Support for contact with my child

[Inneedforadvice]

Social services have only just started to pay for the travel to have contact with my daughter but I have asked for help towards doing activities with her and my other child even if it is vouchers to be told that they don't do that just pay for the travel I understand and don't mind spending my own money for contact with her but it is like having a extra bill a month and can be rather expensive just wanting to know if anyone else gets help towards this as it's like getting blood out of a stone

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Inneedforadvice

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board and thank you for posting. My name is Suzie and I am FRG’s online adviser.

I am sorry to hear that about the difficulties that you and your family are experiencing. It sounds as if you are very committed to making contact with your daughter a positive experience and you are experiencing financial hardship because of the cost of activities. I am glad that children’s services have begun to pay for your travel costs; I wonder if you have asked /they have considered back-dating this if you have been put under financial strain with paying for travel too before this. If you want to ask for this put your request in writing with details of the dates and costs incurred with receipts if you can and ask for a response in writing too.

As your daughter is not in your care at the moment you have probably lost your entitlement to child benefit and tax credit if you were previously receiving them – this will depend on your daughter’s legal status though. For more information about what happens to your benefits when your child goes into care or lives with someone else please see this advice sheet .

You don’t say if your daughter is in foster care and if so under what type of arrangement. However, if she is, then this is the basic principle which applies to whether or not you can get help.

Your child’s social worker may be able to help with expenses, such as transport, meals and activities, if they think that the visits won’t otherwise happen without causing a lot of financial difficulty.

They now accept that they should help you with your travel costs and you can definitely ask if they can help you with the cost of activities too. The social worker has said to you that they don’t help with activities just with travel. However, that may just be an internal policy and could be challenged. It would be a good idea to ask the social worker to provide you with a copy of the local authority’s policy on help with contact expenses so that you can check if that is what their policy says.

What should happen if you ask that they consider helping you in this way is that they assessed whether:

• Your contact with your daughter could not happen otherwise without ‘undue hardship’ and
• If the circumstances justify payment.

So they can help if they think that it is necessary for them to do so but they don’t have to pay.

It might be a good idea to provide the social worker with evidence of the cost of the activities and how they benefit your daughter and promote your relationship with her and some evidence of the financial difficulties you face trying to meet this cost.

If the social worker doesn’t give you help with contact costs, you could make a complaint but it is usually best to try to negotiate with the social worker and the Indpendent Reviewing Officer (IRO) first, explaining why help is necessary.

We have a couple of specialist advice sheets about contact with children depending on whether they are looked after under a voluntary arrangement or in care which may help. Here is our complaints advice sheet too.

I hope this helps and that you do get support to enjoy contact with your daughter without you having to face financial hardship.

With best wishes
Suzie