SGO advice - birth mother not sticking to the agreement

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Dadtotwo
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2019 6:13 am

SGO advice - birth mother not sticking to the agreement

Post by Dadtotwo » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:21 am

Hello all,

Sorry to bore you with a back story, but obviously it's necessary. I'll try and keep it brief!

In March 2016 my sister in law announced to us and other family members that she had given birth to a baby girl...3 months after it happened. Due to mental health issues, and drug use, the baby had been taken straight into care, and had to undergo treatment in hospital for opiate withdrawal. The father is unknown, certainly to us, and maybe even to my sister in law, who had apparently been prostituting herself for drug money. Sounds like a classic tale so far.

In the next few months, and for the reasons we chose, my wife and I were granted an SGO in Sep 2016 to look after her. The agreement was that my sister in law would visit every 8 weeks or so. Everything was going fine from Sep 2016 until the very end of Feb 2017, at which point she stopped visiting and has not been back. So basically, despite our initial reasons, we now feel we have been lumbered looking after a child. I'm ashamed to say, but if we could turn the clock back we wouldn't have done it.

So she's not seen her own daughter in almost 3 years, but will occasionally send a card (like the recently arrived Christmas card), which says how much she loves her beautiful girl, and how special she is. Completely empty sentiments. Her daughter has NO idea who she is (partly due to age). My wife and I let her call us mummy and daddy now, since birth mother is no longer present.

So as it stands now, the whole thing has put strain on us all, and has definitely left us feeling more stressed. We can't help but feel how different life would be if it was just my wife, me, and our own 5yo daughter.

Our niece has just turned 4, but she is some 6-8 months behind where our own daughter was at that age. She has problems concentrating, doesn't play with toys on her own as she seemingly lacks any interest in them, and can instead be a bit destructive, ie: wrecking things our daughter is doing or playing with, then smiling about it. She seems to be a more sociable person, preferring our company to playing with toys, but then pretty much annoying us all after about 3 mins.

We feel trapped and frequently have discussions about what we could do to remedy the situation, ie: could we hand her back to social services. We then have that discussion about could we really do that, how would we feel in the days or weeks to follow, and obviously how would it impact our niece, as well as our daughter. There's also the effect it would have on my mother in law, who loves the child like any of her other grandchildren, and there's a very real chance that my sister in law could commit suicide, such is her mental state. My wife's relationship with her sister is at rock bottom, but she doesn't want her sister to take drastic action following a decision we could make. No one else sees what we see on a daily basis.

Can anyone offer any advice?

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 950
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:25 pm

Re: SGO advice - birth mother not sticking to the agreement

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Fri Jan 17, 2020 2:27 pm

Dear Dadtotwo

I am sorry to read of your difficult situation, thank you for sharing it with us and welcome to our board. My apologies for the long delay in responding.

From what you have written it seems that you are concerned that the arrangement that you have made may be on the verge of breaking down and you seem worried about the impact of this on all involved parties.

For the whole family – any breakdown will impact you tremendously: your daughter (niece) will need support prior and after this, as will your biological daughter because she will be affected by the changes in the family home too. From what you say, I should like to suggest that you ask for an assessment of your niece particularly as you say that she can be destructive. It may be possible that her development was impacted by her mother’s drug abuse during her pregnancy. In the first instance contact the local authority who supported you with the making of the SGO and ask for an assessment for your niece, our advice sheet about Family support may help. You may also find information about support for your niece if she qualifies, from the Adoption Support Fund, here is information about that.

May I suggested that you arrange to speak to your wider family members and ask if any of them are prepared to support you, by perhaps offering respite at weekends or during school holidays. You may want to consider letting them know that being a special guardian is becoming very difficult and that their offer of respite may lead to you asking for your niece to live with them permanently. Should this happen, you can ask the family member to make an application for a Child Arrangements Order and during that process ask for your Special Guardianship Order to be discharged.

For some immediate ‘relief/support’, you should ask your niece’s school or nursery to support her with some therapy, be it play therapy or additional support through their pastoral care team (whatever they can offer). Your GP may help you too: it may be useful to speak to them about your niece, her behaviour and how it is affecting your care of her.

Regarding your niece’s mother and her mental health, if you think that she may harm herself, perhaps a family member could support her in getting the support of a counsellor or therapist. The Samaritans or Mind are two useful organisations to which your sister-in-law may be referred: she should be advised to contact her GP too.

Your future decisions may not be easy to make. Do not feel judged by anyone. From what you say it was your intention to support your sister-in-law by agreeing to and undertaking the legal process of Special Guardianship. In doing so you and your wife provided a home for your niece within her biological family with the view that her mother’s ‘issues’ may have been temporary and at some point in the future your niece’s relationship with her mother could blossom and grow: you could not have foreseen this situation.

I hope this information is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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