Placement Revoked, What next

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Ignatious
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 8:17 pm

Placement Revoked, What next

Post by Ignatious » Wed Jan 22, 2020 7:10 pm

Hi Suzie (and anyone else reading who shares a comment),

Well, I'm back. It's been a while since my last post, and what a hell of a roller coaster these last few years have been. Today marks day 834 since the Interim Care order was granted. Not that I've been counting,.. much, only every day.

The 30 second read version. (Background)
Interim care order granted, (5 children) (Oct 2017) case concluded with a care order, no placement order granted.
Local Authority appealed, back to court, (Appeal in London) where they agreed Judge err'd and sent matter back to court (Sept 2018)
Case finally came to a conclusion in March 2019 with a placement order dispensing with parental consent. (Needless to say I was not amused)
Placement order was a time limited search for 6 months. (Which takes us to September 2019).
The Local Authority fail to bring the matter back, so (as a litigant in person) I applied, court date set, and just recently successfully got the placement order revoked. (YES.... FINALLY, a positive victory, but my fights still not over)

Where were at now....
OK, Placement Order revoked means reinstatement of the original care order.
It's undisputed about the next few outcomes.
A care order lasts until (1) children turn 18, (2) My PR is removed and given to someone else (Adoption or SGO), (3) Successful Discharge
on (1), I'm not going to wait in excess of 10+ years for my children to attain either 18 or an age where their wishes and feelings are/can be taken into account.
on (2) Thankfully, Adoption is off the table. SGO, I know that's my NEXT hurdle as an application is forthcoming.
on (3) So is an application for Discharge

Questions:-
Can a Local Authority apply to the court for an SGO? My 'litigant' knowledge says no, it has to be the person wishing to become the Special Guardian. (Technically the LA is a Parent (corporate), and a parent can not apply)

My children are with a Local Authority placed Foster Family (Since ICO granted). The LA are assessing the Foster Parents for SGO.
I am aware of GM Vs Carmarthenshire, and I think the 'Legal Standard' in regards to a Discharge, not that anyone can provide 'Better parenting', it's can I provide 'good enough'? With that in mind, is it conceivable I can oppose the making of a SGO based on the fact my parenting has not been assessed on whether (or not) I can provide good enough parenting (Either with or without support from the Local Authority).

My aim is to remove option 2 as an outcome for my children. (Adoption (already gone) and SGO). Which leaves (1) and (3), Either children remain in Long Term Foster Care or return to parent(s) under a discharge (to include supervision order).

At no point in the last 2+ years has there been an assessment of my capacity to parent my 3 children. I have lost 3 Christmas's, 8 birthdays, and as of time of this post, 834 days of shared living experiences, to include my youngest learning to walk and talk. This is a separate issue which I am concurrently fighting through Administrative court via Judicial Review. On that note my final question. (trying to figure out what happens next in that one).

Question here is ;- Can a Local Authority get away with not providing an assessment when Statute says they MUST do one. (CA1989 17ZD).

This ones an interesting one for me, If the Judicial Review Court agree with me that they failed to provide a Statutory request, which could have fundamentally changed the situation at home BEFORE proceedings were issued, was the original Judge right to have granted a full care order, in light of the Local Authorities failings (Which have gone uncontested at JR), was it proportionate a response. Only time will tell and I hope to post a positive story on this later that despite my passage of time, I have held to my convictions in pursuit of justice.,... but at what cost?

(Just to finish off that roller coaster ride, since that ICO, my partner (now ex partner) Lost a Stillborn mid term, I for summarily dismissed from my employer in December and me (now) ex, made me homeless 2 weeks ago). And this is meant as a positive note to all out there. Do not give up, I can not nor will not abandon my children to State care. Fight for what's right.

On that note, I end and look forward to peoples replies.
I am a parent. My responses are not from any formal training background but from my own experiences, my own research and my own point of view.

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

Re: Placement Revoked, What next

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Mon Feb 17, 2020 3:45 pm

Dear Ignatious

Thank you for your updating post.

Congratulations on successfully applying to revoke the placement order.

It is very surprising that you could have gone through care proceedings and no parenting assessment carried out. Certainly, your solicitor would have asked about this during the case. Also, the court would normally need to know the outcome of the parenting assessment. If as you say no parenting assessment was carried out this would seem to suggest that the court did not have the information it needed to satisfy the threshold for care orders. Please see below:

The court can make a care or supervision order only if it believes that the 'threshold criteria' have been reached. The 'threshold criteria' means that:

• At the time children’s services first got involved in protecting your child, s/he was suffering or was likely to suffer significant harm; and that

• The harm was due to the care being given to your child before the case started not being ‘what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to him/her’ or because s/he was out of your control.44 Harm in this context includes children witnessing violence or the ‘ill-treatment’ of another person in your home.

If the court finds that the threshold criteria have been proved, it should only make an order if it believes that it will help your child. In most cases, the court will look at whether:

• It thinks that the harm or risk of harm is likely to happen again; and • You have been willing and able to take steps to change in time


You may wish to read our advice sheet Care (and related) proceedings from which the above is taken at page 33.

Regarding your specific question about whether the local authority is able to apply for a special guardianship order (SGO), the answer is no as this is a private law application. The local authority carries out the SGO assessment and the person seeking the order makes the application. The court can in care proceedings make a SGO of its own volition but usually a formal application is made for the order.

Just to clarify for you the only situation in which you would lose your parental responsibility is if a child is adopted or the court makes an order to do so.

Should you wish to speak to an adviser, please telephone our advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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