Possible grandchild being put into Foster care

[Beau]

Morning
My sons ex girlfriend gave birth last week, he is 1 of 2 potential fathers. Social services are involved due to her older child being hurt in her care and he now lives with his father and she has contact. She's still in hospital with baby and social are seeking a care order. Today a judge will decide if baby will stay with mum or go into Foster care. Myself my husband and my son have all said we would like to be considered but are being ignored. No dna test as been arranged yet which social said would be done and the social worker involved is not answering or returning any communication between us and him. Please help! What can we do to have this baby stay out of Foster care?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Beau

Welcome to the Kinship Carers’ forum and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties your family is currently facing.

You are worried that your son may be a father (not yet confirmed) to a new-born baby. Children’s services are so concerned about this baby’s welfare that they are applying to court for an interim care order to protect them. The court hearing was on the day you posted so the judge will already have decided whether to make an interim care order or not and whether baby can remain with their mother, perhaps in a mother and baby unit, or be placed in foster care.

Your son and you and your husband would all like to be considered as possible carers for the baby.

Even if the baby has remained with their mother or been placed in foster care you can still push to be assessed as possible carers for the baby. Children’s services are required to look to and assess the baby’s father and family members when making plans for children in care.

The court will have considered that there are two putative fathers of the baby and I think will have made directions for paternity to be clarified. You can find a detailed explanation of paternity testing here.

We have information here that may be helpful to your son, if he is the baby’s father and if he does not have parental responsibility (PR) for the baby. If unmarried and unless the baby’s mother agrees and names him on the birth certificate he won’t have PR.

You can find out more about how a father without parental responsibility is involved in care proceedings below:

A father without PR will not automatically be a party to proceedings. But he will receive notice that care proceedings have been issued (started). Usually then he will be ‘joined as a party to the proceedings by the court.

In this situation, the parent should see a solicitor as soon as they receive a notice of care proceedings. The solicitor will be able to advise them, and apply for them to be joined as a party to the care proceedings.

And we have a more detailed explanation here .

If your son is the baby’s father and becomes a party to care proceedings he will then be able to take part fully. This includes seeing all the court papers. He will be entitled to legal aid to get free legal advice.

I hope your son has already contacted a solicitor; if not he can look for a children law accredited solicitor on the Law Society find a solicitor website.

It is good that you have already made your willingness to be assessed known. Below are some suggestions about how to pursue this further:

You can:

 Contact the child’s social worker directly if their name is known. The child’s parent may be able to provide this information and contact information for the social worker. If you are unable to get a response from the social then you can contact their manager. Yu can try to contact or chase up a response via phone, email, or letter.
 Ask the parent(s) to let their solicitor or the child’s social worker know
 Contact the children’s guardian or the child’s solicitor if their details are known
 Write to the court dealing with the case – if you are aware of the details. Or if the situation is urgent and there is a court hearing about to take place, you can attend court yourselves.

You may be invited to attend a family group conference (FGC) to bring together the baby’s family network to try to come up with safe plans and identify all possible carers. You can find out more here.

The first stage of the assessment process for a kinship carer is an initial family and friends care or viability assessment. I would recommend that you have a look at this good practice guide especially the information for relatives in the appendix at the back for the family member who is being assessed, to help you prepare. If for any reason you had a negative assessment that you wanted to challenge you can use our template letter (3) to assist you.

You can find out more about the different possible options for caring for a child and about care proceedings below:

Kinship care pages
Care proceedings
Advice sheets

As the situation has already moved on since you first posted perhaps you would like to post back with an update and any further questions or you could ring the freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon - Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm.

I hope you find out soon if your son is the baby’s father and if he is that you can be assessed as potential carers for the baby as part of the parallel planning that needs to happen.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Beau]

Thank you for your reply and the information. The court hearing went ahead that day and baby was placed into Foster care that evening. The social worker has been in touch and is assessing myself and my husband for the viability assessment in the next 2 weeks. Also the court has ordered a dna test so that will be taking place soon, my son has done one that he has paid for and we should get the results back in the next few days however we cannot use that for the courts.

[Beau]

We had a 2.5hr viability assessment yesterday with the social worker. We have to wait now to see if it's positive or negative. My son has had no contact with baby still as we are still waiting for the court ordered dna test to be arranged. The babies mother has said she is registering baby's birth and not putting my son on the birth certificate or using his last name. What can he do?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Beau

Welcome back to the kinship carers’ forum and thank you for your updated post. I am glad to hear that you have now had your viability assessment. I hope that it will be positive but if for any reason it is negative please see the advice provided in my initial response to you on 11th February and please use our template letter (3) to assist you; the links are included in the reply.

I hope that the court-directed DNA test for you son is arranged as soon as possible so that paternity of the baby is confirmed.

The baby’s mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child from birth and as she is unmarried it is her choice whether or not she registers the father’s name or uses his last name. If she is unsure about paternity then it would also be wise for her to have this confirmed before registration.

However, even if she does not register your son as the father, if his paternity is confirmed then he can still apply for or seek to acquire parental responsibility for the baby.

As the case is in care proceedings, If your son's paternity is confirmed he will then be entitled to legal aid and to be represented by a solicitor who will be able to assist and advise him on this matter. I think there is an interim care order in place which means that the local authority also has parental responsibility for the child therefore discussing this with a solicitor is a priority.

We have a full explanation of how fathers generally can apply for PR if the child's mother does not agree: here . Please see a brief summary below - in your son's case then the last two bullet points may be the most relevant:

• His name is added to the birth certificate later (re-registering the birth)
• He enters into a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
• The court grants him a parental responsibility order
• The court makes a ‘lives with’ child arrangements order for the child to live with him

As the court process has recently begun final decisions will not be made for approximately 26 weeks but your son should raise with his solicitor his concern about his as soon as possible.

I hope this helps.

Please do post back or call the freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm if we can help. Your son is also welcome to call if he needs advice or he can post on our online parents forum.

With best wishes

Suzie

[Beau]

Morning and thank you for the reply. My son had his court ordered dna swab on Monday and the baby is having theres today. Mum had a meeting yesterday which informed her that baby is no longer under a child protection plan and had moved to a care plan. Still with Foster carers and the review is still set for the 31st March. We haven't heard anything back yet regarding the assessment results however the SW report must be submitted by 8th March.

[Beau]

afternoon, i spoke to sw on 10.3.22 who informed me that its unlikely we will see or hear about the report until after the court date on 31.3.22 and then we will have 4 weeks to contest any decisions. However reading up ive seen that we should have been showed a draft report where we can correct any wrong information and then see the final report . Please advise us on this as we still have no contact with baby.

[DB182]

Hi Beau are you on about the report for the assessment of yourself and husband if so. You are allowed to see it...email the social worker and ask can they send you a copy so you can check and make amendments. Good luck x

[Beau]

Hi, yes it is the report from the assessment. I have emailed the SW but as of yet I've heard nothing back. I have asked for the managers contact details and also looking for a solicitor.

[DB182]

Yes beau you are entitled to see that...we had the same problem when ours was done...I emailed the social worker to ask when I would see it...he replied same way as yours that we wouldn't see it until court I said no that's not right I want to see it before court so I can make adjustments I said I don't want any lies going to court....he replied I'll see what I can do...within 10 mins I had it and there was alot of stuff that needed changing things I'd asked him to change before....in the end I ended up having to email all the solicitors and judge to explain what he had done and how I'd asked on more than one occasion to change things...I was acting for myself though with no solicitor....email social worker and say can you please try and set some contact up....its hard because they will probably say their waiting on dna results...my tried saying contact was for parents only..Good luck