Grandparents in despair

[TYFD2]

Hi I'm really hoping someone can shed some light on our situation.
Our grandson has been in the care of his PGP for almost 4 months, since he was taken from my daughter & her partner. I won't go into detail but basically they are being accused of causing him harm. My daughters partner has admitted he could be heavy handed/over zealous when playing with him. My daughter vehemently denies any wrong doing.
The problem is, my daughter brought him to see us the week before he was taken into care (we live 2 hours away from them) so we were told we were in the Pool of Perpetrators (PoP), but it was just a term & nothing to worry about. I am the only one mentioned in any documents about this, not my partner. We are being assessed as foster carers in case he has to stay in care, yet we are not being allowed to see him unsupervised. We have to see him every other week, for 1.5 hours, sharing my daughters visit. We have asked SS numerous times about our position in the PoP, we have not been questioned, noone will speak to us, noone will answer our questions about this. The police didn't even have us on their list of people to interview. We have seen our grandson 5 times in the last 4 months, the last time being 18th August due to SS messing up visiting/assessments work commitments etc. We saw him EVERY WEEK, from the moment he was born & I even lived with them for the 1st 2weeks to help out. We've asked her solicitor to raise our concerns & we've had advice from our own solicitor but until we're told we're under investigation there's little our solicitor can do. We are being completely ignored by SS & treated like scum. We are heartbroken at not being able to see him, my partner suffers from depression & this is really affecting him. Mostly because of the lack of communication, but equally because we fear he won't know who we are when we do see him. Why can't anyone just tell us what the situation is? Are we being investigated? Do we not have any rights to see our grandson? Whats more, he saw us infinitely more than he ever saw his PGP/foster carers before this happened. My daughters partner didn't really have a close relationship with them & saw us more like parents than them. Is there ANYTHING we can do to get someone to speak to us? Any advice will be helpful. Thank you.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear TYFD2,

Welcome to the kinship carers’ forum and thank you for your post. I am Suzie, an online adviser for Family Rights Group and I will be responding to your post today. I hope that the following advice and information is helpful to you. You can click on the hyperlinks in my response to take you to more advice and information on our website.

Firstly, I am sorry to hear about this situation and imagine that it must be very distressing for you to be separated from your grandson. It also sounds that you feel unclear about children’s services and the court’s involvement.

Firstly, you say that you are in the pool of perpetrators because your daughter brought your grandson to visit you the week before he was removed from her care. When a child is injured, but no-one admits that they caused the injury, the court must consider who could have had the opportunity to cause the injury. Anyone who had contact with the child in a period of time before the injury was discovered would be placed in this pool of potential perpetrators. It is possible that the court will hold a ‘fact finding hearing’ to look at the evidence and make a decision based on the balance of probabilities about what they think happened (and who caused the injury).

Although you are in the pool of perpetrators this does not mean that you are ‘being investigated’; it simply means that it is possible that you caused the injury to your grandson. This is not the same as being accused of causing the injury; just that you cannot currently be ruled out completely as the potential perpetrator.

It is positive that you are being assessed as potential carers if your daughter and her partner are unable to care for your grandson long-term and I would encourage you to keep in regular communication with your solicitor about this. At the moment, as you are in the pool of potential perpetrators, children’s services would be highly unlikely to allow unsupervised contact even though you are being assessed as potential long-term carers. However if a fact finding hearing determines (on the balance of probabilities) who the perpetrator is then it may be possible that children’s services allow you to have unsupervised contact in future.

You ask whether you have any rights to see your grandson. As you do not have any parental responsibility you do not have any rights in respect of your grandson, but children’s services do have a duty towards your grandson to promote contact between him and his family (see paragraph 15 of schedule 2 of the Children Act 1989.

Government statutory guidancec describes how important wider family can be to children in care. The guidance is called ’The Children Act 1989 guidance and regulations: Volume 2: care planning, placement and case review’ and says:
‘Grandparents and other relatives can provide a sense of family history and continuity where the child cannot live with his/her birth parents yet contact may easily be lost if the child becomes looked after’ (see paragraph 2.84).

A major review of research about children having contact with families has found that children benefit from contact with grandparents, siblings and wider family members. This type of family contact has a positive impact on relationships and the role that family members can play in providing support after the child leaves care.

It may be helpful to remind highlight this guidance and research with your grandson’s social worker and independent reviewing officer when discussing contact arrangements and plans with them. It would also be advisable to get advice from your solicitor about this as they know the details of the situation best.

I hope that this is of some help. Please post again if you have any further queries or you can call our free, confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm). We also have a webchat which is currently open on Monday and Thursday afternoons and you can contact us via our advice enquiry form.

Best wishes,
Suzie
Family Rights Group Adviser

[TYFD2]

Update- We have now been told our Foster Care assessment WILL NOT be put forward to the Fostering panel. This is because the Social Worker has no intention of considering us to care for our grandson. Our assessor said she feels this is wrong because on paper we are "perfect". We feel we are being unfairly treated & the whole system is biased. The original Social Worker took herself off the case and put herself forward for Investigation due to errors in reports, breeches of confidentiality & GDPR. Yet her initial reports,are still being used by the new SW against us.
Our solicitor just advises us to put our concerns forward through my daughters solicitor. We haven't been informed that any fact finding will take place. We could have been cleared straight away but SS never followed up on a visit to the pharmacist 2 days after our grandson left us, where he was seen, by the pharmacist in only a nappy. Any marks would have (should have) been seen, but there were none. 3 days later our grandson was taken away. SS still haven't spoken to the pharmacist 3 months on! Although my daughter hasn't caused her son any harm, she is accused of "failure to protect". But if she was unaware her partner was injuring her son by the way he handled him/played with him etc , how could she have protected him? She told her partner she was uncomfortable with the way he played with him, should she have instead, told the police? We feel we as grandparents are in a no win situation & we feel that my daughter is wrapped up in a system and situation that will end with SS issuing an SGO to the current foster carers (the Paternal grandparents). Because it seems the easiest thing for them to do. The PGP by the way have a history of violence & abuse & are regular smokers of weed... These are the people SS are recommending my grandson be permanently placed with. How can this be right & in the best interest of my grandson? Unfortunately,
I think a heavy workload and the reluctance to add extra paperwork is going to influence the Best Interests of my grandson.

[TYFD2]

Sorry, forgot to say, thank you for your response! Head swimming & had no sleep!

[FGED22]

Hi can anyone tell me if kinship allowance is backdated as we have 2 grandchildren who are classed as looked after children
We are starting to get the allowance on the 12th of October but the LA are only backdating the payments from the 12th of Sept which is when my daughter had signed the section 20 but we have had them since 20th August. If anybody could shed light on this matter I would very much appreciate it

[Robin D]

Hi FGED22 and welcome.

As the s20 was not in place, I suspect the LA will argue that you taking them earlier was a private arrangement, unless they brought the children to you and you have documentation (foster parent agreement or similar) showing the earlier date . Even then, I suspect you will struggle to get them to pay up. Unfortunately if you spend time looking at earlier posts here you will find many grandparents have been refused payment for ages, and in some cases never accept the responsibility. Even when they do then the LA will often not backdate it. At least they have agreed to pay from teh s20 date. I wish you luck with the period before that.

The FRG advisor, Suzie, may be able to point to other things that might allow you to claim the back money.

Good luck ... Robin

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi can anyone tell me if kinship allowance is backdated as we have 2 grandchildren who are classed as looked after children
We are starting to get the allowance on the 12th of October but the LA are only backdating the payments from the 12th of Sept which is when my daughter had signed the section 20 but we have had them since 20th August. If anybody could shed light on this matter I would very much appreciate it

Dear FGED22,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the kinship carers’ forum. I am Suzie, an online adviser responding to your question today.

If children’s services were involved in placing the children in your care prior to their parent signing a S.20 voluntary agreement you have an argument that you became a kinship foster carer at the earlier date and that the kinship foster carer allowance should be backdated accordingly.

You can read more about children in the care system under S.20 voluntary arrangements here.

Detailed information regarding disputes with children’s services about whether children being cared for by relatives is a private family arrangement or a kinship foster placement is here.

If children’s services played a major role in making the arrangements for the children to come into your care, the most likely conclusion is that children’s services were exercising powers and duties to look after the child under section 20(1)(c) of the Children Act 1989. If children’s services were instead simply assisting in arranging informal family care, then they should have been be explicit about this.

So, if children’s services were involved in making the arrangements but did not see you as kinship foster carers at this stage (prior to the S.20 agreement) they had a duty to make it plain that that they viewed your involvement as a private family matter and your care of the children on 20th August was at your own cost. If children’s services did not clarify this point at the right time, you can now argue that you should be seen as having become kinship foster carers from that date.

Family Rights Group have a template letter you could adapt to assert that you were kinship foster carers from 20th August and request that the allowance be backdated to that date.
You can link to it here. Please look at letter 4.

Some of the arguments in the template are not relevant as children’s services have now agreed that you are kinship foster carers since the S.20 agreements, but you can use it to focus on the backdated payment issue that you wish to raise.

I hope this is helpful to you.

. There are many different ways to contact Family Rights Group if you seek further advice in the future:

• A free telephone advice line open Monday to Friday between 9.30am and 3pm (excluding Bank Holidays) on 0808 801 0366
• Easy-to-follow online information. Features include an A-Z, FAQs, films, ‘top tips’ and legal advice sheets;
• A webchat service where you can message an adviser online, who will help you find information and advice to support you.
Submitting an email enquiry via the here
• to receive a response within 5 working days

Best wishes,
Suzie