Family Rights Group | Parents’ Forum

To cut a long story short I have discovered inaccurate information and opinions presented as facts in a report which led to my child (aged 13) being made subject to child protection. The only reason why is that my son's Father poses a risk to children because of his past offences. I have not had any involvement previously and believe their decision is disproportionately affecting my son's life negatively.
They are risk assessing contact between my son and his father and do not believe they can do this appropriately so I have filed and sent a c100 to vary an existing child arrangements order to formalise the contact arrangements so I do not have to supervise them anymore.
What are your thoughts on how this will be perceived? I would think it would demonstrate protective parenting but I cannot be sure because I do not trust them. They have not been transparent and continue not to be.

I’m sorry to read this, they are trying to protect your son who is vulnerable, they aren’t stopping your son seeing his dad they are supervising the contact between them, most social workers look for things we as parent do without even thinking about. Like if your son is upset will he go to his dad for comfort and so forth. I don’t have an experience of this but I do know that often we don’t agree with any social services involvement but when they are satisfied that your sons dad pose no risk to him then the contact agreement as is should end. Everyone wants the best for your son, so although is hard and he doesn’t understand it is the best for him, if you look at this way they haven’t said they can’t have contact so that positive.

Have you got a solicitor who could maybe advise you about this, if not then get one your first hour is usually free. I hope you manage to sort this out. Remember it will get easier I hope it works out for you.

Dear Harry Potter,

Welcome to the parents’ board and thank you for your post.

You say in your post that your 13 year old child is on a child protection plan. You say that the reason for this is because of your son’s father’s previous offences, and the risk he poses to children. You say that the report written prior to the decision to place your son on a child protection plan contacted inaccuracies and that you do not agree this decision was proportionate.

Children’s services are risk assessing contact between your son and his father. You say that they cannot do this appropriately – what do you mean by this? It appears from your post that you are currently supervising contact and have made an application to vary an existing child arrangements order so that you do not have to supervise contact anymore.

You would like to know how this will be perceived and state that you think it demonstrates protective parenting.

Firstly, you do not state what offences your son’s father has committed. Whatever these are, the decision has been made to place your son on a child protection plan, which means that the multiagency and the independent child protection chair agree that your son has suffered significant harm or is at risk of suffering significant harm. It is important that you understand what has caused these concerns and what steps now need to be taken as part of the child protection plan to ensure your son’s safety. You say that you do not agree with parts of the initial report – have you discussed this with the social worker and were you given the opportunity to bring attention to this at the child protection conference? If you do not agree with the outcome of a child protection conference, you should firstly speak to the independent chair about this. If you think the decision was made unfairly, you may want to make a formal complaint, which could lead to another conference being held. There is more information about how to do this here.

You mention that there is an existing child arrangements order and as I understand, that this stipulates supervised contact. When was this order made? Again, children’s services have concerns about the risk your son’s father may pose to him should contact be unsupervised. What are the reasons that you are no longer happy to supervise contact? Your application to vary the order to unsupervised contact may cause children’s services to become concerned that you are not taking their worries seriously. They are also unlikely to recommend to the court that contact be unsupervised if this is their current position.

If you would like to discuss this with one of our advisers, you can contact our advice line between 09:30 – 15:00 Monday to Friday on 0808 801 0366.

I hope you have found this helpful.

Best wishes,

Suzie.

Thank you I have had a few conversations with some solicitors about what I can do and hopefully I will be able to set something in place to have more contact with my son.