Hello.
My 11 year old son has diagnosed severe ptsd from abuse from his father. Me and my 2 children fled to a refuge in 2021 and since then my sons behaviours are extremely difficult and dangerous. The behaviours are extreme (weapon yielding, I'm bruised all over all the time) He has one weekly session of emdr therapy provided through social care. His specialist school have said they can't meet his needs and he is their most high need child. He is being failed by social care and so is my daughter as we have to live constantly being hurt and attacked and in survival mode daily. I have begged for residential schooling for him and social care say they don't see a need, even though it has been recommended by his current school and previous school. He needs wrap around therapeutic care. I have done all I can do, I can not keep any of us safe and I am emotionally, mentally and physically at my limit. I love him more than anything but he is being refused the support he needs. I have told social care I can longer have him at home and their response is that they will have to ask paternal grandparents. Now, my child's dad has a no contact order and no indirect contact is allowed either. My child has also opened up about abuse from his grandparents and I know of this abuse and have also witnessed the grandparents abuse their 2 disabled children. The grandparents live side by side to the dad who is not allowed any contact whatsoever.
Are social services allowed to give my child back to his abusers before offering any kind of other solution? Before residential school or specialist care? Thanks.
Struggling with child
-
Winter25
- Posts: 309
- Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:05 pm
Re: Struggling with child
Hi Ryedalemummy,
I am so incredibly sorry you are living in this nightmare. Please know you are not failing your son. The system is failing him, and it is failing you and your daughter. You fled abuse, you have kept your family going, and you are surviving daily violence. Asking for residential therapeutic care because you can no longer safely absorb extreme, weapon-yielding behaviour is not giving up on your child.
To answer your question no, social services cannot simply treat paternal grandparents as the default answer without properly addressing the abuse disclosures, the safety concerns, and the no-contact context. Here is exactly what is happening, why they are suggesting it, and how you fight back.
The kinship care default
By law, if a child cannot remain at home, local authorities often look at family members first. They lean heavily on this, and yes, cost can be part of that. But that does not override safeguarding. They cannot lawfully treat these facts as irrelevant:
your son has made disclosures of abuse against the grandparents
you have your own safeguarding concerns about them
they live immediately next door to a father who has an active no-contact order regarding this child
That is not a minor issue at all . That goes straight to whether they are safe at all.
right now I would suggest the following
You need to move this from “mum asking for help” to “the local authority being forced to account for what they are doing.” You need to push this on two fronts: social care and education.
1: force the safeguarding issue onto the record
Send this to the social worker and copy the team manager. If you have details for safeguarding lead / service manager / IRO, copy them too.
--------------------------
Subject: Urgent safeguarding concerns and objection to paternal grandparent placement
Dear [Social Worker] and [Team Manager],
I am writing to formally record that I can no longer keep my son, myself, and my daughter safe in the family home without urgent further intervention.
My 11-year-old son’s trauma-induced behaviours have escalated to an extreme and dangerous level, including weapon use and physical assaults in the home. We are living in constant fear and survival mode.
Both his current specialist school and his previous school have stated that his needs are beyond what they can meet, and residential therapeutic provision has been recommended.
When I requested that the Local Authority step in to provide this level of care, I was informed that paternal grandparents would be considered instead.
I need to make my position absolutely clear: I object to any proposal that he be placed with paternal grandparents.
My son has made disclosures of abuse against them.
I have safeguarding concerns regarding their treatment of other children.
They live immediately next door to his father, who has a strict no-contact order in place.
In these circumstances, I do not consider paternal grandparents to be a safe or appropriate option.
Please provide an urgent written response confirming:
A) What immediate safety plan is being put in place for my family.
B) What therapeutic, residential, or specialist placement options are now being formally considered.
C) Whether the Local Authority is formally considering paternal grandparents despite the abuse disclosures and no-contact context, and if so, on what safeguarding basis.
This situation is no longer safe or sustainable.
Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]
-------------
2: push the education route as well
If he has an EHCP, request an urgent annual review now. The school saying they cannot meet his needs is not a throwaway comment — it is critical evidence. You need that formally recorded. If education formally accepts that his needs exceed the current setting, that can become one of the strongest routes into specialist or residential provision.
You can send something like this to the school/SEN team:
-----------------
Subject: Urgent EHCP review request
Dear [School/SEN Officer],
I am requesting an urgent review of my son’s EHCP.
His needs have escalated significantly, and I understand that the school’s position is that his current setting can no longer safely meet those needs. Given the severity of his PTSD, extreme behaviours, and the impact on both home and school functioning, I am asking for this to be formally reviewed as a matter of urgency.
Please confirm the process and timescale for arranging this review.
Kind regards,
[Your Name]
----------
If there is immediate physical danger in the home tonight or over the weekend, do not sit there waiting for an email reply. Call 999 if anyone is at immediate risk. If it is an urgent safeguarding crisis but not a 999 emergency, call the emergency duty team and say plainly that you have an immediate safeguarding and placement crisis and cannot safely manage the situation at home.
====
For full transparency, I am not an official adviser. I am a parent with lived experience of the family court system, offering strategic guidance. Always consult with a solicitor regarding ongoing court proceedings.
I am so incredibly sorry you are living in this nightmare. Please know you are not failing your son. The system is failing him, and it is failing you and your daughter. You fled abuse, you have kept your family going, and you are surviving daily violence. Asking for residential therapeutic care because you can no longer safely absorb extreme, weapon-yielding behaviour is not giving up on your child.
To answer your question no, social services cannot simply treat paternal grandparents as the default answer without properly addressing the abuse disclosures, the safety concerns, and the no-contact context. Here is exactly what is happening, why they are suggesting it, and how you fight back.
The kinship care default
By law, if a child cannot remain at home, local authorities often look at family members first. They lean heavily on this, and yes, cost can be part of that. But that does not override safeguarding. They cannot lawfully treat these facts as irrelevant:
your son has made disclosures of abuse against the grandparents
you have your own safeguarding concerns about them
they live immediately next door to a father who has an active no-contact order regarding this child
That is not a minor issue at all . That goes straight to whether they are safe at all.
right now I would suggest the following
You need to move this from “mum asking for help” to “the local authority being forced to account for what they are doing.” You need to push this on two fronts: social care and education.
1: force the safeguarding issue onto the record
Send this to the social worker and copy the team manager. If you have details for safeguarding lead / service manager / IRO, copy them too.
--------------------------
Subject: Urgent safeguarding concerns and objection to paternal grandparent placement
Dear [Social Worker] and [Team Manager],
I am writing to formally record that I can no longer keep my son, myself, and my daughter safe in the family home without urgent further intervention.
My 11-year-old son’s trauma-induced behaviours have escalated to an extreme and dangerous level, including weapon use and physical assaults in the home. We are living in constant fear and survival mode.
Both his current specialist school and his previous school have stated that his needs are beyond what they can meet, and residential therapeutic provision has been recommended.
When I requested that the Local Authority step in to provide this level of care, I was informed that paternal grandparents would be considered instead.
I need to make my position absolutely clear: I object to any proposal that he be placed with paternal grandparents.
My son has made disclosures of abuse against them.
I have safeguarding concerns regarding their treatment of other children.
They live immediately next door to his father, who has a strict no-contact order in place.
In these circumstances, I do not consider paternal grandparents to be a safe or appropriate option.
Please provide an urgent written response confirming:
A) What immediate safety plan is being put in place for my family.
B) What therapeutic, residential, or specialist placement options are now being formally considered.
C) Whether the Local Authority is formally considering paternal grandparents despite the abuse disclosures and no-contact context, and if so, on what safeguarding basis.
This situation is no longer safe or sustainable.
Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]
-------------
2: push the education route as well
If he has an EHCP, request an urgent annual review now. The school saying they cannot meet his needs is not a throwaway comment — it is critical evidence. You need that formally recorded. If education formally accepts that his needs exceed the current setting, that can become one of the strongest routes into specialist or residential provision.
You can send something like this to the school/SEN team:
-----------------
Subject: Urgent EHCP review request
Dear [School/SEN Officer],
I am requesting an urgent review of my son’s EHCP.
His needs have escalated significantly, and I understand that the school’s position is that his current setting can no longer safely meet those needs. Given the severity of his PTSD, extreme behaviours, and the impact on both home and school functioning, I am asking for this to be formally reviewed as a matter of urgency.
Please confirm the process and timescale for arranging this review.
Kind regards,
[Your Name]
----------
If there is immediate physical danger in the home tonight or over the weekend, do not sit there waiting for an email reply. Call 999 if anyone is at immediate risk. If it is an urgent safeguarding crisis but not a 999 emergency, call the emergency duty team and say plainly that you have an immediate safeguarding and placement crisis and cannot safely manage the situation at home.
====
For full transparency, I am not an official adviser. I am a parent with lived experience of the family court system, offering strategic guidance. Always consult with a solicitor regarding ongoing court proceedings.
-
Suzie, FRG Adviser
- Posts: 4970
- Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 1:57 pm
Re: Struggling with child
Dear REDmummy
Welcome to the parents’ discussion board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.
I am sorry to hear about the difficulties that you and your children are experiencing. Your situation must be very distressing and understandably very difficult to manage.
You explain that you are a single parent carer for your two children, your son who is 11 and your daughter. You describe how your son has complex PTSD, has experienced abuse from his father, lived in a refuge, he attends a specialist school which can’t meet his needs, he is having weekly EMDR therapy and uses violence and weapons at home towards you and his sister. You are constantly bruised by your son. You have told children’s services that you can no longer manage to care for your son at home due to the lack of help they provide you and your family.
You clearly describe the gap between the support you would like for your son (residential school/wrap around therapeutic care) and the support you and your son are receiving.
As your son is a disabled child, he is automatically a child in need and entitled to extra support and services. You are a parent/carer of a disabled child and therefore also entitled to an assessment of your needs as such. You and your daughter also have a right to be safe. Your son should also receive the help he needs to allow him to thrive.
As you are not getting the right support you can formally request that children’s services urgently review your son’s child in need plan and your parent/carer’s support package. You may already have done so.
You should also ensure that your son’s Education Health and Care Plan is up to date and accurate and seek an urgent review if not. If you have already taken all these steps to no avail, you can consider making a complaint. Please see here for how to do so. You can do this in parallel to continuing to work with children’s services under the current plan for your son.
It is clear from your post that you are at crisis point and you have rightly let children’s services know this and asked them to step in to provide safe alternative care for your son.
You have a right as a parent to ask children’s services to arrange a voluntary section 20 placement for your son if you are prevented from caring for him for any reason.
Please see our detailed advice on children in care under voluntary section 20 arrangements here . Please see this FAQ ‘in what situations can a child become looked after’.
When children’s services are considering placing a looked after child, they must consider the following priority placement list:
They should first see if a child can be safely cared for by their parent(s). Or by someone else with parental responsibility. They should next look at the most appropriate placement looking first at wider family, friends and other people already connected with the child who are already approved by children’s services as foster carers. Only where this is not possible, should children’s services go on to arrange for a child to live with unrelated carers.
So as it seems that children’s services cannot place your son with his father they must consider family members – but they must be safe to care for a child and your consent is needed to a placement – so your son could not be placed with his paternal grandparents if there are safety concerns and you do not consent. Children’s services would then need to explore other family members/connected people or consider placing your son in unrelated foster care or a residential placement.
The most important thing to do is for children’s services to assess your son’s current needs and your request for him to be cared for safely elsewhere and to let you know what they are willing to do. You can refer to the section 20 information above. You will need to let the social worker know how urgent your request is.
Your request for a specialist residential school or therapeutic placement would require further assessment and approval. You may wish to get legal advice from a solicitor who specialises in representing families with children with disabilities and complex needs (they may be a community care specialist) – you would need to check first if there is legal aid available due to your son’s needs. Legal aid is not available in most situations unless children’s services begin care proceedings which is not your situation. Please see this link to legal advice and to the Disability Law Service.
There is support for families who are experiencing violence from their child; please see this directory of services here. If you are in any immediate danger you can call the police on 999.
I know there is a lot of advice here. You have a lot to contend with. I hope my response is helpful, but I would encourage you to call the freephone advice line on 0808 8010366 to speak to an adviser too. The line is open from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm, Mon to Fri (except bank holidays). Please post back if that is better for you.
Best wishes
Suzie
Welcome to the parents’ discussion board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.
I am sorry to hear about the difficulties that you and your children are experiencing. Your situation must be very distressing and understandably very difficult to manage.
You explain that you are a single parent carer for your two children, your son who is 11 and your daughter. You describe how your son has complex PTSD, has experienced abuse from his father, lived in a refuge, he attends a specialist school which can’t meet his needs, he is having weekly EMDR therapy and uses violence and weapons at home towards you and his sister. You are constantly bruised by your son. You have told children’s services that you can no longer manage to care for your son at home due to the lack of help they provide you and your family.
You clearly describe the gap between the support you would like for your son (residential school/wrap around therapeutic care) and the support you and your son are receiving.
As your son is a disabled child, he is automatically a child in need and entitled to extra support and services. You are a parent/carer of a disabled child and therefore also entitled to an assessment of your needs as such. You and your daughter also have a right to be safe. Your son should also receive the help he needs to allow him to thrive.
As you are not getting the right support you can formally request that children’s services urgently review your son’s child in need plan and your parent/carer’s support package. You may already have done so.
You should also ensure that your son’s Education Health and Care Plan is up to date and accurate and seek an urgent review if not. If you have already taken all these steps to no avail, you can consider making a complaint. Please see here for how to do so. You can do this in parallel to continuing to work with children’s services under the current plan for your son.
It is clear from your post that you are at crisis point and you have rightly let children’s services know this and asked them to step in to provide safe alternative care for your son.
You have a right as a parent to ask children’s services to arrange a voluntary section 20 placement for your son if you are prevented from caring for him for any reason.
Please see our detailed advice on children in care under voluntary section 20 arrangements here . Please see this FAQ ‘in what situations can a child become looked after’.
When children’s services are considering placing a looked after child, they must consider the following priority placement list:
They should first see if a child can be safely cared for by their parent(s). Or by someone else with parental responsibility. They should next look at the most appropriate placement looking first at wider family, friends and other people already connected with the child who are already approved by children’s services as foster carers. Only where this is not possible, should children’s services go on to arrange for a child to live with unrelated carers.
So as it seems that children’s services cannot place your son with his father they must consider family members – but they must be safe to care for a child and your consent is needed to a placement – so your son could not be placed with his paternal grandparents if there are safety concerns and you do not consent. Children’s services would then need to explore other family members/connected people or consider placing your son in unrelated foster care or a residential placement.
The most important thing to do is for children’s services to assess your son’s current needs and your request for him to be cared for safely elsewhere and to let you know what they are willing to do. You can refer to the section 20 information above. You will need to let the social worker know how urgent your request is.
Your request for a specialist residential school or therapeutic placement would require further assessment and approval. You may wish to get legal advice from a solicitor who specialises in representing families with children with disabilities and complex needs (they may be a community care specialist) – you would need to check first if there is legal aid available due to your son’s needs. Legal aid is not available in most situations unless children’s services begin care proceedings which is not your situation. Please see this link to legal advice and to the Disability Law Service.
There is support for families who are experiencing violence from their child; please see this directory of services here. If you are in any immediate danger you can call the police on 999.
I know there is a lot of advice here. You have a lot to contend with. I hope my response is helpful, but I would encourage you to call the freephone advice line on 0808 8010366 to speak to an adviser too. The line is open from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm, Mon to Fri (except bank holidays). Please post back if that is better for you.
Best wishes
Suzie
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