Honestly cant see the light

[Murray72]

Hi Warthog,
Sorry I can't offer much advice as I have no experience of Section 20, but if it voluntary why is the court proceedings going ahead? Did they start proceedings, or are you hoping to revoke the S20?

You will probably meet the Guardian after the Court Hearing, I found mine was very vocal and stepped out from CS, and the Judge usually listens to the Guardian, having the Guardian onside is very helpful. They can suggest work you could and further assessments etc.

It sounds like your current SW is supportive and understands your child's need to be held and cuddled at contact. So keep going with the positive contact.

You will find next week difficult so if you have any family or friends that can be supportive then accept that support, you need to feel strong and more importantly be kind to yourself.

Good Luck for next week.

[ange301126]

warthog, I hope all goes okay in court.It appears to me that the CS have misused the S20 ( just as they did in our case; they were criticised in Court by the Judge for doing so.But it was too late then because they had already achieved a fait accomplis).I suppose that ,like us, you signed the S20 to cooperate with them and to enable them to make due and proper enquiries into the case in accordance with their responsibilities under the Children's Act ( as published in child-protection leaflets issued by the Authorities)You granted them the time and opportunity to come to your home,examine home conditions ,discuss the case with you, to call on health visitor ,G.P. and anyone else involved with your child for an assessment of your capabilities, to arrange for an initial L.A.C. Health Assessment of your baby, to call a case planning meeting involving social worker,yourself,any other professionals involved ,to ask for written contributions and assessments from your G.P. You gave them the opportunity to carry out an 'in-depth' enquiry according to guidelines in order for them to make a 'core assessment'.At the planning meetings you should have been told of any continuing 'concerns' and been allowed to express concerns and have them circulated likewise the contributions of other people should have been circulated to you.

Has this happened?No!!

The valuable time you granted to them was used by them to consolidate their position and to submit an application to Court . As in our case, I have no doubt they had already decided to bring the application even before you signed the S20. That was a confidence trick.I advise you rescind the S20 in Court and tell your solicitor to inform the Court that you are willing to co-operate with any order the Court feels appropriate (such as a supervision order) but in the paramount interests of the child he should be returned home pending a 'final decision@

[warthhog123]

Thank you for your reply, i singed the section 20 as they had already gone for a epo and intrim care order, so i had little choice.
Things are moving very slowly, guardian on holiday so cant submit report before court, great! pyschological assessment cant be done for 8 weeks!
no one is telling me much, core assessment not done, all thats happened from the day he went to now is Lac review happening tomorrow, all court will have on thursday is the reports from contact!!!! thats not going to do alot.
How ever i have new problem now sc applying pressure of significant harm on return of my son due to my ex writing 2 letters from prison. so im been punished for what he is doing, police say he has breeched and will probably get extended sentence but that doesnt help me as they are going to keep my son until i can prove i can keep him away! my solicitor says she will be fighting for more access and unsupervised on thursday regardless of Lac meeting and if its not granted for reasons she doesnt agree with she is applying for a hearing what ever that means.
Sc say they wont return my son until i move. solicitor says im not moving unless they give justified reason. She says its not looking in mine and my sons best interest to move us from everything we know just so he can find me.
No further forward really they get told to do something within a time frame mine listed as urgent to have son returned, yet they dont seem to care now hes in care! i get the horrible feeling they feel its all over! What a battle, every day im losing precious moments with my son, hes due to be weaned soon, and rolling over and genrally grows bigger every day. its not fair my home is to a high standard my level of care is second to none and they know it, so i feel a great injustice is been done. yes i made a huge mistake and was dishonest but surley i deserve a chance to prove myself its my son at the end of the day, and they treat me like i lied to the queen and beat my child senseless!!! confused to say the least.
I have instructed dsa to come with housing and see what safety measures can be enforced in and around home, ive given both letters to the police and changed my number, re installed panic alarms and am been up front and honest but all they keep saying is you lied!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ange301126]

warthog,you may well be in court at this moment and I wish you well.Unfortunately,I feel you were conned ,as we were,in regard to the S20.We wish now that we had insisted on an Emergency Protection Hearing at the outset.This would have enabled us to protect our children before Magistrates in Court at the relevant time before they were subjected to harm by Local Authority care.It was absolutely inhumane to deprive your son of his mother's love and care and it is most unlikely the Magistrates would have done so on the evidence being used. The CS asked you to agree to the S20 because they knew they had no case.In a way ,by following advice to sign an S20,we and you collaborated in harming our children and gave the advantage to the Local Authority.
We trusted the department and granted them favour by cooperating with them as asked ( ostensibly because they were acting in the paramount interests of our children). Our cooperation with them was not reciprocated and correct procedure was not followed by them.

I refer you to the thread on this discussion board entitled " can social services be trusted?" in case you have not already read it .It is easy to see that many people have been let down even in cases where they have done everything to cooperate with professionals.

Surely there comes a time during each case when it becomes apparent that no amount of cooperation will induce them to follow correct procedure. Surely when a Social Worker issues a false and misleading statement, wording it deliberately to discriminate against you and mentioning none of the real facts whilst spreading mistruths and hearsay, this is a declaration of intent that they mean to continue in the same vein.This happened with us and with you at an early stage.

It is up to your solicitor to protect you from this sort of behaviour given that it was his or her advice you have followed.If the Solicitor does not do so ,what can you do?

Perhaps all will be well and today's hearing will go for you.I hope so.

Message to Suzie, if she reads this,I think it could be confusing for too many members to advise at once and it should be left to the professionals.After this one, I shall not comment on any ongoing cases. For all that,I hope you noticed how procedures are not followed by social work departments due to dysfunction and recognise the mistake when parents slavishly cooperate with the inhumanity inflicted upon them. I suggest that the FAMILY RIGHTS GROUP enlists the ( perhaps voluntary) help of a good solicitor who specialises in Human Rights rather than a Children's Legal Panel solicitor who appear to have little understanding of the subject. This volunteer could then track each case and give advice from the legal viewpoint . Once again,good luck to warthog.

[warthhog123]

LAC review
It couldnt have gone any worse really, basically as long as ex in prison i cant have my son, i have to wait til he is released then over long period of time try to prove i can keep my ex out of my life!!!!! so the longer he gets the worse i suffer!
Asked when i could have unsupervised contact and shocked to hear never as they need to assess what i do and say with my son. Plus sc said if i was allowed unsupervised contact my son would be returned and thats not happening.
Core assessment not even been started as sw is waiting until 3 or 4 months after psycological assessment on me is done!
So it went terrible, sw says the harsh reality is she doesnt believe a word i say and it will be very long time until she believes me again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She says contact will remain the same however foster carer says it should be cut to 3 days for a longer period as its damaging for the child to be going every day!!! what she means is this is more convienient for her!
Nothing at all discussed with regard to comments made by foster carer over problems during contact!
Not sure there is any point in continuing anymore they know what there doing, and theres nothing i can do!
sw made it quite clear if i have him returned from section 20 she will go straight for interim care order and take away parental rights!
sw told me when core assessment is done it will be extremely intrusive, and she will leave no stone unturned into proving that i cant keep my ex away, meaning i cant safeguard my son.
Defeated may as well throw in the towel now. Harsh reality is my son is not coming home.

[ange301126]

warthog,sw should not threaten to take away your parental rights.An Interim Care Order certainly does no such thing.In law,they would share parental rights with you.So much for trusting your social worker! This thing is all about 'proportionality to the circumstancves of the case'. Your solicitor should tell the Court on Thursday that there are no FACTS proportionate to any interference with your family life except for an ill-considered ( no proper enquiries into your honesty) view of a social worker that she cannot trust you.No guardian has been able to submit a report on behalf of your child and at the very least the welfare check list should be examined fully before any decision is taken on the strength of uninvestigated suspicions. Even if you can be proved dishonest (which I doubt,because you acted under illegal pressure from your ex.) dishonesty does not present a risk which would require seperation from your child under any stretch of the imagination.You have done everything to protect your child and the man is in prison.How absurd that the sw should only consider sending the child home after his release.By getting him sent to prison you have proven that you have ended any relationship with him and by returning his letters via the Police you have expressed the clear intent to dicontinue any further contact with him.

Please be positive when you go to Court and try to ensure that your solicitor puts all the evidence for you.If he or she does not appear to be doing so ( this sometimes happens because solicitors prefer to have a case forwarded to the County Court) then you must state the facts to the Court yourself when given the chance to say something.

Be strong and ignore the Social workers dire threats, make it known that you are acting entirely in the interests of you child who is suffering SIGNIFICANT HARM in care. Tell the Court you wish to cancel the S20 pending any further assessments .You have already compromised the PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH of your child and yourself by signing the S20 and that your benefits have been stopped and your home placed under threat.The department has had ample time to carry out assessments and the Court has had ample time to procure a Guardian.

Did you follow the advice to take someone to support you at the LAC Review,contacts and at all other meetings with the Social Worker? If so, now is the time when he or she can report on the inadequate contacts,threats and so on as well as the lack of any genuine fact-finding exercise. If you have no-one to support you then the onus lies even more on your solicitor.

When you are in Court ,remain cool,calm and collected whatever you do.Read out your evidence from a piece of paper rather than make it up as you go along .The Social Worker will be calm and will be quite coolly casting aspersions against your character.Let the Court see that you are controlled too . The Court will make a judgement about the credibility of the social worker as against yours. If the social worker's solicitor asks you any questions to try and catch you out tell the Court that you have already made a full statement and admitted not to have kept the social worker fully informed thus you feel no further questioning necessary.I hope this advice helps.Remember ,this is what I now wish I had done at the time we lost our children. We made all the mistakes possible and the biggest one was trusting the system.You must make sure your voice is heard in Court even if your solicitor is reluctant to express any disagreements.Now is the time,not at the final hearing because the department will then have amassed further evidence against you.

I hope everything goes for you and the little boy.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Warthog,
I am sorry that things were difficult at the LAC review. I can see from your posts how upsetting things are for you at the moment. Please do not give up. You are not happy with the decisions made at the LAC review. I think you should tell your solicitor who can raise them with the local authority on Thursday.

I have highlighted below some points that may be of help. If you have not done so please have a look at our advice sheet on powers and duties to looked after children
This sets out what happens at a LAC review as well as highlighting what should be in a care plan and how it should be managed.
Contact
The social worker has decided not to decrease your contact with your son. However, you are worried that you cannot yet have unsupervised contact. The social worker has said that she wants to assess contact first.
Ask how long the assessment will take, what will happen during the assessment and when will it start. You could also highlight this issue with your solicitor so that she can raise this with the other parties at court.
Sometimes contact can be supervised by someone other than by a contact centre. Do you have a relative or friend who would be able to supervise your contact visits. They could be assessed by the social worker to see whether they would be suitable to do this. If not, sometimes the foster carer can be a suitable person to supervise contact visits at her home.
Assessments
You need to raise your concerns about the timing of the assessments with your solicitor. These will be discussed at the court hearing on Thursday. Your solicitor will be able to ascertain what assessments will be taking place and the timescales.
Accommodation or interim care order
Your solicitor should have copies of all the documents that are before the court. Any decision about whether you wish to cancel your consent to your child being accommodated should be made after you have spoken to your solicitor. If your solicitor specialises in children law then she should be fully aware of the human rights aspect of any decisions being that you make. Sometimes parents will withdraw consent to their child being accommodated so as to force the children services to seek court permission. . The court would then want to hear from childrens services to find out whether they have a case to keep the child in care. While there are already proceedings your solicitor can advise you about having the evidence heard at an interim hearing.
The decision about whether to consent or not to s20accommodation, in these circumstances, should be taken with the benefit of the legal advice of your solicitor.
Best wishes,
Suzie

[ange301126]

dear warthog, I quite agree with suzie.Make it clear to your solicitor that you feel your child is suffering considerable harm by the prolonged (unreasonable) separation from his mother and that you want him home immediately and seek his advice.I am sure he or she is experienced enough to realise the great harm children suffer in care by detachment from the genetic parent particularly the significant emotional difficulties and development problems with regard to communication and language.You should be communicating with your son through baby-talk and bonding with him right now! As suzie says your solicitor should be very well versed in these human rights issues and he or she will know that the Law says that interference with your family life should be proportionate to the circumstances of your case. Any decision to remove your child should be taken only after an 'in-depth' investigation of facts before not after. Such serious decisions should not be made at the caprice of a social worker.Your solicitor should tell the Court that the interests of your son are paramount and you are acting in your son's interests only. Core Assessments and psychological reports are secondary to the physical and emotional health of your son who needs to be with his mother according to the Children's Act now because there are no facts on which to find you are incapable of caring for him.

Follow Suzie's advice ,remember she is a professional; I am not ,I am merely an ordinary parent.
Most important of all ,get you voice heard!

[warthhog123]

Thank you for your posts, Things are now over and i honestly dnt see why im here.
Social care now have my phone records that clearly shows i had more contact than i told them about, i didnt do this intentionally i believed that it was bad enough i let him see his son. I thought because i made a clear decision to have ex arrested and voluntarily placed my son in care i could prove that over time i would keep my ex away and have no further contact.
How ever i clearly failed to see the bigger picture and social care now say its unlikely he will return once evidence of phone records is put to court. They rightly state that this future proves i can not keep my son safe as i failed to inform them of lenghtly phone contact!
I have no alternative but to give my son up, as i dnt believe anyone will understand the pressure control and threatening situation i was in that just esculated further and further until i could no longer physically nor mentally cope with this man in my life anymore. It was a clear case of finally even though too late taking my own life or having son removed and him arrested, i know that what everyone says is true, you should have been honest, you should have spoken to any number of proffessionals involved. Then all this wouldnt have happened! its very easy to say much harder to do! The strenght and realisation i learnt towards the end of this mess was too late and all in vain.
I know i can keep him away, i know i will not lie again, i know i wouldnt even care if he died!!! but proving is now not an option just wish id had the oppotunity to try, because its my past mistakes that are in question1Whilst i know my ex cant control me any more and i feel huge burden lifted by knowing im not part of his game anymore, it doesnt change any thing its too late! thanks for reading.

[ange301126]

warthog,please be more positive.There was no law against you contacting your ex on the telephone, there was no care-order in force nor any court order which prevented you having contact with your ex at the time.'Phone records' have been introduced into the case somewhat maliciously in an attempt to mislead the court by diverting them from the MAIN ISSUES.Did you deny at any time that you had been in contact with your ex? No.You had already admitted it. By the tone of your message ,it is obvious matters did not go well in court.What happened, did your solicitor follow your instructions or did he or she roll over? Was an interim care order issued? If so what were the grounds?