Dear Kekeleelee
Thank you for your further updating posts. I will reply to them all here. I am very sorry to hear how difficult things are for you and your grandchildren. You are all under great emotional strain, the children are struggling with school and you are experiencing financial pressures.
As another kinship carer, Robin, has said in his helpful response, he and I (Suzie) did reply to your earlier post with some specific advice. Please do have another look at those responses as we have provided links there to information and services that you do need to know about. I will reiterate some of that here as well as it is quite important, in particular, about the role of children’s services and the support that should be provided to both you and your grandchildren.
As your granddaughter has alleged that she has been sexually abused by her father there is likely to be a
child protection investigation taking place. This involves both police and
children’s services. They work together to protect children but as you know, have distinct roles. The police role is to decide if a crime may have been committed and then to investigate.
Children’s services are the lead agency though when it comes to child protection. Their job is to provide help and support to vulnerable children and to keep them safe from harm. They may remain involved even if the police do not. I provided links to child protection procedures in my last reply so please do read that information as it will help inform you. As Robin has noted, you do not have
parental responsibility as a grandmother so it may be that there is information that children’s services or the police have not been able to share with you. However, as the children’s carer they should be able to keep you as updated and informed as they can. You can ask the social worker to clarify what is happening in terms of their assessment and to let you know what to expect. They should also be making it very clear what the current safety plan is for the children and what you are expected to do too. You mention that your grandson went to his mum’s one day when he could not access your Wi-Fi. As part of any temporary safety plan the social worker should be making recommendations about how/when the children see their mother. She does have parental responsibility for them and you don’t mention if there is any court order in place about contact but they left her care a few years ago to live with their father. You mention that the children’s mother had been sexually abused by her father so the current concerns may raise a lot of issues for her too. So the social worker should be advising on how to manage this safely.
You are very worried about how you will manage financially. You have explained that the children were placed with you following your granddaughter’s allegations of sexual abuse. When children’s services place children with a relative in this situation this
placement should be treated as a
section 20 voluntary arrangement . You should also have been treated as a
temporary kinship foster carer. This means that the children should be classed as
looked after children (with a range of support put in place for them) and most importantly, that you should be paid a
fostering allowance from the date the children were placed with you. I attached a link to our advice sheet on being assessed as a kinship foster carer and our kinship care pages in my last response. However, please also see this link to
template letter ( 4) which you can use to formalise this arrangement as from what you say, you have not been paid a fostering allowance and the children are not getting much support including with their education needs. Please see a link
here to national minimum fostering allowances. You should not have to worry about how you are going to survive financially if children’s services place children in your care. You may also want to access a copy of the local authority’s kinship care policy to find out more about what support and services can be provided to kinship carers. This
link should take you to the council’s policy; if not, you can ask the social worker for a copy of the policy.
If your grandchildren are treated as looked after children then there should be a range of plans put in place for them including in relation to their health and education needs which I can see that you are very worried about. Please see these advice materials
here for more details.
Robin has also provided you with some very practical and useful advice about how to make notes about all the issues that are arising and also about the children’s needs which you can then refer to when working with children’s services or if the case does go to court e.g. criminal or family court. You should not have to deal with all of the difficulties you have outlined on your own; the children now have an allocated social worker – they are the key worker for the children and should be liaising with all involved – family and professionals alike – to help the children’s situation. It might be a good idea to confirm by email with the social worker when they are next visiting you and the children so that you can go through all the issues; in the email you can set out all the queries and concerns you have including about school. You can highlight that this is quite urgent as the children are struggling a lot. Please see this
guide to working with a social worker which may be useful too.
Please see our two advice sheets on
welfare benefits for kinship carers and
education advice for kinship carers.
The following may also be of interest to you:
Education advice
Parenting and families
Young Minds
Stop it Now.
If you would like to speak to an adviser about your situation then please call our freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 a.m. to 3.00 pm (except bank holidays) or post again on this discussion board with a further query.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes
Suzie