Dear Mysticray
Welcome to the Parents’ Forum and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties that your family has experienced. Congratulations on your pregnancy though.
Your mum has recently got a
Child Arrangements Order (CAO) for your son. There is also a
Supervision Order in place for a year. Children’s services have remained involved and there is likely to be a child in need plan in place in parallel to the Supervision Order.
I hope you had a solicitor to represent you in the court proceedings which resulted in these two orders being made. It would be a good idea to discuss your queries and your current situation with them as they will be familiar with your circumstances.
You are right that a CAO usually lasts until a child is 18 unless it is ended by the court before then. So in order to have your son officially returned to your care again the court would need to agree to this. As a parent you would have a right to apply to revoke the order. You can find out more about this from
Child Law Advice as they offer private law advice on
this issue.
As the order has only recently been made an application to end the order may be very unlikely to succeed at the present. You would need to be able to show what was different now and why it would be in your son’s best interests to return home. If your mum, your son’s father, and children’s services agreed then any application to end the order would be more straightforward.
For now, it is a good idea to try to have the best contact you can with your son, keep to the arrangements and work with any aspects of the child in need or SO support plan for your son.
If you are having any difficulties spending time with your son or you have any concerns about the current arrangements you should raise this and seek support in resolving while children’s services are still involved and monitoring the situation.
Are children’s services doing a
pre-birth assessment in relation to your unborn baby? They would normally do this when a parent has been unable to care for a previous child. You can find out more about what to expect
here. You can ask the social worker to provide you with a copy of their local protocol for assessment.
It is important to engage early and well with any assessment so that you have time to demonstrate that you will be able to care for the baby and to get put in place any support or services that might help you You say that you are ‘stable’ now which is good to hear; do you have the right support in place to help you maintain your stability?
If you have family and friends who can support you during your pregnancy of after the baby’s birth then do involve them early. It may be a good idea to focus firstly on keeping your baby safe in your care before arguing for your son to be returned.
If you have any further queries please do post back, or, if you would prefer to speak to an adviser you can call the freephone advice line 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri between 9.30 am and 3.00 pm.
Best wishes
Suzie