Was I stripped of my parental rights?

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Sadparent12
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2022 9:15 am

Was I stripped of my parental rights?

Post by Sadparent12 » Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:01 am

Hi
My child was taken away from me at the end of October by her dad, who is on her birth certificate. He reported me for domestic abuse and child neglect. He recorded a video when I slapped my daughter’s feet and she cried. Mt ex and I did not have a good relationship and we argued all the time. He deliberately provoked me then recorded as I was shouting to create a picture of me as a violent person. He planned the whole thing so he can claim benefits. There are loads of other thing going on, police investigation againts me and againts him,rape allegation. Social services are involved but they seem to take his side. Up until the beging of December noone from social services contacted me. The only reason we had an hour and a half interview because I requested so I can drop some presents off for my daughter for Christmas. There the social worker was not professional and when I showed a voice recording where me and my ex were arguing in the present of my daughter she started blaming me saying “ While I was listening, the only thing I thought was Mum just take that child out of that house!” By the way we were about to leave as I could not stand my ex provoking me in front of my girl. Social services refused to let me have supervised contact with my child saying there is a video recording from 1,5 years ago where I slapped my daughter’s feet and she was very upset. They even refused indirect contact but in December they emailed my solicitor saying they agree on undirect contact but nothing happened since then. I still have parental right as the court have not ordered otherwise, but I have not seen my daughter for nearly 3 months.
When I try to contact the social worker via email she does not reply back to me and neither the Local Authority to my solicitor. They ignoring me completely and once the social worker hang up the phone on me she said she was busy. The children services were rated inadequate by Ofsted a few weeks ago saying they don’t protect children from harm.
I am also on bail because my ex reported me for domestic abuse, it is an ongoing investigation.
I feel like they stripped me off my parental right, social services are not involving me in the process not giving me information. I am completely ignored and excluded and feel like they are judging me based on my ex’s words. They believe him without a doubt. I can’t think of anything else as noone reassures me that the process is impartial.
What can I do?? I am desperate and not sure how long I can take this!
Thank you

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 4210
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: Was I stripped of my parental rights?

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:30 pm

Dear Sadparent12

Welcome to the Parents’ Forum and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am FRG’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear of the difficulties your family is experiencing.

At the moment, there are a number of different processes happening. Children’s services are involved although it is unclear from the information provided if there is a child in need or child protection plan in place. You are also involved in a police investigation and are on bail for alleged domestic abuse. There are allegations against your ex-partner, too. I think you also have a family lawyer and there may be private law court proceedings taking place too.

You can find out more about children’s services’ processes here.

As a result of the above concerns, you have not been able to see your daughter for three months which is understandably very distressing for you.

Are there any further restrictions on your contact with your daughter under the bail conditions or imposed by the family court?

Children’s services will normally not recommend any unsupervised contact or even supervised contact when there are serious allegations of child neglect, physical abuse or domestic abuse against a parent, which are being investigated. They do not have parental responsibility (PR) (which you do) but they are the lead agency responsible for child protection so their recommendations need to be taken very seriously.

It seems that they did agree a plan for indirect contact back in December but this has not progressed since. This is not acceptable. You have had difficulties getting any response from children’s services and so has your solicitor. Your solicitor will be aware of how to chase up a response from the Local Authority’s legal department (e.g. copying in the Head of Legal Services if necessary) so it would be a good idea to ask them to do this urgently. They can also advise you about any other legal steps or applications you can make to the court for contact with your daughter.

In the meantime, you could try to contact the social worker’s manager, by email, if possible, to state that you are not being properly included in this process which you would like to be, as a parent with PR. You can set out in the email any queries you have and in particular ask for an urgent response about the arrangements to be made for contact with your daughter. You should also ask for a copy of any assessment completed to date and details of any forthcoming meetings to discuss your daughter’s situation.

If you receive no response or an inadequate response you can then consider making a complaint. You can find out more about how to do so here.

I hope you have some support in place for yourself, too. You can find out about support services in our useful links page.

I hope this is helpful.

If you need further advice please post gain on this forum or call our freephone advice line on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm.

Best wishes

Suzie

Sadparent12
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2022 9:15 am

Re: Was I stripped of my parental rights?

Post by Sadparent12 » Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:38 pm

Hi
Thank you for your reply. It helped me understand a bit more.
My bail conditions has been amended requested by the court. So hopefully the court will order supervised contact.
I am not aware of any of the plans you mentioned.
I had a meeting with the social worker today. She promised me an hour but after a half an hour she stated she has a video meeting so she needs to go and there is no more time for questions. She started the whole meeting defending my ex. There was a video court hearing last week where the judge asked my ex why he has not filed the evidences as it needs to be done and why he has not filed a statement. The social worker started talking about this situation and said “He (ex) should not need to know how to file evidences properly.” Then I told her he was informed about the procedure and she said nothing. At some point she started saying that my daughter disclosed some information about our family life, that I was slapping her. I told her that yes unfortunately that has occasionally happened, as I lost my patience and did not know how to handle her, when she refused to listen to me. But never did hurt her seriously, just a small slap on her feet, maybe on bum. I am chinese and that’s how I was punished and I have never known any other way to deal with things like this. I don’t know better but I am willing to learn to get back my daughter. Social worker should have signposted me for parenting course but nothing has happened since December. The social worker also talked to me like I would have hit my daughter repeatedly and often. She clearly judges me and very unprofessional. I asked her the reason why the supervised contact is not acceptable for the LA but she only said “We will have to provide an offical statement to the court and then you will know when we filed it to the court.” Even on the online hearing she did not reply to the question clearly. I have tried to contact her manager before but it was unsuccesful. They ignore me, judge me and have already decided I committed everything my ex is accusing me. I am concerned whatever my child discloses to school or social worker is influenced my ex. He has always been using the words “bullying”, “abuse” in front of my child and repeatedly and loudly said that I am the abuser the one who is bullying the one who is harming my daughter. Social worker says he cannot influence her but then in the next sentence she says if he says nasty things about me they cannot do anything about it. My solicitor helps me much as she can but with the resistence of the social services there is not much we can do. Would you be able to advise me how to change social worker? I admit I have not handled the pressure of raising my child well and not ended my relationship earlier but I do not deserve this kind of treatment from social services. I have always looked after my child to my best knowledge.

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 4210
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: Was I stripped of my parental rights?

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Mon Feb 14, 2022 1:08 pm

Dear Sadparent12

Thank you for posting again. It appears that you are still concerned that you are not having contact of any kind with your daughter. As I pointed out in my previous response to you, your solicitor should be able to follow up with children’s services why the indirect contact has not happened.

You had a meeting with the social worker which you were told would last an hour but ended after half an hour. I suggest you make your solicitor aware of this since the time spent with you might be relevant to any subsequent report sent to the court by the social worker. Has the court asked that children’s services provide a section 7 report, and is this why you had a meeting with the social worker? I suggest you ask your solicitor if you are unclear about any aspect of children’s services involvement.

It is unclear from your posts whether children’s services have carried out any assessment and the outcome of the assessment. You state that you are not aware of any plans in respect of your daughter with children's services. I suggest that you write to the social worker and team manager to ask what assessment is being done in respect of your family. The social worker should have made this clear to you at the outset.

Whilst I understand what you say about how you were punished as a child; it is important that you show you now know it is not acceptable to punish your daughter in this way. You are right that attending a parenting course may assist you. Although you have not been referred by the social worker, try to identify a service yourself or ask your solicitor to assist you in doing so, that offers parenting courses. There is one called Triple P and a link to their website is . here

Also, contacting these services could give you more insight in managing your daughter’s behaviour and your responses Family Lives 0808 800 2222, Family Action 0808 802 6666.

Your local Chinese community advice service may be able to assist and you should be able to find a service by checking online.

As you have been in a domestically abusive relationship, you may find it helpful to read the information here about working with children’s services. It may also be helpful for you to engage with a domestic violence service like Women’s Aid , 0808 200 0247 Rights of Women020 7251 6577 . You may be able to get additional support from this service, Independent Domestic Violence Advocacy (IDVA) here

In your post, you ask about the social worker being changed. Unfortunately, whilst you do have the right to ask for a change of social worker, children’s services do not have to change the social worker.

A lot of information was provided in the previous post and I suggest you look again at the links and advice provided in the post.

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

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