Support for SGO

[Scoobydee]

So to set the background we have a SGO for husbands nephew from 12 yrs ago as he was took from mother and we were approached by childrens services to see if we were willing to have FAO solicitor advised SGO all went through and is sorted! Fast forward to march! My 3 nephews were being neglected by my sister!
Their attendance was 70% & 40% youngest was entitled to 15hrs school granted 30 to try help my sister things still didnt change!
Through talking to school they “eventually” took things further!
Now because of this i removed my nephews from the house due to my sister substance misuse, windows being smashed up as her bf was a dealer and i feared for their safety! My sister didnt argue the fact and neither have childrens services as as far as they are concerned the children are safe and stable in our care!
Weve recently had a FGC and me and hubby want to go for SGO and mum and partly absent dad are in agreement and so were childrens services! We have now had the boys in our care 6 months and they go to same school as my son!
Now childrens service’s are back tracking and saying that there is an issue with the cost of the SGO and that we have to engage solicitors to find out cost because well prob have to fund it! We are on benefits and cannot find a solicitor that deals with it, also the SW has made it clear through many meetings that she has more “important “ cases! It feels like were being left by the borough to just get on with it!
Can anyone help or give advice thank you

[PDB]

Hi,

If its anything like what we are going through good luck, I posted on hear yesterday regarding the same issues
and the issues all seem to be the same sadly funding, but you have to keep on at them and keep
all correspondence from them, then you will have a record of who said what and when if needed to argue your case.
We are in the same boat, but for us they will hopefully eventually agree to pay for Solicitors.

The part the SW and Child Services don't seem to take into account is its a massive undertaking and a financial one too, but all the borough / council are bothered about is saving money

I do hope all goes well for you all and they do fund this for you.

Regards

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

So to set the background we have a SGO for husbands nephew from 12 yrs ago as he was took from mother and we were approached by childrens services to see if we were willing to have FAO solicitor advised SGO all went through and is sorted! Fast forward to march! My 3 nephews were being neglected by my sister!
Their attendance was 70% & 40% youngest was entitled to 15hrs school granted 30 to try help my sister things still didnt change!
Through talking to school they “eventually” took things further!
Now because of this i removed my nephews from the house due to my sister substance misuse, windows being smashed up as her bf was a dealer and i feared for their safety! My sister didnt argue the fact and neither have childrens services as as far as they are concerned the children are safe and stable in our care!
Weve recently had a FGC and me and hubby want to go for SGO and mum and partly absent dad are in agreement and so were childrens services! We have now had the boys in our care 6 months and they go to same school as my son!
Now childrens service’s are back tracking and saying that there is an issue with the cost of the SGO and that we have to engage solicitors to find out cost because well prob have to fund it! We are on benefits and cannot find a solicitor that deals with it, also the SW has made it clear through many meetings that she has more “important “ cases! It feels like were being left by the borough to just get on with it!
Can anyone help or give advice thank you

Dear Scoobydee

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 very sorry to hear about the difficulties you and your nephews have experienced. You have stepped in to keep them safe and care for them.

In order to provide full advice it would be helpful to know if your nephews were known to children’s services before you took them to live with you i.e. were they on a child in need or particularly a child protection plan, prior to this? Or have they been placed on a child protection plan since?

The reason this is important is because, from the information provided, you intervened to safeguard the children rather than children’s services doing so. In this situation, children’s services consider that the children are staying with you under a private family arrangement which has implications for the support/lack of support provided.

A kinship carer has a stronger argument for support if they are willing to apply for a Special Guardianship Order if they have been approved as a kinship foster carer and the child treated as a Looked After Child first.

Children’s Services will not want to assess you as kinship foster carers for your nephews as there is agreement with parents, yourselves, and children’s services that a SGO may be the best arrangement for your nephews.

If you wanted to request to be assessed as kinship foster carers for your nephew you can use our template letter (4 ) to make this argument – however, if they were not involved in making or facilitating the argument they will refuse this. You would then need to make a complaint.

Family and friends care statutory guidance makes it clear that support to kinship carers should not be solely dependent on the child’s legal status. If you don’t have a copy of your nephews’ local authority’s family and friends care policy (it is a legal requirement for all English local authorities to have a policy) then you may be able to find it here. The help that children’s services can provide (in certain circumstances) includes help with legal advice, court fees, supporting a carer to apply for a court order, allowances (fostering or SG allowances) but unfortunately carers often meet obstacles when they seek help.

If you are happy to apply for a SGO but need more support to do so i.e. in terms of making the application and getting legal advice and support afterwards i.e. to be paid a SG allowance you will need to make this clear to children’s services. You may want to insist that you can only care for the children with support.

The local authority should have a policy on when they pay for kinship carers to get legal advice. I would recommend that you ask (in writing) for a copy of this policy and that they pay for you to access legal advice. If they refuse ask them to confirm why in writing to you so that you can challenge if needed.

If they originally agreed to pay for you to get legal advice, to pay your court fees or agreed that they would make the court application on your behalf and are now, as you say, ‘backtracking,’ then do raise this as a matter of urgency with the social worker, their manager and, if necessary, the Complaints department. Ultimately you may have to make a complaint if you/your nephews are not properly supported by children’s services. Please see more about how to make a complaint here.

If you follow the complaints procedure but remained dissatisfied or unsupported you can then contact the Local Government Ombudsman . The LGO upholds many complaints made by kinship carers.

Although you already have a SGO for your husband’s nephew you may find our advice sheets on Special Guardianship helpful too. You can find them here (advice sheets 2 a to 2 e). 2 d) is a DIY guide to applying in private law proceedings (where children’s services are not in care proceedings.

SG allowances are means-tested and discretionary. Children’s services must assess the carer's support needs (including financial support) if the child has been looked after and can assess if they haven’t but they don’t have to (and often won’t). However, I would recommend that you ask in writing to be assessed for an allowance (especially as you are on benefits) and seek further advice or make a complaint if refused an assessment.

I am sorry to hear that the social worker is not responsive and is just letting you to get on with it. I think that you are probably doing an excellent job since stepping in to care for your nephews so their situation is seen as more stable and less of a priority. Children’s Services may be very keen for you to obtain parental responsibility so that they can then close the case and leave you to it. However, it is important that you and the children are given the right support at this time to ensure that they can continue to live safely with you now and in the future. So don’t worry about asking questions and seeking support, they are responsible things to be doing.

I hope this helps.

If you would like to discuss your situation with an adviser please call our freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm. Or you can post back on this forum too.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Scoobydee]

Thank you for your reply,
There is definitely a lot to take on board.
In answer to the question of CIN yes they were in process of being placed on CIN when we removed them, then they were put on the CIN, technically some of the info on the CIN is outdated and should of had newer info but the SW didnt do any home visits as he couldnt get hold of my sister and was very quick to pass the buck to the CIN team, when the new SW was assigned it then took nearly a month of nothing before they then told us she had left and it was now another SW’er
This is the current SW’er who said in all reality it should of been CP not CIN But as wed removed the children her hands were tied as they were safe with us,
This we get but after she referred for a FGC it was agreed by all parties to seek the SGO!
When i contacted SW after her annual leave she was very short with me and backtracking on the fact that she was going to get the ball rolling stating she didnt think her manager would agree because of costs, so we would need to get a solicitor to give us a quote then she would try and “push it”
I will re-read the rest and try take it all in to see how we best stand thank you

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi,

If its anything like what we are going through good luck, I posted on hear yesterday regarding the same issues
and the issues all seem to be the same sadly funding, but you have to keep on at them and keep
all correspondence from them, then you will have a record of who said what and when if needed to argue your case.
We are in the same boat, but for us they will hopefully eventually agree to pay for Solicitors.

The part the SW and Child Services don't seem to take into account is its a massive undertaking and a financial one too, but all the borough / council are bothered about is saving money

I do hope all goes well for you all and they do fund this for you.

Regards

Dear PDB

Welcome to the Kinship Carers’ forum . My name is Suzie and I am Family Right Group’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulties getting the right support from children’s services.

Thank you for your encouragement and advice to another kinship carer.

You mention in your response that you had posted on the forum the day before but I have not been able to see an earlier post from you.

If you did intend to post a query or need any advice please do post back. Alternatively, you can ring our freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm to speak to an adviser.

Best wishes

Suzie

[PDB]

Hi Suzie,

I removed the post as it was very long and if I am being honest not a good thing to say
about Child Services, and I don't want what I posted the jeopardies the SGO order.

I will say this, the biggest mistake we made was to take the children when there mum passed away if we had let them go into care then apply for fostering we would have had no problems, but who would see 2 young children be taken away on the same day as there mum passed hopefully no one.

The system is totally backwards, as grandparent's we cannot claim anything as I work still and my
partner is on state pension. We are now financially flat broke to the point where it embarrassing.
We get Family allowance and that's all wow spare me the good will £141 a month it costs that in food a week now.

Regards,

[PDB]

Hi Suzie,

further to last post, as I suspected it looks like they are not going to fund the SGO order
and also they are not going to help with any financial support, so it looks like we are
going to have to do the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life.

And let the LA, take the children into there care, I cant even begin to describe how stressful the last
8 months have been for us and the children, and all of it caused by the people that are supposed to
know what is best for the children OMG I give up

Regards

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Suzie,

further to last post, as I suspected it looks like they are not going to fund the SGO order
and also they are not going to help with any financial support, so it looks like we are
going to have to do the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life.

And let the LA, take the children into there care, I cant even begin to describe how stressful the last
8 months have been for us and the children, and all of it caused by the people that are supposed to
know what is best for the children OMG I give up

Regards

Dear PDB,

Thankyou for your further posts and I apologise for the delay in responding to you. I am very sorry to hear about the extremely stressful situation that you find yourself in. You say that your grandchildren are now in your care as their mother sadly passed away. You are struggling financially and considering whether you may have to request that the local authority take the children into their care as you feel that you cannot continue as you are.

You don’t say if a social worker was involved in the children coming into your care. From the information you have given I suspect that this was not the case, but if in fact a social worker was involved then you would have a very strong case to argue that the local authority should be treating you as kinship foster carers including paying you a fostering allowance. If this is the situation then I would suggest that you use template letters 4 and 5 to put in a formal complaint. If you do submit a formal complaint then I would encourage you to follow this all the way up to the Local Government Ombudsman if necessary.

However if it is the case that a social worker was not involved in placing the children in your care then the following advice may be helpful. As I said in the post above to Scoobydee, Family and friends care statutory guidance makes it clear that support to kinship carers should not be solely dependent on the child’s legal status. If you don’t have a copy of the local authority’s family and friends care policy (it is a legal requirement for all English local authorities to have a policy) then you may be able to find it HERE. The help that children’s services can provide (in certain circumstances) includes help with legal advice, court fees, supporting a carer to apply for a court order, allowances (fostering or SG allowances) but unfortunately carers often meet obstacles when they seek help.

In terms of practical steps that you could consider taking, I would first suggest that you send an email to the social worker and their manager, CC’ing in the director of children’s services, to explain your situation and make it very clear that although you wish to continue caring for your grandchildren you cannot continue to do so if no financial support is offered. It would be a good idea to request to meet with the social worker and their manager so that you can discuss this with them.

It may be helpful for you to see if there are any kinship carer support groups in your local area. HERE is a link that you can use to search for these groups. These groups can provide invaluable support from people who have been in similar situations to you. Kinship also offer a peer-to-peer support service as well as an advice service.

The Mary Ward Legal Centre has a welfare benefits advice line (020 7831 7079) which it might be worth you calling to check that you are receiving all the benefits you are entitled to at present.

I hope that this is of some help. Please post again if you have any further queries, or you can call our free helpline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak with an adviser in more detail.

Best wishes,
Suzie

[PDB]

Hi Suzie,

I have started to go through all the paperwork we have from when we took the children into our home.

Dated 3/3/2022 first part states

Has an appropriate plan been created for and presented to the child?
No
If not when will this happen?
After CIN due to grief

other info,

Relevant legal status and immigration for any family members or significant people not living in the household...

Currently X & X are the children's guardians as their mother passed away suddenly.
The Police took the children there.
X & X will need to seek legal advice regarding obtaining PR.

Also on the letter from CS to seek legal advice, it states the children are ....... with us and they have responsibility for the children until SGO is finalised...

Not really sure if any of above is helpful or not ?

Regards
PDB

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear PDB

Thank you for your further post and the additional written information.

I think the first thing to establish is how the children came to you I understand that the police brought them to you but it's important to know whether this was done after they contacted children’s services or they contacted you immediately without any children services involvement. Did you contact children's services at the time. After the childre came to you, how long was it before a social worker came to see the children.

On the written information in your post, it states that children services were to do a child in need assessment. There is no information about what discussions they had with you about the legal framework that you will be looking after the children under. As the children came to you in an emergency (which may have been the case) then, in those circumstances it could be argued that children services ought to treat the children as looked after. Had you not had them then children’s services would have found a stranger foster care placement for them. It may be that they do not want to do this because of the benefits that flow from a child having looked after status prior to a private law order being made. Had a child in need assessment been completed children’s services could have offered financial support if they assessed them to be in need.

You do not mention the children’s father. Is he involved at all, and did he share parental responsibility with their mother?

It is not mentioned in your post if you acted on the advice given to send either template letter 4 or 5 to children’s services as a complaint. Making a complaint of about this is unlikely to have a negative impact on your application for a special guardianship order (although you may not pursue this now). Please see information about support for special guardians from children’s services. It is both sad and unfortunate that you have been placed in a position where you are considering your grandchildren going into care.

It appears that children’s services made the decision for you to obtain parental responsibility even before any assessment carried out of the children’s needs and your ability to meet those needs.

You need to decide if you wish to make a formal complaint and going through the stages up to the local government and social care ombudsman (LGO). It might give you an idea of the decisions made by the LGO if you have a look at their website.

I hope this is helpful, but should you wish to speak to an adviser you can telephone our free confidential advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday (except Bank Holidays)

Best wishes
Suzie