Anyones child in care of grandparents?

[endofline]

My son is in 'temporary care' (only meant to be for a weekend now 10/11 months) with his paternal grandparents. They are not my parents but his dads parents but his dad isn't involved at all and doesn't live with them.

His grandparents, im convinced want to keep my son. Have threatened to get court orders for a residency order to determine that he lives with them. I refused to sign anything and the convosation was dropped. When it came nearer the time for a gradual reintergration back into my care they knew that kicking up a fuss wasn't going to change things so tried another tactic to lie and to make up things my child has said (bearing in mind he's only 2 and a half and up until about 5 months ago he wasn't talking) They are lying to keep him and I need to know whether within my rights I'm allowed to argue and say take me to court to either have him back with me or to place him in foster care away from his grandparents to prove that they are lying.

I feel so bad that this is an awful desision i have to make, i either don't get him back because of the lies or i get a foster family to prove my innocence. All will effect my child (not that it hasn't already)

I'm a mother in need of some advice, would be really appriciative if someone could reply asap with a suggestion and some support.

x

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Endofline

My name is Suzie and I am an adviser at Family Rights Group. Welcome to the parents forum and thank you for your post.

You say that your son is in “temporary care”. I am assuming that your son is accommodated under section 20 of the Children Act. This means that you have agreed to allow children’s services to make plans for your son, including placing him in the care of his grandparents. Is that right Endofline or are there any court orders in place at the moment?

If your son is accommodated with your consent, neither children’s services nor your son’s grandparents have any Parental Responsibility (PR) for him. You, however, do have PR. This means that all plans for your son must be agreed with you. You have every right to say that you wish for your son to be removed from his grandparents care and accommodated elsewhere. In addition, you can withdraw your consent to the accommodation at any time and insist that your son is returned to your care.

If you were to withdraw your consent and children’s services did not feel your plan for your son was in his best interests, they would have to apply for a care order to allow them to continue making plans for him. If a care order was granted, children’s services would share PR with you and would be in a position to place your son either with a foster carer or back with his grandparents if they believed this was in his best interests.

If children’s services did not feel that it was appropriate to apply for a care order, they would have no choice but to return your son to you. In this situation, your son’s grandparents may decide to make an urgent application for a residence order to ensure that your son stayed with them, at least until the courts had an opportunity to look at the situation in more detail. The courts would almost certainly ask children's services for their recommendation about your son's care. It is, therefore, in your best interests to try to come to an agreement with children's services that your son should return to your care in a planned and supported way.

I wonder if you have a solicitor Endofline? I would certainly advise you to seek some legal advice if you haven’t done so already. Look for a solicitor who specialises in Children’s law and is on the children’s law panel. You can search for an appropriate solicitor on The Law Society website

In the meantime, it may be helpful for you to read our advice sheets on plans for children in care and reuniting children with their families.

Do post back and let us know how things are going Endofline. You are also welcome to call our advice line 0808 8010366 (open 9.30-3.30, Mon- Fri) to speak to an adviser directly.

Hope this helps

Best Wishes

Suzie
FRG Adviser

[endofline]

Yes temporary (now been nearing 11 months)

When he was placed into there care a rough aggreement was wrote on a scrap of paper and signed by me, his father, his grandparents etc?
Does this make it legal?
I am not aware of this being re-typed up at a later date either. Just a scrap of paper with bullet points and a sentance, signatured and was photocopied. All done in the house of his grandparents.

They didnt inform me of my rights and have sort legal advice and have an initial consultation booked for next week. FINGERS CROSSED! We have not been to court at all.

It was with my consent because they told me that was my ONLY option other than be an awful mother and put him into fostercare while they investigate.

I did co-operate but things keep coming up and im finding it increasingly harder to prove my innocence, even though i have moved house, changed my number, completed a parenting assessment and done everything in my power and everything they asked of me.

I dont feel i have been told the full information and on several occasions information has been witheld from me by my social worker.

[braveheart]

Hi Endofline

The answer is NO it is not legally binding the agreement you signed was just for the social workers it was not a court order and they have no legal rights at all if they have not taken you to court for an interim care order (this will give them Half Parental Rights of your child shared with you) then they have no power over your child and where your child lives. Like Suzie said in earlier posts they have to go to court to get any power over your child and that can take a few weeks. The Social workers like to use these so called agreements a lot, sometimes they use them for peer pressure and say to you if you do not sign this then you are not putting your child's best interests first and we will have to go to court!! If they cannot tell you why they have not given you a decision about you and they have no court orders you can request to have your child back until they have enough proven evidence that you are not fit to have your child returned to you, so go and get that section 20 revoked asap. As for the grandparents they have no rights at all over your child....it seems to me that the way that the grandparents are acting is because they probably get a pretty good allowance for looking after your child and do not want to loose it, if they were any kind of descent grandparents they would see that your child needs their mum and would work with you to get your son back in your care not against you believe me I have been there too when it comes to family members wanting to look after my children but their court application failed and I'm glad because all they wanted was the extra money they would have got for having them, when I first lost my children their grandparents looked after them under a s20 and had them for 6 months and were getting a pretty good allowance for 4 children, but they didnt do everything that was in my childrens best interest for e.g they bought another car, furniture, went on holiday and put my kids in a respite foster home and didnt take them with them but took other family members instead would shout at my children and when other grandchildren came around, my children were the ones that always got punished and sent to their rooms. Believe me not all grandparents are doting ones some only think about the money......but I do hope that your son's grandparents are not like this and do look after him well, but like I said before they nor the social workers have any legal right over your son so Go and get himmmmmm before it gets any worse coz once the social services get a Interim care order then your parental rights will go out the window even if by law it states that you have half parental rights they will always be the ones to make the overall decision about your son regardless of what you say or how you feel...I'm sorry but that is the way they are I have been there and it was hell.

If you need any advise then please feel free to send me a message I have been there and like everyone else on this site understand what you are going through.

All the best hun and good luck
Carolanne ((Hugs))

[endofline]

Thank you so much Carolanne, your support and advice is very much appreciated.

I feel as if I’m fighting a fight knowing I can’t win and I’m all alone.
I cannot explain the feelings I have for my child, as a mother this experience has torn me apart and just when light appears at the end of the tunnel, my hopes are dashed by the people around me.
I’m very tired of this strain and my work isn’t happy with my performance because of it. It’s a new job and It was mean to be all sorted with the SS before I started. I’m exhausted through lack of sleep worrying and my concentration on anything is minimal, which makes my job in Admin very difficult.
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who likes to see the best In everyone. This whole experience is completely disheartening to know that life as I knew it (stupid naive me) and the people in life could be so cruel and heartless. What an awful wakeup call!
I have sort legal advice for the first time, am worried on how I will afford it but the way I look at it is my son is bloody important and he’s worth a fight to my last breath.

The police are in a joint investigation with SS and still no proof, although I was told they work on ‘probability’ not actual facts… which is beyond me how such a corrupt system actually works. I think they have done this, banking on my young age and lack of knowledge that I wouldn’t have been clever enough to research into their policies etc. Which up until now, I haven’t done, I agreed with everything but since it’s not getting me anywhere.. why should I cooperate any longer? I know my social worker lies to me and I know that the sympathetic face is a complete front. She doesn’t visit me like it says she should do and my words are twisted. I'm completely at witts end after only just starting a rehabilitation program after nearly a year from hell. Also just had a meeting the other day and they said that it was in my sons best interests to see his gparents every weekend, all weekend. I argued and said this wasn't fair as I work all week and I deserve to see my son after not having him for months on end. No one backed me up obviously because me and the gparents don’t get on and were delighted with this arrangement. I’m sick of everyone else’s concerns and opinions being taken on board but not mine. They have to wean him off his grandparents care and his grandparents off caring for him but I was given no gradual weaning process. MY son was taken, cruelly and quickly and my feelings were never ever taken into consideration.
Now theres some new investigation into who i hang around with, i told them i took him to play barn and therefore spoke to alot of parents and children as it was fathers day and there was many people there. Obviously if you’re in a place like that, you have a common interest with the people around you so get chatting about children. So now my contact has been cancelled and I’m not allowed to see my son until they have completed a bloody investigation. Someone reported I was with a male and all hell breaks loose. I’m not allowed to have a life, you see. I was told by my SW that she couldn’t believe me and without names and a police check on ‘this male’ she couldn’t tell me any details or let me see my son again. I explained that I’m afraid I cannot give details of who this mystery male is as I did not know anyone that was there, still I have to wait for they to sift through CCTV to confirm my innocence. I’m royally p***ed off as you can imagine.If I said I felt sad and I missed my child and I cried at the meetings, I was asked if I should visit the doctor to make sure I was emotionally stable. If I agreed with everything they asked of me and didn’t query anything, I was accused of not caring or giving a crap about my child. If I said I felt I was in a position where I didn’t know what to say (as the woman completing my parenting assessment) asked me if I wanted a boyfriend and I said 'I didn’t and no I wasn’t interested' She said this was very worrying. So I felt if I had said ‘YES I did want a partner’ she would of wrote in her report, that I was already thinking about a man and I hadn’t even got my son back yet. So I was honest and I confessed to her that I felt she was putting me in a situation where I didn’t know the correct thing to say anymore.
I then received the outcome of the parenting assessment a few weeks later and she twisted my words to say she felt the answers I were giving to her questions were the ones I thought she wanted to hear and I wasn’t being open and honest. Which frankly infuriated me.

I just want my baby back and I want him back for good, with his mum who loves and cares for him very much!
x

[endofmytether]

Hi we are in same position my wifes family are out to rip her and me apart our son is staying there at the moment she put in for residency because the ss told her to we have felt we can never express our feelings the ss never ask what we want we have done absolutely everything they always say we never do this never do that they really do annoy me and they say they are there for families yes well I do not believe that