Child sexual abuse - parent help on CS & police statement

Post Reply
Fairyfly89
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:36 pm

Child sexual abuse - parent help on CS & police statement

Post by Fairyfly89 » Wed May 05, 2021 3:36 pm

*
Last edited by Fairyfly89 on Thu Sep 01, 2022 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 4207
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: Child sexual abuse - parent help on CS & police statement

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Wed May 12, 2021 3:01 pm

Dear Fairyfly89

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am FRG’s online adviser. I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties that you and your family are experiencing which are clearly very distressing and impacting on you all.

You are currently working with children’s services as there is a child in need in place for your three children as a result of your daughter’s allegations of sexual abuse against her step-father. There is also an ongoing police investigation against him and as part of this you are due to attend the police station soon in order to give a statement.

You have explained very clearly how difficult this process has been for you and that you feel children’s services’ handling of the situation has added to this this. You are also unhappy with the police response and have been working with an independent victims adviser to get some support. In addition to this, you are now a lone carer for your disabled child and receive very little support to help you care for him.

You have asked specific questions about the criminal investigation in relation to you attending the police station to provide a statement to police. Unfortunately, we do not advise about police matters. However, it would be reasonable for you to; get advice from a solicitor about what to expect, if that would be helpful to you; put your proposals for how to make this more manageable for you to the police - i.e. could it be ‘virtual’, or by phone as originally suggested, can the timing be arranged to fit in with your caring responsibilities for your disabled child etc or can the venue be somewhere nearer? If you are still working with the independent victim adviser they might be able to try to help with the arrangements, although I know that you feel let down by them. You may also be able to talk through what is involved with one of the specialist services listed below who can advise on the criminal justice issues.

I will try to provide some information or suggestions in response to the other points you have made and the difficulties you are experiencing.

• First of all, you acted responsibly and protectively by reporting your daughter’s allegations of sexual abuse by her step-father to the police as soon as you were aware of them. As you are aware, concerns about child sexual abuse are very serious; here is a summary of FAQS for families about this issue. It is important that the child is helped to understand that sexual abuse is never their fault. We also have some links to useful services that you may find helpful ; these include the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and the NSPCC Women as Protectors course which might be of interest to you.

• I would also recommend that you look at the services provided by MOSAC as they support non-abusing parents and carers and provide a range of services including help understanding the legal justice system.

• As you have a child with significant disabilities they are automatically a child in need so if you do need more support to care for them (or to support you as a carer) you can ask for this as part of the current chid in need plan. See our tailored advice section on disabled children and child in need assessments for more details.

Contact (a charity working with families with disabled children) offers a one to one ‘listening ear’ service by phone - if you think this would help you can book an appointment online.

• You have already addressed your concerns by making a formal complaint setting out your concerns about the social worker, factual errors and misinterpretations in their report and disagreement with some of their analysis and children’s services’ refusal to allow you to have an independent person sit in with you. They should respond to you promptly under stage 1 of their complaints process to try to resolve the matter – you can find out more about the process here. I hope that you will be able to move forward as a result if this. If you continue to find it difficult to work with a social worker these tips may help.

• Your daughter has also written in as she is unhappy with what has been written too. If you or she would like her to have an advocate to help her complain or make representations you can find out more here .

• Although you have made a formal complaint it is important to keep working with children’s services due to the level of needs in the family at the moment and to make sure that the right plan of support to help you keep the children safe and well is put in place. It is very positive to hear that the children’s schools are happy with how they are doing and with the care you are providing and this should be reflected in the assessment and plans too.

• You mention the high number of professionals (double digits) involved with your family at the moment due to the police investigation, child in need process and your son’s needs due to his disabilities. I can imagine how overwhelming this is. Perhaps you could raise this as an issue at the next child in need meeting – how this can be coordinated better to reduce some of the pressure on you?

• You mentioned ringing a line but not continuing as the organisation takes details. If you ring our freephone advice helpline (0808 8010366) we do encourage callers to leave their name and postcode if they are happy to provide them but we do not insist so callers can remain anonymous if they choose. We have data protection, confidentiality, and protection of children policies which you can read here .

I hope this helps and that your family’s situation moves forward soon.

Take care.

Best wishes

Suzie

Post Reply

Who is online

In total there are 2 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 2 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 318 on Fri May 28, 2021 9:04 pm