Contact for birth mother

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dolphin
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:15 am

Contact for birth mother

Post by dolphin » Tue Aug 02, 2022 3:25 pm

My partner and I have sgo for our granddaughter aged 2. She has been with us since she was 4 months old. We are having issues with birth mother in regards to contact. There is a great distance between where we live and where she lives, so contact was agreed at 4 times per year. The mother has not seen our granddaughter since Dec 2021 as she keeps cancelling contact, stating that she cannot afford to come. What I am trying to find out is if we are allowed to reduce the amount of contact to maybe twice a year to see if this will be more affordable and therefore contact might happen. We are just unsure if we are allowed to change it or if we are legally bound to stick with the 4 times a year.

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

Re: Contact for birth mother

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:19 pm

Dear dolphin

Thank you for your post and welcome to the kinship care forum.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group.

I see from your post that you have a special guardianship order for your 2-year-old granddaughter and there are now issues relating to birth mother’s contact. She has been inconsistent with contact since December 2021 it appears this is due to the cost of travel being prohibitive.

You now wish to reduce the current amount of contact with the mother to twice a year rather than the 4 times a year in place. It is not clear whether the mother has a child arrangement order relating to her contact or not. If there is an order, she can insist that you stick to this and failing to do so would mean you are breaking a court order. If there is no order then you can, if you believe it is in your granddaughter’s interest reduce contact. However, the mother could apply to the court for an order for contact.

Should you wish to change the order you can apply to the court to vary the terms of the current order to the amount of contact you think is more appropriate.

Children’s services could offer support to the mother to attend contact if your granddaughter was looked after child before the special guardianship order was made.

In your post you say that the mother lives some distance from you. Have you considered meeting her halfway to make it easier for her to have contact? Perhaps you and she could try family mediation to see if you can reach a workable agreement for contact.

You may wish to speak with Child Law Advice on 0300 330 5480 regarding the issue of contact as they can advice about the private law court application should you decide to go down that route to sort out contact issues.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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