Proceedings

[Sjp9396]

Hi I am currently in care proceedings due to different reasons but the main reason they got involved was because I entered a polyamory relationship which social seen this as domestic violence as my wife was unsure about it all and then the person who I got involved threatened my children and told her social worker this and then blamed me and my wife for stabbing her friend but this was a setup as she and her friend cut her friend purposely to blame me and my wife as their intention was for me and my wife to lose our children due to the person I got involved with was jealous and the fact she had been sectioned a number of times due to mental health and she has been arrested a few times due to cool which I was unaware of for some time and now my wife and 3 children are currently in a residential unit while I’m at home due to social services separating us apart due to dv however we have done psychological assessments and parent assessments are almost completed and they could leave the unit mid next month pending positive parent assessments but her grandparents have been positive for sgo but familed the fostering part and worried that it’ll go this far. I’m doing contact twice a week to see my children but we want to get back as family. Is this going to be possible if everything is positive? My social worker won’t tell me anything and my solicitor and her solicitor is useless. Since all this I have done 10 month of dv work sessions and I have looked at dv perpetrator programmes but there is not currently available in my area although this was recommended in the psychological assessment report as well as cbt therapy although it does state this isn’t needed as I have no symptoms of ocd (diagnosed 2012) I am still looking at doing therapy of my own back to just keep social services happy and I have completed an 8 week drug misuse session as I was addicted to cannabis now been clean for 5 months though now. Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Sjp9396

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties your family has had.

You are currently in care proceedings. You and your wife have separated, at the request of children’s services, due to domestic abuse. You describe a complex but very serious situation. You may find it helpful to consider our advice materials on domestic abuse here. They may help you understand why children’s services were so concerned for the welfare of your three children that they took the matter to court.

It is good to hear that you have done a significant amount of work around domestic abuse. I am sorry that you have not been able to find a domestic abuse perpetrator course in your area. Have you tried contacting Respect to check what they suggest? And also you can formally request, in writing, that children’s services support you to access a specialist perpetrators’ programme. You are also addressing your cannabis use and have made good progress. And you are willing to do a CBT course. The psychologist recommended CBT and you are happy to do this. So, you should ask all the relevant professions to assist you to access this therapy. It may be worth contacting your GP about this too, if you have not done so already.

Your wife and children are currently in a residential unit which I think is a residential assessment unit?

You are hoping that you can be reunited as a family. You are wondering what the possibility of this is. I am sorry that I cannot answer your question. You seem to be doing what is required of you. You are engaging in services and you see your children twice a week. This is all positive and will be taken in to account by all parties in court. However, the court will weigh up all the evidence, including your wife’s assessments and protective capacity, in order to decide what is in your children’s best interests. It is not possible to predict the outcome, unfortunately. Although you find your solicitor to be unhelpful they are best placed to discuss these issues with you, to take your instructions and to represent you. You should also pay close attention to the social worker’s and the Guardians’ recommendations which they will submit in their statements.

It is not clear if the assessments you and your wife have had focused on a possible reconciliation or were based fully on you as potential single parents. Your solicitors will be able to clarify this for you, if you are unsure. You were asked to separate because of the risk so you would need to be able to satisfy the court that the risk has been significantly reduced. And that it is in the children’s best interests too. It is important that both parents are honest and open about future plans so that the court can consider this when making its decision.

Your wife’s grandparents have had a positive Special Guardianship assessment although were not successful in their assessment as kinship foster carers. They are the contingency permanent carers for your children if the court decides that you or your wife or both of you cannot to care for them safely. If a parent can safely care for children and meet all their needs then the court will agree to the children remaining or returning to their parent/s’ care. The Special Guardianship Order offers a family alternative to this, if the courts decide the parent/s cannot care for the children or keep them safe.

Please see the information below which may be useful to you:

Care proceedings
Children in care under a care order
Working with a social worker
Working with a solicitor
Special Guardianship: information for birth parents.

I hope this has helped. The guide above to working with a solicitor may help you prepare for and get the best out of your appointments and communication with your solicitor.

If you have any further queries about children’s services then you can post back on this forum . If you would prefer to discuss your situation with an adviser you can call our freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 p.m. (except bank holidays) . We also have advice enquiry and webchat facilities.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Sjp9396]

Hi Suzie, thanks for your reply. the assessments are currently done as if we are alone parents but my wife has always and still is very hesitant to tell ss that she wants to resume things as she doesnt want to things to get out of hand. We have had a lot of issues and problems already with ss that has led my wife to have great trust issues with ss as we have already filed 16 different complaints against ss. (currently still under investigation) I am unsure if I can request what i want to happen? as we currently have an interim care order in place however i have looked in to things and im not sure if i can request the ico to be discharged or to be changed to a supervision order instead of an ico and submit this to the court using a C110A form? a lot of this is still confusing me and i do seem to be defending myself in all of this 99.9% of the time. I am also living in lets say town A and my and children are in town B. can social services stop me from moving to town B as i have heard so many different stories regarding this. Social services were also concerned that i am not in employment but i am currently studying higher education which takes up the average time that someone works per week (35 hours). can they be concerned at this when i am studying? i didnt think this would be an issue. if i get a new risk assessment done from sss can they then still stop me and my wife resuming our relationship even if it shows a positive outcome?


I did post this on another conversation too **** I have a similar situation with the parent assessment. mine is being completed by the social worker herself, however I am in care proceedings and they are looking to see if I'm capable basically due to previous dv between me and my wife. I'm not with my wife at the moment and her and the children are currently in a mother and baby unit to assess her parenting but my concern is that they are doing this parent assessment when I don't find it necessary because I have done 10 months of dv work sessions, 8 weeks of drug misuse programs, completed sessions with the family support worker, I'm doing the triple p course off my own back and I contacted a therapist who said I would only need it if I wanted to talk to someone other than that therapy wasn't needed as it was maybe suggested in the psychologist assessment that was carried out but I do feel targeted by social services even after doing all that. I've been clean for nearly 6 months and that I don't intend to use drugs again and I have been having frequent drug tests to show this and I have another10/10/23. My wife's grandparents have been put forward for fostering but the report come back as negative but came back positive for an sgo if it was required. I want to ask my social worker to do another risk assessment if she will but I'm unsure if she will do this? I do find all this too much and do nit know what to do next and my solicitor isn't very good to be honest and I have the IRH hearing 15/12/23 so the advocate meeting is 13/10/23.****

Many thanks

X

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Sjp9396

Thank you for your further posts. I will reply to both here.

I can see that you have a range of questions about your relationship and the care proceedings.

You and your wife are currently being assessed separately. I provided advice in my previous response about needing to be open and honest with the professionals involved if you and your wife want to reconcile especially as the care proceedings stemmed from concerns around domestic abuse. I would suggest that you both get legal advice from your separate solicitors as the court is currently assessing you separately. You can ask their legal opinion about a new risk assessment.

In relation to your question about whether children’s services can stop you from moving to the area where your children live. This would depend on whether there are any court orders e.g. a non-molestation order etc prohibiting you. Significantly, Children’s Services have a court order giving them (temporary) parental responsibility for your children. They could take further action in relation to your children e.g. remove your children from their mother's care, if they assessed that the children’s safety was at risk due to you moving. It is best if any decisions or actions you take are based on what is best for the children. Again, if you are thinking of moving to the area where your children live it is essential for you to let the authorities know and to discuss this first with your solicitor who can provide you with specific legal advice about the implications of this. However, on the information provided to date it seems a very risky idea.

If the children are returned to your care or your wife’s care on the understanding that you have separated and if you later reconcile, against professionals’ advice, children’s services are very likely to become concerned about this and to become involved again.

I am not sure why your employment status/ attending higher education is seen as a concern unless it impacts on your ability to care for and provide for the children in some way. I think that you should have a discussion with the social worker about this so that they can clarify their view of the situation and let you know their recommendations in relation to this.

It is very unlikely that the court would discharge the interim care order at the moment in favour of an interim supervision order. The court cannot make a final order yet, therefore they cannot make a supervision order. You can ask your solicitor’s view on whether the court may decide to make a supervision order at the end of the care proceedings.

I appreciate that you have not found your solicitor to be particularly helpful. However, they represent you and are therefore best placed to offer you legal advice. I would strongly encourage you to seek an appointment with your solicitor to discuss all your queries with them. In my previous response, I provided a link to our working with a solicitor guide and hope that will help you get the best representation and advice you can.

I understand that you don’t think the parenting assessment is necessary, however, the court has directed it. Therefore, it is important that you take part in it. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your strengths as a parent and to show how you have addressed areas of concern. It will also clarify any current deficits or where more work is needed. It is good to hear that you have been proactive and done lots of recommended work as well as identifying and taking part in additional programmes to promote your parenting skills. Keep up all the progress you are making.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Sjp9396]

Hi, As it stands I am still in care proceedings and that myself and my wife who I am still currently separated with has now completed the parent assessments and the psychological assessments and I am waiting to hear back about my parent assessment however my wife's is showing a positive outcome on it and that the psychological assessments seem to be the same however on my wife's it's showing that she now has emotional personality disorder and she is worried about this a lot as she thinks it may impact our case with children's social care although she is a brilliant mum and I personally couldn't fault her. I am hoping that my parent assessment comes back positive too but I do have high hopes that this will be the case as I have done everything and more that the social worker has asked me too. My main concern is that I am unsure about how social services will react and respond if me or my wife say to them we are wanting to rekindle in the future and be a family again as we have asked our solicitors about this but they don't seem to be any help at all or take any interest in any questions we have for them regarding the case etc. They don't want us too talk at the minute, so we haven't spoken since the beginning of August and they are aware of this but we are bothered if we tell them we want to talk again and rekindle and be a family again that they won't respond to this very well although like I stated everything they wanted us to do, we have done but we have out off mention anything to them to avoid conflict with our social worker. Like I may to add too that my wife did originally say to social services that she didn't want to be a family again or to resume our relationship but this was said because of fear towards the social worker and any other professionals but a friend has contacted me saying my wife had contacted him to say that she wants to resume the relationship and be a family again but her solicitor isn't wanting to know again. My other problem is we have the family IRH court hearing middle of this December so we don't have long left to get things sorted. She is also staying in the area where she currently is as she is still in a residential unit with the children and I am still travelling to see the children at a contact centre and have absolutely no contact with my wife. The social worker and the children's legal guardian have said that the contact centre maybe staying in place until the end of care proceedings. Once she has a new house in the new area social services want to do a bridging plan as this is stated in the care plan (part 1) but I am wanting to obviously move in with them in to the new house when they do get the keys etc. I am therefore just looking for some advice on anything that may help. Many thanks.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Sjp9396

Thank you for posting again on the parents’ discussion forum to provide an update of your position now.

It appears, from reading your post that your wish is to be reunited with your family, but this is not what you or your wife has told children’s services. You mention that your wife initially informed children’s services that she did not wish to be in a relationship or be a family with you. They have proceeded on this basis, and you are now in care proceedings but not indicated that you wish to be assessed as a couple.

If your wife has a positive assessment and the children remain in her care, children’s services are likely to be concerned if after the case she reconciles with you. They may take the view that she cannot be trusted as she was not open and honest about the relationship and may become involved again if they have concerns for the children.
I cannot comment on the solicitors representing your wife and you but each one would, I think, be presenting the best case for their respective clients. They have all the information related to the case and are best placed to advice you both on how you go forward separately or as a couple.

Trying to do things just for children’s services and the court hearing will not be seen as working openly and honestly if what you both want is to be together. Also, it may be that your wife does not want to be a family as she told children’s services at the outset, and it could now be seen as you trying to control her and the situation and so continuing the abusive behaviour that children’s services is concerned about.

Regarding domestic violence perpetrator programmes, you could try Respect on 0808 802 4040 who may be able to assist you. You may also find it helpful to read information from our website relating to care proceedings.

I suggest you continue to do the work which has been recommended and discuss your concerns with your solicitor who will be able to advise you specifically rather than generally. It is important that you engage openly and honestly with children’s services.

Should you wish to speak with one of our experienced advisers, you can telephone our free confidential advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3.00pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays).

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Suzie

[Sjp9396]

I have told social services that I want to be a family again but she has always felt she cant tell them that she wants this too. I haven't however spoken to my wife since august but I was told by a friend this is what she wants but I am unsure the best way moving forward.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Sjp9396

Thank you for your response, I understand that this a difficult time for you. Please do refer to our previous advice and suggestions.

Best wishes
Suzie

[Sjp9396]

My parent assessment is negative but my wife’s assessment is positive and social want to let her a sole cater but we want to be a family. If we ask for a joint assessment can this cause issues or would social have to atleast offer it?

Thank you

[Sjp9396]

Social have put false information on my assessment too making me out to be a bad person when this is not correct.

Thank you