for him to complete to move the case forward .

But the boys and himself are both missing out on what was a strong relationship and no one seems to be helping. He's asked them to provide supervised visits due to issues with his ex and they've refused which I understand they are short staffed and have case loads but to close the case is not on. This has now been 2 and a half years from the I ritual report and he's missing out on so much. We have considered getting a solicitor help to appeal the decision but woth money veen tight want to get as much ready before hand to keep costs down
Dear amd129

Welcome to the parents’ discussion forum.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group. I see that you are concerned about the fact your partner is not currently having contact with his sons.

It seems that following the criminal case against your partner being dropped children’s services (the new name for social services) carried out an assessment of your partner to assess his risk and whether you could have unsupervised contact with his sons. The outcome of the risk assessment is that children’s services have reached the conclusion that they do not consider unsupervised contact to be appropriate from their assessment and analysis.

From what you say the final report from the risk assessment of your partner contain inaccurate information and the inferences which have been drawn from your partner’s responses are both unfair and unfounded.

Children’s services have now closed the case and no contact is taking place at all as the children’s mother is not allowing this to happen.
Firstly, regarding the assessment carried out by children’s services, if your partner disagrees with their decision, he can make a formal complaint about the assessment of him and the decision that contact should remain supervised. You can read our advice sheet Challenging decisions and making complaints for information about how you can go about making the complaint.

Secondly, since children’s services have no safeguarding concerns, they will not keep the case open and it will be for your partner to make an application to the court for a child arrangement order for contact. The court will consider all the circumstances of the case having considered all the evidence to make a decision about what is best for the children. The court will ask for a report to be completed either by children’s services (as they have had previous involvement) or Cafcass so the views of both sides and the children’s wishes and feelings regarding contact can be obtained.

Your partner can contact Child Law Advice on 0300 330 5480 for advice about how he can make what would be a private law application to the court for a child arrangement order.

I hope you will find this helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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