What do you think our chances are?

[SGOsaint!]

We have had SGO for our second niece for a just over 2 years. From the start we agreed to do the SGO to support birth mum as she was very young with poor choices
but since SGO being granted it has been very challenging the last few years the main one being contact and the first year birth mum making things very difficult for us when the lockdown happened and contact was reduced.
We now seam to have turned a corner and birth mum is applying to revoke the SGO which when she first applied early last year we were not in support of the application ( we wrote this in a statement to the judge and gave our reasons mainly being birth mum making contact difficult and calling Social services on us ) but in the last 6 months my relationship has improved with birth mum contact has increased including unsupervised contact and little one is happy when she comes back home.
Mum has been in a stable relationship and home for over a year and they care for her partners child. She is off drugs drink and her mental health has improved dramatically. My question is what do you think the chances are of the judge giving permission for her to apply if we are in agreement. We have even considered revoking the SGO ourselves ( mainly because we don’t want the constant stress from birth mum but also because deep down we know that mum is trying her very best always attending contact and giving her the full attention she deserves which I sometimes feel we can’t as we both work full time and our circumstances have changed ( I didn’t work when SGO was granted as lost my job to look after neice ) our children are growing up and wanting their own space ( they had to share a bedroom ) which isn’t too bad but my eldest age 14 is really struggling the last 6 months not having his own space.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear SGOsaint

Thank you for your post and welcome to the Board.

From what you write both yours and your niece’s family situation has changed and now you think that it may be better for your great niece to return to her mother. A parent, as you are aware, needs the permission of the court before making the application to discharge the special guardianship order. It may be ‘the right time’ for the mother to apply again noting that you agree with the child’s return to her care and stating that unsupervised access has been going well and saying how long this has been the case etc. Her chances might be improved if she were (with your consent) to have overnight contact with her child too.

One question the court may ask is ‘why, you have changed your view about the mother’s application?’ It may be a good idea to speak about the limited space that you have now (perhaps) saying that when you were granted the order little attention was paid to what would happen as all of the children in your household grew up/got older. You could say that you made many ‘sacrifices’, including your own employment in order to care for your great niece and at the time you may not have had the opportunity or time to ‘really consider’ what the future would hold (for everyone). The question of your employment should have been discussed when you were being assessed, see page 18 of our guide. You could say too, that you have been a very happy special guardian and very glad that you were able to care for your great niece…Something along these lines, would, I imagine, be very understandable to all.

Alternatively, as you have mentioned you as the special guardian can apply to discharge the order yourself. Here is some information about SGOs, see page 10 for who can discharge them.

Best wishes

Suzie